this post was submitted on 05 May 2025
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Do you or have you ever use thought experiments to some practical end?

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

That's an interesting one. A blind person can easily describe things using the words they learnt, just like we do. A cube is still a cube even when you can't see it, because you can feel it so you can agree about its shape.

Color blindness is different. My friend is a graphical designer, and he chooses interesting and unusual color combos. He is red/green color blind; both look the same to him. (Fun aside: he is also a taxi driver.) Now, obviously red and green are components in the colors he uses, so what color does he actually see?

We cannot explain colors to each other because it is always in reference to some other color, which is also changed in his vision, and maybe not to the same degree as pure red or green. What color is an orange? We both know without looking, but his perception is different from mine. He would need to not be color blind to become able to describe to me how different he sees stuff.