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Romashka comments on Open thread, Feb. 16 - Feb. 22, 2015 - Less Wrong
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If I tell you about a 'dry, purple bass of the highway', what do you feel? What do you imagine? (Sorry if this is irrelevant.)
Initially I think of a dessicated purple fish lying on a desert highway, but that's just because my brain went for what I assume is not the version of "bass" you meant. If I try thinking about it in the intended sense, I see a highway through a purple filter, the purple getting stronger towards the edges of my vision. The image is wavering in time to thumping dubstep. An interesting image, even if it is irrelevant.
Arrgh, that is translation for you. I myself see a highway dipping slightly and then rising and somewhat hazy because of hot air. It's just, have you ever felt that singleness of imagery as a combination of traits, that do not necessary include colour? Does not curved/straight line seem to add more meaning to some descriptions than it strictly should, for example? Here some other (mangled) translations, hopefully showing what I mean (from the poetry of Ондо Линде):
tongue's restive lightning
Speech is a stone shearing the river's ripples, reflection running along rejections
cavernous between-the-lines
plaintains' ballroom skirts
the votive candles' slumber of little birds
etc. It seems to me that there is a perception of objects at rest, objects rushing by and objects caught in a moment of movement, weightless, that can occupy more attention than colour in a description. (Is this what you meant by qualia?)
I think of the sound of cars hissing along the highway, possibly at dusk.
And yet it is a single image, is it not?
Yes, though I'm not sure why that's important.
I'm a reader who's relatively willing to cooperate with the writer-- unless I'm sure the writer is speaking nonsense about facts, I'll go with "what might that mean"? When Lovecraft talks about unspeakable horrors, I'll reflexively try to create a (toned down) reaction of unspeakable horror rather than thinking "if you aren't going to describe it, why should I bother scaring myself when you aren't giving me anything to work with?".
I was just saying that for me, at least, color is not the only qualia (?) that has an unparalleled vividness, I also have this impression from depth/vastness/enclosedness/... and from stillness/continuing movement/..., and it doesn't have to be activated through vision.