Colour blindness and human agency.

[zanzibar]

If you don\'t understand why I\'m making a thread about this, it\'s because you missed the original discussion.  I want to give Draklar and a few others the chance to respond.  I\'m making this thread to allow them to do that, as people are now forbidden to make any further posts on the topic in the original thread.




The discussion was on whether or not \'good\' and \'evil\' are \"really real\", or if they\'re simply social constructions.  A social construction exists only as an idea and does not have an objective existence.  That idea might be true or false in reference to reality, but it exists regardless.

Draklar brought up the idea of coloured pencils as an example.  He claimed, in essence, that if a colour blind person believes that a red pencil is really green, then it is still a red pencil.  The colour blind person is \"wrong\".

This is bad thinking on Draklar\'s part.  Light does not have colour, it has frequency.  Colour is something that exists purely in the mind of an observer.  So a \"red\" pencil is not red, it only has a tendency to refract a certain frequency of light.

If everyone in the world saw red as green, then the pencil would be green, and \"normal\" people would be labelled as colour blind.  That\'s why Draklar\'s example cannot work.  Colour is subjective and \"audience dependant\".

The same is true for many other things in life, including the ideas people have of good and evil in a role-playing game context.  In a world such as lord of the rings, there is an objective good and evil due to the nature of that universe.  However, in a purely material and positivist world, or in a world with a God or metaphysical force which is not prescriptive of morality, then good and evil do not have an objective existence, but only a social existence which is subjective, malleable, and not \"really real\".

If the planeshift universe is like this one, then good and evil do not exist apart from the ideas and prejudices of the players involved, just like with coloured pencils.

[Draklar]

If you think I\'m going to carry on this discussion then you\'re downright wrong. It was a random example, random example for Odin\'s sake. Its worth was purely theorytical. I don\'t care about all the technical stuff behind it as it\'s irrelevant.
Have fun discussing this topic with people who are crazy enough to get into it with you.

[Stephen McNaire]

I\'m putting this up once becasue I see this erroneous thought alot:

\"Is a rose by any other name as sweet?\"
The answer is of course yes. Changing the name does not change the properties regarding to the fact. Calling \'red\' \'green\' still makes it \'red\' just with a different name. The underlying fact is not changed, just our label on it.
How else do you think different languages exist? I call it a chicken, Spanish call it a pollo, but it\'s a \'chicken\' regardless of what we call it.

[zanzibar]

Originally posted by Draklar
If you think I\'m going to carry on this discussion then you\'re downright wrong. It was a random example, random example for Odin\'s sake. Its worth was purely theorytical. I don\'t care about all the technical stuff behind it as it\'s irrelevant.
Have fun discussing this topic with people who are crazy enough to get into it with you.

What you call \"technical stuff\" is what I call an interesting aspect of social theory.

I actually don\'t expect you to carry on the discussion at all because I thought that my posts were very convincing, but I made this thread as a courtesy to you incase I was mistaken and you still had interesting things to say.

Originally posted by Stephen McNaire
I\'m putting this up once becasue I see this erroneous thought alot:

\"Is a rose by any other name as sweet?\"
The answer is of course yes. Changing the name does not change the properties regarding to the fact. Calling \'red\' \'green\' still makes it \'red\' just with a different name. The underlying fact is not changed, just our label on it.
How else do you think different languages exist? I call it a chicken, Spanish call it a pollo, but it\'s a \'chicken\' regardless of what we call it.

By red and green, I don\'t mean just the words.  I mean the actual colours that we associate with those words.  So when something which is red looks green to someone, that person isn\'t merely describing the same thing with a different word.  They actually see it differently.


As far as the rose bit, I\'m going to disagree with you.  If you have two flowers side by side, and give on a pretty name, and give the other a disgusting name, chances are that at least some people will be affected by the difference in name.  They\'ll have expectations and prejudices, and those ideas may change the way they percieve and define the smell of the rose.

[Efflixi Aduro]

Zanzibar if everyone in the world called blue green it would still LOOK the same, the end,

[Draklar]

Zanz: Yes, very convincing. Sadly off topic so I didn\'t even read them.

If I\'m not mistaken, you\'re missing Stephen\'s point, by the way.

And I\'m off o/

...

Edit: By not reading them I meant points of the last post, to which I didn\'t reply..

[zanzibar]

Originally posted by Efflixi Aduro
Zanzibar if everyone in the world called blue green it would still LOOK the same, the end,

If it were that simple, then yes.  Did you read my post all the way through, or this only a knee jerk reaction?

Originally posted by Draklar
Zanz: Yes, very convincing. Sadly off topic so I didn\'t even read them.

If I\'m not mistaken, you\'re missing Stephen\'s point, by the way.

And I\'m off o/

You quoted and replied to my posts, so I can only assume that you also read them.  ~laughs out loud~

[Kiirani]

If I may, I don\'t believe that the person who saw the red colour pencil would in fact, call it green. They would see it as what we see as being green, but they would recognise it as red because red is what they were taught since they were very young. It is highly possible that we all see completely different colours when we look at things. We just don\'t know this, because we all recognise them by the same name.

So, the red pencil is definitely red, whether we percieve it as being red or another colour, the colour we see it as is still called red.

[zanzibar]

Originally posted by Kiirani
If I may, I don\'t believe that the person who saw the red colour pencil would in fact, call it green. They would see it as what we see as being green, but they would recognise it as red because red is what they were taught since they were very young. It is highly possible that we all see completely different colours when we look at things. We just don\'t know this, because we all recognise them by the same name.

