You can see blue, because you have a word for it

[tw]

Originally Posted by Clodfobble

It's a testable theory, tw--they went to modern-day tribes, who are just as evolved but speak different languages, and performed a lengthy series of visual color tests. In the book I mentioned,

Some Amazon tribe only had words for zero, one, and many. They could observe two, three, or four. But did not have a word for it.

Could they see blue (as in sky) but not have a word for it? That would be completely different from not seeing blue.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Hard to believe they would see something as common as a blue sky and not have a word for it.

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by tw

Could they see blue (as in sky) but not have a word for it? That would be completely different from not seeing blue.

Yes, this was the conclusion of the book. When initially asked, people with no word for blue said the sky had no color. But when asked to compare it to a red swatch and a blue swatch, they said the sky matched closer to the blue one--it had just never occurred to them before. It's a question of "see" vs. "notice," and the power that not noticing something has on our brain, which is evolved to prune information that we don't deem to be relevant.