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You could possibly generate the same perceptual colour using completely different frequencies.
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You could also generate it for some people using sounds. You can generate it for a digital camera using 1's and 0's.
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Sure. There are people who have alot of wierd and wrong views of the world, especially when you ask them to abstract things into realms they don't deal with often.
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That's all I was originally trying to point out. The problem is, I don't think those people are in the minority, I think most people walk around thinking the "blueness" is somehow intrinsic to the objects they see.
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Usually these beliefs are weak and easily corrected.
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Really, you tried talking to people about religion lately?
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People describe as 'blue' those things that, when they look at them, they percieve the colour blue, amoung other things.
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Yes, but I don't think they see it that way. Our language doesn't describe things as we see them, it describes things as they are. "That chair is blue" is a statement we've all made (at least I know I have). But by any definition that chair isn't blue. When we describe something as weighing 10 lb's, it really does weigh 10 lb's and no perceptual differences will change that.
Maybe you think that "That chair is blue" means something other than what it plainly does, but most people accept that the chair is blue,
even in a dark room that chair would still be blue as far as they are concerned. People speak in these absolutes because they assume we all have the same perceptual experiences (which many of us do, but not all) and that these perceptual experiences tell us some truth about the item in questions. "That chair is blue" would be a useful statement if everybody knew that it really meant the chair reflects certain frequencies of light that our eyes and brain interpret as blue.
That is a chair, would be a useful statement if everybody knew it really meant that there is a physical structure upon which I can sit.
Ascribing truth to these perceptions does not advance our understanding of the world, only our confidence in our own perceptions. When a colour blind person sees that same "blue" chair but doesn't see blue it doesn't mean there's anything wrong with that person, or that the person can't see the "truth" some people think they see.