thinks........

[nathan]

recently read an amazing book called thinks.... by david lodge. It's very complex and really makes you think. But following on from zaccsta's thread. This book is about a college professor and his attempts to create a robot that has a conscious because we are the only creatures alive that have a conscious ie:- know that they are going to die. Basically there is a famous psychological problem that really has no answer but i'd like to know your opinions on it.......

Basically a girl has been brought up in capitivity. In a bungalow that is under heavy security. Everything in the house is black and white. She is covered from head to toe. There are no mirrors and there is no way for her to see anything other than black and white. Let's say for arguments sake she has a 'wet nurse' who deals with her 'ablutions'. She has a personal tutor who will teach her everything that is know about colour. Everything that is scientifically known will be available to her. On her eighteenth birthday she is escorted to a glass room where upon a glass altar is a single red rose. Will she know what colour it is?

 

[jonnyp]

Unless the teacher showed her colour piccies when teaching her, there is no way on earth that she would know what an individual colour was. As you say she only sees black n white, the answer is no then.

words alone dont describe shit unless you can picture it in the first instance

 

[nathan]

hhmmm

even if you'd read about roses?

 

[ste30]

She has a personal tutor who will teach her everything that is know about colour.

if they teach her just by words, then prolly not, like jonny says

 

[doolz]

i disagree
close your eyes and look at a light
ul see red if its a bright light

 

[jonnyp]

when you learn normally, you associate words with objects/colours/shapes. If all she can see is black and white and has never seen anything red, there is no way she would know what "red" is as she has no prior experience of it. It's not like you can say, it's the colour of your lips etc..as she cant see those as she is covered from head to toe and there are no mirrors anyway.

He could always cheat and show her a picture of a red rose and then say "that is a rose and that is red", but that wouldnt be right now would it?

 

[Myk]

Eitherway who is to say that what you see is what I see ?

Perception in itself is very individualist, you may see red as one colour and I may see it as another but we will both call it red because the first time we asked we were told that it is red.


What is pain, love, fear...we all interpret it very differently as we may interpret colours differently.