So, the red pencil is definitely red, whether we percieve it as being red or another colour, the colour we see it as is still called red.

Yes.  If the name for the colour changes, then nothing has changed.  But the point is that the colour isn\'t ~in~ the pencil, and different people might see different colours - just exactly like you said!  Even though those people dissagree on something that ~seems~ absolute, no one is wrong.

[Shadowfalcon]

Efflixi, you are obviously not color blind, and therefore cannot know what it\'s like. I am colorblind in the red/green wavelength, and both \"colors\" look very much the same to me. I do not wish to get into the good vs evil argument, but I do understand the point that zanzibar is trying to make. Not everyone sees the world in the same light.

EDIT: Spelling errors...

[zanzibar]

Originally posted by Shadowfalcon
Efflixi, you are obviously not color blind, and therefore cannot know what it\'s like. I am colorblind in the red/green wavelength, and both \"colors\" look very much the same to me. I do not wish to get into the good vs evil argument, but I do understand the point that zanzibar is trying to make. Not everyone sees the world in the same light.

EDIT: Spelling errors...

Right.  In the previous discussion, we kind of made up a colour blind person that saw red as green, and we didn\'t talk about what he saw green as.  In real life, red-green colour blindess is something different.

[Draklar]

Zanzibar, if all colours don\'t exist by themselves, then everything is black. Which is a total nonsense. Even if our perception can be fooled, if there was some sort of a perfect being, it could perceive colours in the way they really are. And that means:
1) Everything is black (yeah, right) and it perceives it as so, then we are fooled by thinking there are colours.
2) Colours do exist, not only in our mind. But while the being perceives correctly apple to be orange (having certain frequency), we perceive it as red.

But again, it was theorytical. In a sense that people do perceive colours correctly, unless that perceiving is disturbed by biological properties. All else you brought up was utterly irrelevant, I assumed people would follow the ceteris paribus method instead of adding all sorts of unimportant facts, which could do nothing else than turn the model into a heap of chaos. But I was proven wrong.

And by the way, saying someone is wrong in starting post is enforcing your opinion upon the readers. You aren\'t all knowing.

[zanzibar]

Originally posted by Draklar
Zanzibar, if all colours don\'t exist by themselves, then everything is black.

Black.... METAL!   \\m/  ( )  \\m/


But yes, you\'re right.  Everything ~is~ black.  Colour does not exist except as an idea, except as an invention of the mind.  What is light?  What does it have?  It has frequency.  Energy.  Direction and quanta.  But it does not have colour.  It is, as you say, \"black\".

But this is even further proof of the subjective nature of the world around us!  We are so comfortable with our beliefs that we project our conceptions of the world back onto it as if it is the gospel truth.

Taking you for instance, you are comfortable with your understaning of colour.  You are so comfortable and confident in your belief and idea of colour, that you\'re saying \"well colour isn\'t something I invented, it\'s really real!  it exists in the pencil!\"  And further, you\'re saying \"anyone who sees a different colour is \'wrong\'.  Not just different, but \'really wrong\'.  Further, there is something wrong with them - a biological obstacle - which explains why they are wrong.\"

Sometimes it is all too difficult to step back and wonder about just how much we really know about the world around us.  The perception of colour really is a perfect example of this, and it is extremely relevant to a discussion on the percieved nature of good and evil.

[Draklar]

No, it isn\'t relevant. I could just say \"If colour blind person sees red pencil as green, it doesn\'t mean the pencil can be considered green, ceteris paribus\" And in this point all that you said doesn\'t matter, period.
There\'s not even anything to argue about. That\'s a fact.

And if everything is black, how do you explain sun tan?

But using your argument against yourself:

\"If human sees something as red, it doesn\'t mean that object has a colour.\"
There, you proved yourself that this relativism is an illusion.
Likewise, good and evil are universal concepts, and to what point people understand (aka social construction) those concepts is the only relative thing about them.
Good job.

[zanzibar]

Originally posted by Draklar
No, it isn\'t relevant. I could just say \"If colour blind person sees red pencil as green, it doesn\'t mean the pencil can be considered green, ceteris paribus\" And in this point all that you said doesn\'t matter, period.
There\'s not even anything to argue about. That\'s a fact.

In truth, the pencil is niether red nor green, since colour is an invention of the mind.  The pencil tends to refract a certain frequency of light, and humans have a tendency to percieve that frequency as a particular colour.  The colour does not exist in the pencil however, or in the light coming from the pencil.

Originally posted by Draklar
And if everything is black, how do you explain sun tan?

Easily.  \"Blackness\" is something that humans percieve.  It only exists in the mind.  At the same time, it\'s understood to mean the absense of colour.  It was this second meaning that I was using.  With regards to sun tans, light is still there even if it doesn\'t inherently have colour.

Originally posted by Draklar
But using your argument against yourself:

\"If human sees something as red, it doesn\'t mean that object has a colour.\"
There, you proved yourself that this relativism is an illusion.

That makes no sense at all.  Does anyone have a clue what Draklar meant to say here?

Originally posted by Draklar
Likewise, good and evil are universal concepts, and to what point people understand (aka social construction) those concepts is the only relative thing about them.
Good job.

And good and evil are most definately not universal concepts.  Different cultures have radically different understandings of what constitutes good and what constitutes evil.

Further, social constructions are not ways of understanding concepts: Social constructions are the very concepts which are to be examined.