For materialists: how do you answer this?

Question

A materialist believes that there is nothing beyond the physical world. Our "minds" are just an illusion, it really all reduces to particles and energy. Okay, so how can you teach a blind man to understand color?

If a man were born blind, how could he understand color? What if you explained to him what light was, and all of its wavelengths and frequencies? That's not color. What if you explained to him all of the biochemical reactions that go on in his brain when he sees color, or thinks of color? Suppose that he understood everything about how the eye works and how the brain processes information about color? Does he understand color?

A materialist would be forced to say "yes", because the materialist believes that color is nothing more than brain chemistry. From the materialist's own definition of the world, the blind man understands color as well as any man with sight. But that isn't quite right, is it? We know that a blind man can never truly understand color.

Is his inability to understand color a result of our limited understanding of the brain? Of course not. Doesn't this prove materialism false?

Answer 1

I think there is a big difference between "understanding" and "experiencing." It seemingly gets at the epistemological question of "what is knowledge?" or "what is knowing?"

The use of your blind man/color example seems to have no difference than the computer/knowing example of the Turing test. We could even say that if the blind man was in the Turing test versus a person with sight, he may just be able to fool the third party that he can "see" (since he "understands" color).

The whole color issue itself throws us into the age old dilemma/paradox of: Do you and I SEE the same thing when we see BLUE? What if, you see green and I see purple, but we have been consistently told to call it BLUE? So, everyone else has BLUE as BLUE, but we have something 'other' as BLUE.

Whether blind or not, experience such as color is a difficult concept for any philosopher whether they be materialist, rationalist, empiricist, phenomenologists, etc.

Answer 2

I'm no materialist (at least I don't think so ;-) but the world, as we commonly experience it, *is* an illusion. It is an illusion (and our minds do create this illusion) *because* we depend too much on our limited senses (including our sense of time).

So, the reason the blind man cannot share this illusion is because he does not share the sense (site) that creates the illusion (illusion here not meaning 'wrong' per se, but fundamentally and profoundly incomplete).

Now, could you possibly duplicate the idea of color by prodding the mind in some way? I don't see why not, but that really doesn't tell you anything... I don't think... except that the blind man's mind is capable of squirting juices and electricity the same as everyone elses.

Answer 3

You have erected an invalid syllogism. Some one has already pointed out to you the dichotomy between " understand " and experiencing of said color quaila. Also, just because the ultimate level is " particles and energy ", this does not mean that the proximate level is not mind. The mind is instantiated in the physical brain.

Answer 4

Why would you need to? A blind man has no need for colour. Colour does not provide him pleasure, nor does it ensure his safety. Colour is as important to him as braille is as important to you.

How does the blind man teach you about braille or its significance or its meaning to this life?

Since many colours can provoke anger and disgust, not understanding colour may be an advantage for a blind man.

Answer 5

The foolish man built his house upon the sand...

When living in a world immersed in delusion (as ones mind is filled with delusions since being raised by deluded people)how does one use the delusions one encounters to realise the truth? The Buddha has an answer! =)

Everything is inherantly empty of independant existance, our senses and our minds lie to us all of the time! FACT! They see what they think is there, which is not really there; or they do not see what is really there.

Taken from the Heart Sutra:

"form is emptiness and the very emptiness is form; emptiness does not differ from form, form does not differ from emptiness; whatever is form, that is emptiness, whatever is emptiness, that is form, the same is true of feelings, perceptions, impulses and consciousness.

in emptiness there is no form, nor feeling, nor perception, nor impulse, nor consciousness; No eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind; No forms, sounds, smells, tastes, touchables or objects of mind; No sight-organ element, and so forth, until we come to: No mind-consciousness element; There is no ignorance, no extinction of ignorance, and so forth, until we come to: there is no decay and death, no extinction of decay and death. There is no suffering, no origination, no stopping, no path. There is no cognition, no attainment and non-attainment."

When one follows this path of great wisdom one will ultimately attain Nirvana.

Peace!

Answer 6

No. What is learning atoms is an emergent style that's headquartered on atoms. But even "the atom" is greatly only a effortless abstraction - electrons are not such a lot "matters" as "chances." ^

Answer 7

Our point of reference is the lens we see through, and there are many. Love opens the windows of perception.