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To: Alamo-Girl
The color green exists even when the man cannot see it. That is what makes it a universal. It exists even if no man could see it.

To an animal with different color pigments, there are colors which exist even though you can't see them. To a human with different color vision, there are also colors that exist even though you can't see them. In fact, by your definition, there are as many objective colors as there are possible visual pigments; which is close to an infinity of colors. Out of this infinitiy of objective colors people and most organisms can see only three, or two, or just one.

And ultimately, it all comes down to a function where we have intensity of light on one axis and frequency on the other. But even that function can be shifted, for example, by the Doppler effect.

It's not a very good example of a universal.

283 posted on 03/18/2005 8:45:56 AM PST by Right Wing Professor
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To: Right Wing Professor
It's not a very good example of a universal.

Ok, then, let's try another.

How about "pi" or "threeness"? Did pi exist before it was named? Did threes exist before anyone learned to count?

288 posted on 03/18/2005 8:49:50 AM PST by Alamo-Girl
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To: Alamo-Girl; Right Wing Professor; js1138; MacDorcha; betty boop; marron; cornelis
Don't want to be nosy here but if you continue this discussion it's going to be crucial that you distinguish carefully between the sensory quality 'this precise shade of green' and the physical conditions that give rise to it (intensity and frequency and so forth, which are properties of the incident light itself, not of the conscious experience presumably caused by such light).

I mention this based on long experience discussing theproblem of universals online and elsewhere.

298 posted on 03/18/2005 8:57:11 AM PST by OhioAttorney
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