If I showed you three blocks of computer code, you wouldn't be able to see the difference (Java, C++, or HTML). It's all just code.
And the same for red and green: both are dark colors. They are the same. Dark.
This isn't such a weird idea. You're a woman. Ask a man to distinguish various shades of lipstick. To guys, it's all just red. To you, there are endless shades of difference.
Language isn't just a bunch of baby words ("cat, happy, blue") that exist on their own. It's meaning. And meaning is context. Which is based in social structures, processes, events, and so on.
yrs, andreas www.andreas.com----- Original Message ----- From: "Julie Krueger" <juliereneb@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Monday, October 15, 2007 10:11 AM Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Do ideas exist before being articulated?
You're implying (at the very least) that language creates ideas. Is that a fair assessment? If the tribe which does not have a word for the colors redand green, but only "dark", were confronted with 3 red apples and 1 greenapple in a row on the table and asked which of the apples were different --are you telling me they would see no visual difference? Julie Krueger On 10/15/07, Andreas Ramos <andreas@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:>> John -- if you didn't have a word for "red" would you still see the >> colour>> of an apple, a tomato, blood? Or, because you didn't have the word >> for>> it, >> would your brain simply stop processing data? There are a few tribes that don't have names for colors. They distinguishcolors in two groups: bright or dark. Red is dark. Green is dark. To them,red and green are the same "color", or better said, they are both dark. So they don't "have a word" for the color red and don't see red. They see dark. This isn't an odd idea. It happens in our world all the time.If I show (for example, Julie) a long page of computer code, she only sees random characters (many of which are misspelled), lots of "<" and ">", and so on. Her brain sees alphabetical characters, but not the meaning. To me,Isee the structure of the code and what it does. Julie doesn't have "a wordfor it" (actually, she probably does have a word for it, but it's not a polite word) and "can't see" it. yrs, andreas www.andreas.com ------------------------------------------------------------------ To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off, digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
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