Do You Really Feel the Blue Color?

It was my chemistry teacher who introduced me to “thought experiments”. One fine day, he started off with a small description about the “Schrödinger cat”, and the concept was pretty cool.

I looked up for more thought experiments. Well!! So here is one that I liked very much apart from the one mentioned above. And this essentially talks about our conscious experience.

 

Let’s consider a hypothetical situation. Imagine that you are a blind person. This necessarily means that the way you have perceived the world is completely different from a person who is able to see. Okay!

Apart from being a blind, you are a scientist who knows everything about colours. You know the exact wavelength of the colour from the sky which stimulates our retina and sends signals to our brain which prompts us say “Ok!! The colour of the sky is blue, how cool?” Remember you have never seen the colour blue and have never ever experienced the colour consciously.

Now, out of nowhere, you get back your vision and you are able to see the world. Will you not learn something new? I mean, will you not be able relate to the colour more than you had before? It’s like from now on, whenever I say “blue”, your own mental picture of blue pops up and you will be able to remember things better. Now that’s the difference between academically knowing something and experiencing it in reality.

Try fitting this idea to your own life. When you want to know something, going beyond the objective observation would help a lot. Discovering things yourself and experiencing it in actuality does you good. When you do this for a prolonged period of time you will reach a point where you will be driven by yourself to know more about things and no one can stop you!!!

You can try http://io9.com/9-philosophical-thought-experiments-that-will-keep-you-1340952809 for more information!!