Those of us with normal color vision can probably agree but that doesn't change the fact that color is an illusion. The color we know does not exist in the outside world beyond us as gravity or protons do. Instead, color is created inside our heads. our brains convert a certain range of electromagnetic spectrum into color. I can measure the wavelength of radiations, but I can't measure or observe the experience of color inside your mind. So how do I know that when you and I look at strawberry and in my brain this
perception occurs which I call red that in your brain perception like this doesn't occur, which you have of course also learned to call red we both call it red.
We communicate effectively and walk away, never knowing just how different each of our internal experiences were. Of course, we already know not everybody sees color in the same way.
One example would be color blindness but we can diagnose and discuss these differences because people with the conditions fail to see the thing that most of us can.
Conceivably though, there could be ways of seeing that we use that cause colors to look differently in different people's minds without altering their performances on any tests we could come up with. Of course, if that were the case wouldn't some people think other colors look better than others? or that some colors were more complimentary of others? Well yeah, doesn't that already happen, this matters because it shows how fundamentally in terms of our perception we all are alone in our minds. Let's say I met an alien from a faraway solar system who lucky enough, could speak English but had never and could never feel pain. I could explain to the alien that pain is sent through delta and c fibers to the spinal cord. The alien could learn every single cell and pathway and process and chemical involved in the feeling of pain. The alien could pass a biology exam about pain and believe that pain to us generally is a bad thing but no matter how much he learned, the alien would never actually feel pain. Philosophers call these ineffable raw feelings "Qualia" and our ability to connect physical phenomena to these raw feelings, our inability to explain and share our own internal Qualia is known as Explanatory Gap. This gap is confronted when describing color to someone who is been blind their entire life. Tommy Edison has never been able to see, he has a youtube channel where he describes what being blind is like. In one video, he talks about color,how strange and foreign of a concept it seems to him. Sighted people try to explain, for instance, that red is hot and blue is cold but to someone who has never seen a single color, that just seems weird. And, as he explains it has never caused him to finally see a color. Some philosophers like Danial dinette argue that qualia may be private and ineffable simply because of a failure of our language, not because they are necessarily always going to be impossible to share. There may be an alien race that communicates in a language that causes color to appear in your brain without your retina having to be involved or without you having to have ever needed to actually see the color yourself. Perhaps, even in English, he says, given millions and billions of words used in just the right way, it may be possible to adequately describe the color such that a blind person could see it for the first time. Or you could figure out that once for all yes or no, you and your friend won't see the same red but it remains the case that we have no way of knowing if my red is the same as your red. May be one-day our language will allow us to share and find out or maybe it never will. I know it's frustrating to not have an answer but the mere fact that you guys can ask me about my internal experiences and that I can ask my friend and we can all collectively wonder at the concept of qualia is quite incredible, and also quite human.
Animals can do all sorts of clever things that we do. They can use tools, problem-solve, communicate cooperate, exhibit curiosity, plan for the future, and although we can't know for sure many animals certainly act as if they feel emotions-loneliness, fear, joy. Apes have even been taught to use language to talk to us, humans. It's sort of sign language that they have used to do everything from answer questions, express emotion or even produce novel thoughts. Unlike other animals, these apes able to understand language and form response at about the level of a 2.5-year-old human child. But there is something that no signing-ape has ever done. No ape has ever asked a question.
Joseph Jordians “who asked the first question” is a great read on this topic and it's available for free online. For as long as we have been able to use sign language to communicate to apes, they have never wondered out loud about anything that we might know that they don’t. Of course, this doesn’t mean apes and plenty of otheranimals are not curious, they are. But what it suggests is that they lack a “theory of mind”. An understanding that other people have separate minds. That they have the knowledge, access to info that you might not have.
Even we humans aren’t born with a “theory of mind” and there is a famous experiment to test when a human child develops a theory to mind. It is called the Sally Anne test.
During the test, researchers tell children stories about Salle and Anne. Salle and Anne have a box and a basket in their room, they also happen to have a delicious cookie. Now Sally takes a cookie inside the box and then Sally leaves the room. While is Sally is gone Anne comes over to the box and takes the cookie out and puts the cookie inside a basket. Now when Sally comes back, the researchers ask the children where will Sally look for the cookie? Obviously, Sally will look in the box that where she left it.
She has no way of knowing what Anne did while she was gone. But until the age of about 4 children will insist that Sally will check the basket. Because, after all, that’s where the cookie is. The child saw Anne move the cookie so why wouldn't Sally also know young children fail to realize that Sally's mental representation of the situation, her access to info can be different from their own.
Are we all alone with our perceptions?
We are all alone with our perceptions. We are alone in our minds. We can both agree that chocolate tastes good. But I cannot climb into your consciousness and experience what chocolate tastes like to you. I can never know if my red looks the same as your red. But I can ask.
So, stay human, stay curious and let the entire world know that you are and as always.
