KLewchuk wrote: ↑Thu Oct 29, 2020 12:03 am
When we speak of truth, we do need to address context. I speak as a human. For example, I don't see "infra-red" without assistance.
However, as an aside, even if I don't experience infra-red does not mean that infra-red doesn't objectively exist.. that is an aside.
The biggest organ in the body senses infra-red. Your skin. Is because you don't think about your eyes and skin as "the same thing" (sensory input) is why you see this as an aside.
KLewchuk wrote: ↑Thu Oct 29, 2020 12:03 am
Humans do recognize the "color blue" as a species. When people don't recognize certain colors, we term them "color blind".
Sure. Much like when people don't recognise certain behaviour as "wrong" we term them immoral. Sociopaths. Criminals etc.
KLewchuk wrote: ↑Thu Oct 29, 2020 12:03 am
Is color simply "majority opinion"? No, because most people will recognize a blue sky... even if they say otherwise.
This is trivially testable: Take the color spectrum, split it up into bands of equal size (50 or so should suffice). Shuffle. Ask a few hundred people to pick the "blue" color. Sure enough you'll get a reasonable approximation of what society as a whole thinks "blue" is.
Great!
Now repeat the experiment by instructing your subjects to pick the "أخضر" color. People won't have a clue what that means but for the sake of experiment we should insist "just pick the color that feels most أخضر". And so... people will pick some color.
Does this then mean that "most people will recognize a أخضر sky... even if they say otherwise"?
The only way to determine that the word "blue" corresponds to
THIS COLOR and not
THIS COLOR is by induction.
You've contextualised this in a way which addresses nothing more than the "How does language relate to the world?" problem. Which is precisely the game of semantics Peter is playing. It's a game about nomenclature, not a game about consequences.
KLewchuk wrote: ↑Thu Oct 29, 2020 12:03 am
We can also study the color blue and understand how it interacts with retina's and brains and produces things... things which we don't understand.
Given the above I am putting you down as a color-objectivist. Is just that color happens in the mind...
What you probably meant to say was that we can study light of frequency between 450–495 nanometers and understand how it interacts with our senses to produce that which we recognise as "blue".
We don't need to understand what "blue" is in order to recognise it.
KLewchuk wrote: ↑Thu Oct 29, 2020 12:03 am
You and I could both go to a hockey game. Our experience of the game will certainly be different. I may be an expert; your first game. That being said, if I saw a hockey game and the other an opera...one of us is wrong.
Your framing/context reduces the entire problem to the past tense labelling exercise. We saw what we saw. We termed our experiences differently. So what?
What implications does a different nomenclature entail? If none - who cares? This is still just the "How does language relate to the world?" problem.
One of us may well be "wrong". So what? There's nothing wrong with being wrong if it entails no consequence.
I RECOGNISE THIS COLOR AS BLUE.
If I am "wrong" about this, how am I to detect my error?