Language Philosophy !?

Question

If i see a big black spot and i call it red , while others see it as a big white spot and call it red , and when i see that shirt with black spot i say " that is red " and the others do the same , then what is real ?? , maybe everything doesnt look like anything !!!!

Answer 1

Yes, this is a well known problem, suggesting that it is impossible to TRULY describe ALL human feelings.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia#Arguments_for_the_existence_of_qualia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_spectrum

Answer 2

There is no way to speculate about the mental perceptions of others. For all we know, the state of affairs you describe may actually be reality. Perhaps that's why we all have different favorite colors; There's a shade we all perceive as pleasant, but that depends on which actual color in the world we actually perceive as such.
In a way, the world is actually as you describe it. I wear glasses, while other people have 20/20 vision. If I remove my glasses, a well-seeing person does not see the same thing as I do. Yet, I see well enough to tell the difference between a cup and a glass at 10 feet and we can still communicate efficiently.
The second Wittgenstein oversteps the problem with game theory. Language is about knowing the rules to the game. If you tell me to pick the cup up, and I do so to your satisfaction of what a cup is, we know we have a common language, even though our perceptions may be different.

Answer 3

you have already answered your question for (if..) (you...) (see...)
it is quite possible that you have not seen
i.e.
Perhaps you should formulate your question so that is it directed on/toward the answer it seeks

The big black spot I see and recognise as black yet call it red is not a big black spot I perceive as others see as white
I name the big black spot both black and red (i.e.I see a big black spot and call it red)
which others see as a big white spot which they call red
you accept you see a big black spot you call red
you accept others see the big black spot you see as white and call it red
what is real is the question
what is false is the question
the colour does not matter
you have already accepted that you may if you wish name black
red
and that others may do the same
it is true that you/they can if they choose name black or white red
but both have started from the premise that it was a black/white object they named/called red
for if they named it red only without the recognition that it was black in the first instance
it would merely have been perceived as red and the no-question would not exist

Answer 4

Okay. It's not THAT complicated. Unless you start disbelieving just about everything.

Now obviously there's no real way to tell if your perceptions are exactly the same as mine. I'd even go the other direction and say that they almost certainly are not. BUT it is quite possible to take both of us out of the picture and make objective measurements from the outside using equipment.

Thus we can take an instrument, measure the wavelengths of light coming off something, and say, "Both person A and person B identifies these wavelengths as the colour 'red'." That is real.

Any specific perception you construct is also completely real - but it is real ONLY to you. Your perceptions are (for the time being) completely unreal to me, and I only even have your word that you even have perceptions at all. Measurements of your brain activity would undoubtedly suggest that similar things are going on, but we are nowhere near the level of capability yet to actually decode such signals and attach significant meaning to them. So your perceptions are real, but not universally so.

See? That wasn't too bad. The only way it gets worse is if you start hypothesizing that whole aspects of physicality are unreal too. If physical laws are highly variable or supposed tools do not actually exist but are illusions, then this proof will not work for you. But then neither will ANY proof - you will be dwelling in a universe of complete unpredictability. So worrying further at that possibility is rather pointless, if you ask me.

Answer 5

you can't REALLY prove it without an immense amount of speculation.
look at it like this, for the physical world:
I have a friend that is terrified of snakes. Whenever he sees one, he either freezes up and whimpers, or runs away with his arms in the air. We've been trying to get him to not be so scared of the things... i played a trick on him with a rubber snake the other day. he thought it was real, and ran off with his hands in the air, screaming.
Lordy lord, that was fun to watch.
So now, if he sees a real snake and thinks it's a rubber snake, and everyone around him tells him it's a rubber snake, to him, it's a rubber snake. but when he goes to pick it up and laugh about it, he'll get bitten, and possibly die. That's when our perceptions begin to be sort of unimportant, and the reality of things shines through.
As far as the way things look... maybe colors are different, but the wide consensus seems to be correct. and if i see a chair and say that it's a bicycle, when i go to touch it, it's still a chair. You'd have to so completely trick yourself into believing that it was something else that it wouldn't be possible to discover it was otherwise...
Sorry about the long story there, i thought it was funny...

Answer 6

Why would you call something that is black, red? Anyway it is red. Red doesn't truly have a definition by itself. Its just so people know what you are talking about. Red is just a word to describe a color. You can interchange words like I could say that the black spot is blue. However, it isn't blue as other people know it is a different shade blue which people know as black.

Answer 7

Funny you should choose color as an example, unless u meant it.
If it was just a coincidence than I don't have an answer.
But if it's color in particular your talking about, then NO, u can never know. Cause colors are not really ,mmh, objective. If you've been seeing red instead of green all ur life then you've been taught that it's called green, while what you see really is red!
How do we know that what I see as red you see the same? sure we all call it red, but is it the same color?
This is caused by the nature of colors and how our eyes and brain cells interpret them, purely physical yet cannot be proved to be united among all people.

Answer 8

I kind of understand your question and I think that the actual label or name that we give to the color isn't important.... what is important is the essence of the color or what it really is, which we probaly would describe thorugh labels...... there are two different situaions I can think of and they go in circles... If you happen to be in some place where people say "white" to be the equvalent with your "green"... so they say grass is white.... then both things are true. the grass is white yet green at the same time.... the other is similar to what you were saying in that you see it as something but call it something else....in this case it may feel as if you are trying to fool yourself in some way...I think.they are all real in a sense but not all exactly true...........

Answer 9

It relies upon, to an quantity, on what's mandatory to be a language. particularly you are able to communicate recommendations with math, so in that experience that's a language. It has a unified symbology that's regularly occurring and not many times specific to any specific language. it would purely fail on 2 counts: it has no specific spoken sort, and the physique of recommendations is communicates isn't even meant to embody all issues. the 1st criticism will possibly no longer seem a great number of one. in spite of everything, there are few who might dispute that sign language is a language even even though it has no spoken sort. nonetheless, math is a sprint distinctive even from that, in that each language has its own words for mathematical recommendations whether all of them use an identical symbols. this might have a tendency to indicate that that's a physique of recommendations exterior to language, like good judgment (which additionally has a definite universiality of symbols, although much less popularly so) and a great form of alternative non-scientific matters (consistent with threat philosophy itself). Its extreme limits in thought-area is likewise a great project. there is not any mathematical description of an orange, and maximum mathematicians might probable be horrified on the assumption of attempting to undertake one. And jointly as i do no longer think of it particularly is mandatory for a language to incorporate all obtainable recommendations (Latin, although lifeless, continues to be a language), there is something qualitatively distinctive approximately one that would not even attempt, by no ability has, and probable by no ability will. IF we are saying that math is a language, it form of feels to me that we could continuously incorporate different issues corresponding to math interior that team, which will have some distinctly weird and wonderful ability outcomes (as an occasion, are shade-words on my own a language?). yet i think of that the above objections are solid adequate to no longer evaluate it as one. even though it communicates recommendations, it would not communicate adequate of them. you are able to't take a classification that makes use of purely math-communicate and no different language. i might settle for the designation of sub-language, even with the indisputable fact that. Compromise?

Answer 10

The spot is blue. Accept this fact as you would accept any other fact, and move on. As long as that spot is existing, being, and eternally functioning as any spot should, then it is blue. One definate fact, even if a made up fact, should be absolut truth

Answer 11

A glass half filled with water. One person claims it is half full. The orther claims it is half empty. Same with your spot. It doesn't make any difference what the other calls it as long as you agree your talking about the same thing.