To someone who is born blind, how would you best discribe what seeing is? - eviltoast
  • Square Singer@feddit.de
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    3
    ·
    1 year ago

    That’s exactly the point. Nothing you say will have a meaning over what that person has experienced. You can’t really convey what seeing means, and the “but with color” was meant to show exactly that.

    You can explain the technicalities, but that’s trivial enough that there’s no point in explaining it.

    Imagine explaining what it feels like to e.g. drive a really fast car to someone who has never been in a car. Yeah, you can say “it’s really fast” or “it’s exciting/fear-inducing” or “acceleration pushes you into the seat”, but nothing you say can actually convey the feeling.

    Same with seeing. You can say, “with my eyes I can differentiate objects over long distances”, but I am pretty sure every blind person already knows that. You can say, “Different things have different colors”, but also they know that, but at the same time it has no meaning to them.

    But then try to explain a beautiful sunrise or a moving painting or something else that’s evokes emotions and then it falls apart, because you cannot convey that.