Root's Fairly Interesting Topics: Colo(u)r-blind

[Riobux]

It's like what the colour-blind can see, except the world actually looks remotely interesting.

 

[r0qu3]

I honestly thought a lot of this "philosophical problem", but at the same time i don't think its really solvable .

But the nearest solution is to go over different shapes and different taste. But if you think long enough about it, this won't really explain what a color is. You can just give a concept.

So me and a friend found just one possible solution...

...CYBERWARE! change those bad parts

 

[Hurr Durr Derp]

Learn to read. Please.

He said 'how do you explain colour to a Blind person from birth.' and not 'how do you explain colour to the colour blind'

Haha, I suck. The thread title must've thrown me off.

Guess that'll teach me to properly read a topic before replying to it.

 

[jamesworkshop]

I'm colour blind and it's a pain in the arse. I've had it since I was about 8-9 as far as I recall and I don't think I could explain it at all besides colours often "confuse" me so I can't tell what they are. I did a test recently where you spot the numbers in the dots and got 1 out of 11 correct when my friend was like "it's 22 dude...37...5...seriously that was easy?"

The picture in the OP, I knew something was 'there' but I could't see it was the deer until I tilted the laptop so the LCD went off colour and it became visible.

Thanks for the tip I couldn't see it either

 

[Incredible Bullshitting Man]

But how would you explain what eyes are? Face it, a blind person's (since birth only) world is entirely blackness, and if they've never known colour, they don't know what they are missing out on, there is no way to teach them this concept of sight as there is no such thin as sight in their mind, never has been.

I doubt the concept of sight is unexplainable, since it´s exactly just that, a concept. People can learn, if they are taught. It´s the immediate, first-hand experience the blind miss. They can´t be told that. I mean, I haven´t experienced any kind of spiritual enlightenment (as far as I´m concerned, such a thing doesn´t even exist), but if an enlightened person were to describe it with vague metaphors and adjectives, even I could begin to understand it (never fully, though). The difference between enlightenment and sight, however, is that sight has science to back it up, thus possibly making the concept easier to accept.

Anyway, I´m just splitting hairs, but what really interest me, is this: Is black/darkness all a blind man really sees? Seeing eyes react to light and dark, and when you close your eyes, your eyelids shut out the light making everything black, but blind eyes don´t react to light at all (as far as I know). Does that mean they don´t see even the dark, or is darkness always there, sight or not?

 

[Battenbergcake]

Is my red your green?

 

[FactualSquirrel]

That's a little easier. Hold your hands so the thumb is pointed out and the fingers straight up. The one that forms an "L" is your left hand.

Dammit, I forgot to mention it was a test about extra terrestrial beings, where we have no idea about body shape and stuff.

It was something the government said or something.

 

[Incredible Bullshitting Man]

*snip*

I understand that you can´t teach a blind man to see; He can only understand the concept of sight on a purely intellectual level, meaning even a blind man can be told how the eye works. However, understanding the physiology of an eye doesn´t really make one see, which brings me to your point:

A blind person could be told a thousand times that it's like texture to the eyes, but what does that mean to someone who has zero concept of vision...

It means nothing at all. Blind cannot see. Trying to explain the sight is merely a pleasant little pastime activity for those who can already see.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

The thought came to me that a sighted person might gasp in amazement at something, and the blind person might ask them to describe it in terms they understood.

Could a blind person understand the idea of a sunset as "having a heart of embarassment, surrounded by the taste of of oranges as the warmth boils away into the feeling of being lost."?

That's all described as concepts they could understand, giving them a "picture" they could imagine and 'ooh' over.

Problem being, of course, whether giving them that snatch of "sight" would be cruel or not?

Equally, you could describe the smell of bacon to a smell-less person as "hungry+roasted awesome" to explain your reaction to it, rather than saying "It doesn't matter", which let's them feel left out.

For people who have lost that sense, but still understand it, could it be a way of bringing back memories of that sense?

Just a pity none of us know someone who could confirm whether it would be comforting or crushing?
In a jump back to the synaesthetics, do non-synaesthetics miss the idea that 7 is also a colour and texture to some?

 

[Fightgarr]

A blind person could be told a thousand times that it's like texture to the eyes, but what does that mean to someone who has zero concept of vision and will have zero concept of vision until a cure is found.

Hey there, I know I'm about half a month too late to the game, but I wanted to shove my two cents into this conversation a minute. You are pretty much 100% right, and even when they got it back they wouldn't understand.

Take these two examples: My neighbor two doors down was totally deaf from birth. When he was very young he was the youngest person to get a coclear(sp?) implant that would allow him to hear. The first thing he heard was paper crumpling: He heard it, didn't know what was going on, hid under a table and pissed himself. Now he's 17 or 18 and he's totally used to it. He can't hear as well most people, but the implant at least allows him to hear somewhat normally. It was that while, though, where he didn't understand what was going on and it scared the shit out of him.

There was actually a case that perfectly pertains to this conversation. There was a man cured of blindness from birth. I forget when and I forget how. The detail that I remembered from the story is that he had no understanding of how to orient himself within sight. He had no concept of depth by perspective. As a result he had trouble getting around and would often just close his eyes and use his cane again because that's what he was used to. I can assume he eventually got used to seeing, eventually learned how to discern depth.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Hey there, I know I'm about half a month too late to the game, but I wanted to shove my two cents into this conversation a minute. You are pretty much 100% right, and even when they got it back they wouldn't understand.

I do remember a study done on kittens, Modification of the kitten's visual cortex by exposure to spatially periodic patterns , where they were brought up in an area with no horizontal (or was it vertical) lines. When they were released, the cats would stumble about like new-born kittens because they simply couldn't understand the new visuals.

AFAICR, it also applies to IQ tests, because African villagers - having grown up in the jungle - were deemed to have lower IQs because they never came across horizontal and vertical lines naturally, so their spacial perception would fail when looking at buildings or cubes; but they were far better than us at discerning camoflaged objects.

Interesting stuff indeed, especially if you consider Fightgarr's two examples, how those people could have been helped with accustomisation to their new climates. Could you teach a deaf person what something sounds like?