🚀 go-pugleaf

Christopher Green:

> (Note that many cultures do not have the same color scheme as us.)

I would like to know what this means.

Does it mean that some languages give names to different colors
from the ones we distinguish with names? That seems an
unremarkable fact.

Does it mean that people in some cultures make significantly
different similarity judgments between colors from the ones
we make? I would like to know the evidence for this.

C.L. Hardin reports the opposite. He reports that experimental
data show that (1) infants have a "hue space" that is neatly
divided into four similarity classes centered upon the four
unique hues; (2) the Dani people of New Guinea, who have no
words for abstract chromatic hues, recognize which ones are
the unique hues anyway. (Reference and quotations available
upon request.)

What is a color scheme?

Almost as an aside at this point, let me add that I do not quite
see the relevance of the theory-laden/pure observation distinction
to the question of scientific realism. Suppose, that is, stipulate,
that all observations are theory-laden. How would this show that
there is no such thing as a true (in the sense of, correctly
describing the world) theory? How would it show that theoretic
terms have no referents?

Jamie

In article <1ius3kINNltg@cat.cis.Brown.EDU> PL436000@brownvm.brown.edu (Jamie) writes:
>Christopher Green:
>
>> (Note that many cultures do not have the same color scheme as us.)
>
>I would like to know what this means.
>
I mean exactly what is contained in Berlin and Kay (1969?/1991?).
That we all have the same visual apparatus, and therefore make the
same similarity judgments is not at all to the point.  I mean simply
that different cultures divide up the spectrum (a theoretical claim,
by the way) in different ways. E.g. they call two shades species of the
same color where we call them different colors. No controversy here.


-- 
Christopher D. Green                christo@psych.toronto.edu
Psychology Department               cgreen@lake.scar.utoronto.ca
University of Toronto
Toronto, Ontario M5S 1A1

>I mean exactly what is contained in Berlin and Kay (1969?/1991?).

Can you give a more complete citation? I would like to look at the
article.

>That we all have the same visual apparatus, and therefore make the
>same similarity judgments is not at all to the point.  I mean simply
>that different cultures divide up the spectrum (a theoretical claim,
>by the way) in different ways. E.g. they call two shades species of the
>same color where we call them different colors. No controversy here.

I see. Thank you for explaining this.

Here is how I would gloss the phenomenon:
by "color" those people mean something different from what we mean.

Is that how you would gloss the phenomenon, or were you thinking of
some other point?

And, what does it have to do with scientific realism?

Jamie

In article <1993Jan12.160605.27799@sarah.albany.edu>, djb85@thor.albany.edu 
(Donald J. Byrd) writes:

>	I am interested in locating responsible, speculative
>writing about technology: I am thinking, for example, of things

SG	Try Ayn Rand's novel _Atlas Shrugged_ and her essays in _For The New 
Intellectual_.
________________________________________________________________________________
	"In that world, you'll be able to rise in the morning with the spirit
you had known in your childhood: that spirit of eagerness, adventure and cer-
tainty which comes from dealing with a rational universe."
                                                              AYN RAND
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Stephen Grossman <PMSC13SG@UMASSD.EDU>
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