Finding Blue

I read a captivating article about a theory that in ancient times, people didn’t ‘see’ the color blue like you and I do. In Homer’s “The Odyssey”, it describes a “wine-dark” sea, as well as sheep and iron being violet, honey being green, etc. After noticing the peculiarity, a man realized in 1858 that there was never anything described as ‘blue’. Historians found no mention of the word blue in any language until 4500 years ago, in fact. Since, researchers have found that when ancient peoples began describing colors, blue always seemed to be the last one found in any ancient writings of theirs. It was apparently common to be the last defined. Researchers found an African tribe who had no word for blue in their language and gave them a test on a computer, asking them to point out the blue square when surrounded by green. They had a lot of difficulty with it. However, they have many more words to describe shades of green than English. When shown a group of squares that had one slightly off color green that I couldn’t pick out myself, they instantly were able to distinguish them apart. Do we only see things that we have words for? Or, more apt to my thinking, do we only see or realize that which we can define? In this way, philosophy is the ultimate endeavor in my eyes, seeking to define and describe all it can so as to be understood. Imagine not being able to tell blue apart from red like Homer or blue from green like the tribe. From the picture the research paints, it sounds as if we would essentially lose the ability to perceive one of those colors. How does that green look to those tribes-people? What am I missing out on? It must be a color distinct from the others by how quickly the tribesmen picked it out - as easily as we see difference between green and blue. Just because my brain doesn’t perceive much of a difference doesn’t mean it isn’t there, and it doesn’t necessarily mean that the difference isn’t actually large. The point is that it appears as though perhaps not having a word for something makes you blind to it, or that your brain simply fills it in with something you are already familiar with rather than showing the accurate depiction of reality. My thinking is that this could just as easily be true of other areas of human thought. It is very “Plato’s Cave” to me. The view of reality you hold might easily be false or incomplete. A mirage of sorts. It is also applicable to the more mundane VHS to DVD. Before DVD’s came out, my mind blocked the fuzz and low resolution of VHS quality and I thought the picture fantastic, but when I saw DVD quality, my reality changed. The same thing happened with BluRay’s. How could I not have seen it, I asked myself. Now, I must ask the obvious question of “Will BluRay’s eventually look awful to me?”. Even knowing what I do now and having first hand experience of shifting reality, I can’t fathom it. The only way I can see BluRay’s being eventually inferior is via hologram technology, though I’m now fully prepared to be wrong when the next evolution of video comes out. When I first heard of Plato’s Cave, I was fascinated by another good philosophical idea. But, when watching video of the African tribe being unable to easily spot the blue, I was absolutely floored at the extent it could go to in reality and the implications thus. What an incredibly intriguing and enthralling idea!

*3/13/17 Update

As I was just making coffee (a new brand my girlfriend brought back from a recent trip to KC), it occurred to me a missed opportunity to show this idea. I mentioned the sudden realization that VHS quality was terrible only after seeing DVD quality, etc. Another perfect example is coffee. If you don't have the cognitive vocabulary to describe what makes coffee good, most coffee (black, anyway), tastes relatively the same. It is only after you get some experience with coffee you begin to really take notice of the subtle changes. Your colors fill in and you can perceive them. To the layman (or even only mild coffee enthusiasts or less), a cup of coffee that experts would call impeccable is just a simple cup 'o joe. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwxZNriJO_4&index=4&list=PLLXfVEsLI-qR6e9t83tubKpH9Aia-nFRB Possibly even more applicable is wine. I have no problems drinking cheap wine. I have been drinking quite a bit more the past few years, as evidenced by my projects page, but there is still much of the spectrum I am ignorant of. I am only just now able to perceive any kind of "notes" in the flavor past the generalities like sweetness. Even with that knowledge, I still doubt I would be able to tell much of a difference between a $10 and $200 bottle, as is often the case by others testimonies. I can tell no difference between aerated wine and not, expensive or not, boxed or not. Most of the time I wouldn't be able to tell apart cabernets and merlots, even. Last one is vodka. Strange example, I know, but it's possibly the best showing of this idea in action thanks to the Mythbusters, and there's a video for this one as well! Sorry about the quality. Skip the next paragraph if you actually watch it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kO077nu2m5E The myth was that you can turn bad vodka into top shelf by filtering it yourself with charcoal filters. So, they did exactly that. Filtered it 8 (I think) times, keeping samples from each filtration, as well as the control. Then, they did a double blind experiment where 3 participants were asked to grade each sample by its quality (or, amount of filtration). One of those participants was an expert in vodka tasting or some such. The first participant did horribly, grading the highest filtration as the 2nd worst of the 8. She also didn't seem to like vodka much, so I think it's safe to say she hadn't had much experience with it. The second participant seemed more comfortable and experienced with the liquor and his results were much better, though far from perfect. The expert nailed the results exactly. What does this tell us? Kari (the first participant) couldn't tell the difference between the 'high end' vodka and swill. The expert could. That is the basis of my point. The expert was able to see the colors that were indistinguishable to others. He was versed in the craft. Obviously, he could tell the differences with the changes in taste - changes I assert to be not so very different between the variations in the color blue and the color green.

My question in writing this: What are we missing out on? What are we experiencing without actually experiencing? If I gained more knowledge of all around me, how many 'colors' would emerge that I was previously blind to? These questions bring to mind my previous writing "The Knowing of Things". How much beauty is there in what my mind doesn't yet comprehend? How many hues am I ignorant of? How many of those colors would be as pleasant as the color blue?

4/1/17 Also relevant to light and color:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FlV6pgwlrk

#blue #colors #perception