What do you see?
Colorblindness is one very interesting subject to think about as this article indicates. The article itself is just so so, but from its popularity we can see how fascinating the subject is.
Are the colorblind people living in a different (black and white) world than we (non-colorblind people) are? Do we all just living in a subjective world?
From the comments, we can see that most colorblind people are just living in the same world as we are. They see red and green as we see them, but they just wasn't able to tell much difference from them (I guess that depends on the types of colorblindness). But for one thing, they certainly are not living in a colorless world. Just as we cannot hear certain hi-frequency sound as certain animal or young kid can, doesn't mean we live in a quiet world. I am guessing that, for a colorful picture, as long as the picture doesn't have two colors that the majority colorblind person can't tell placed in contrast on the picture, the color blind person sees exactly the same picture as we see. Whether they can enjoy it as much as we do, on the other hand, is a seprate issue (taste).
It is very similar to the question that is there any of our scientific theory describes the real world. To test a scientific theory, we run tests which are officially called experiments. As long as our tests have enough sensitivity to detect the difference the world has, we sees the world as it is. Since we can detect different atoms, can detect neutrons from protons and from electrons, we see the micro world as it is. Whether the neutrons should be called "neutrons" are a matter of convention, just as whether we should call this color "blue". As long as we can tell blue from other color, we see the same blue.
Then there is theories that we can't test yet, or may never be able to test. Religion for the most part being one, and for many part, string theory. They may well be "real", but as long as we can't tell the difference, it doesn't really matter to our life. So string theory says there is other dimensions and parallel universes right beside us, so what. If these dimension can never cross and let us run tests to "see", those dimension has no meaning to us, never and forever. It is USELESS. And as far as I can tell, an atheist person lives exactly the same way as an catholic lives, no more, no less. They tend to live in a different social group, but people choose to live in certain social group all the time, not necessarily for the religion aspect.
Color blindness is very common and it is for most part genetically caused. I can't help deducing that omiting certain colors won't affect our life much. At least, the long running evolution filter doesn't have that sensitivity to tell. As I believe out joy is ultimately determined by this evolution filter, I belive from most color blind person (that contributes to 6% of our population from one source I randomly read), they enjoy the world the same way as the rest of us do.
Back to a practical example, say you are color blind and your wife is not. When making the decision to paint the house, you should have as strong an argument on the color choice as your wife. It is a taste problem, nothing to do with colorblindness. But if you can't tell purple from blue, you won't argue about it anyway.
And when designing a webpage, the rule says don't use green and red together to make contrast as color blind person may not be able to tell. Follow the rule. If large percent of your fellows can't tell a difference, it probly means that the composition probably is not a good choice even for people with normal vision.
Of course, all my logic is false if the statistics of colorblindness and its genetic roles are incorrect.
Are the colorblind people living in a different (black and white) world than we (non-colorblind people) are? Do we all just living in a subjective world?
From the comments, we can see that most colorblind people are just living in the same world as we are. They see red and green as we see them, but they just wasn't able to tell much difference from them (I guess that depends on the types of colorblindness). But for one thing, they certainly are not living in a colorless world. Just as we cannot hear certain hi-frequency sound as certain animal or young kid can, doesn't mean we live in a quiet world. I am guessing that, for a colorful picture, as long as the picture doesn't have two colors that the majority colorblind person can't tell placed in contrast on the picture, the color blind person sees exactly the same picture as we see. Whether they can enjoy it as much as we do, on the other hand, is a seprate issue (taste).
It is very similar to the question that is there any of our scientific theory describes the real world. To test a scientific theory, we run tests which are officially called experiments. As long as our tests have enough sensitivity to detect the difference the world has, we sees the world as it is. Since we can detect different atoms, can detect neutrons from protons and from electrons, we see the micro world as it is. Whether the neutrons should be called "neutrons" are a matter of convention, just as whether we should call this color "blue". As long as we can tell blue from other color, we see the same blue.
Then there is theories that we can't test yet, or may never be able to test. Religion for the most part being one, and for many part, string theory. They may well be "real", but as long as we can't tell the difference, it doesn't really matter to our life. So string theory says there is other dimensions and parallel universes right beside us, so what. If these dimension can never cross and let us run tests to "see", those dimension has no meaning to us, never and forever. It is USELESS. And as far as I can tell, an atheist person lives exactly the same way as an catholic lives, no more, no less. They tend to live in a different social group, but people choose to live in certain social group all the time, not necessarily for the religion aspect.
Color blindness is very common and it is for most part genetically caused. I can't help deducing that omiting certain colors won't affect our life much. At least, the long running evolution filter doesn't have that sensitivity to tell. As I believe out joy is ultimately determined by this evolution filter, I belive from most color blind person (that contributes to 6% of our population from one source I randomly read), they enjoy the world the same way as the rest of us do.
Back to a practical example, say you are color blind and your wife is not. When making the decision to paint the house, you should have as strong an argument on the color choice as your wife. It is a taste problem, nothing to do with colorblindness. But if you can't tell purple from blue, you won't argue about it anyway.
And when designing a webpage, the rule says don't use green and red together to make contrast as color blind person may not be able to tell. Follow the rule. If large percent of your fellows can't tell a difference, it probly means that the composition probably is not a good choice even for people with normal vision.
Of course, all my logic is false if the statistics of colorblindness and its genetic roles are incorrect.
posted by Hui Zhou at 7:07 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home