Saturday 7 January 2017

vision - Can other animals see black differently?


I am not sure if this is the right place for this question, but this is a debate that has been going on between two colleagues for days and I need a resolution because it's driving me crazy. So any help would be appreciated.


It is a common philosophical argument that it is impossible for one person to know if another person is at the same place on the colour wheel (e.g. how I see blue and how you see blue could be different, and we will never know). By that reasoning, it is possible that some species see colours differently to us. However, black and white are not the colour wheel because they are not colours. So essentially, the question is, could another species that "sees" by sensing light with their eyes as humans do ever see an "absence of light" as a colour OTHER than black.


I am not quite sure what these two imbeciles are debating, but I believe they are arguing as follows:



  • Party 1: Black and white are shades not colours, and therefore, even if another species saw colours differently, they would always see black as black, white as white, and all shades of grey relative as usual to the colours they see.

  • Party 2: Black is only inserted into our vision by our brain to resolve the "problem" of not receiving any light. So, therefore, it is equally possible that another species could deal with this problem" differently, and they will see something other than black.





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