MrHen comments on Consciousness - Less Wrong

2 Post author: Mitchell_Porter 08 January 2010 12:18PM

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Comment author: RobinZ 15 January 2010 11:33:13PM 2 points [-]

ETA2: Further thoughts on perceiving redness: If you were never able to perceive wavelengths that correlate to redness, would you know redness? If your eyes were damaged to stop seeing red you would probably continue to dream with red. But if you have never seen red, would you dream in red? This is relevant to discovering the source of redness in non-wavelength related experiences which is slightly different than the question, "Where is the color?"

I don't know if colorblind people dream in color, but colorblind synesthetes can experience colors their eyes don't register.

Comment author: MrHen 16 January 2010 04:15:39PM 2 points [-]

From the article linked (synesthete is a keyword explained in the article):

They found a synesthete who was color blind. That may seem strange, but what it really means is that the subject had problems with his retina that left him able to distinguish only an extremely narrow range of wavelengths when looking at most images in the world — his brain was fine, but his eyes weren’t quite up to the job. But when he saw certain numbers, he experienced colors that he otherwise never saw.

And that, I guess, answers that question. Awesome.