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To: Kevin Curry
"I believe people who claim to have experienced "green" are delusional. And, as general re sagely points out, the fact the 5 billion people claim to have experienced the color green isn't persuasive. . . . . something about 5 billion flies having a taste for manure."

I think that in one sense, "greenness" is an objective quality of objects, insofar as it represents light in a particular wavelength of the visible spectrum. But in another sense, saying something is "green" is entirely arbitrary, as there is no inherent connection between the label and the thing itself - we could have as easily decided that the sky was green and the grass blue, and so long as we behave consistently with those decisions, what's the difference?

You say you are incapable of experiencing "greenness", but you want to know what it is like - all I can do is try to reason with you analogically. It's the color of live grass in the summer. The color of unripe apples. It's light with a wavelength of around 510 nm.

And when you say to me "All that's fine, but I still don't understand green", then my ability to help you understand fails. Because at that point, I can't make you see something as subjective as "green" - I don't have an objective reference point for "green" beyond a collective decision that humans have made that the grass is "green", and when you have no perception of things that are objectively green, how can I make you understand something as subjective as "greenness" itself"?

Does the greenness of a thing change if you're the only one to see it? Does the "greenness" of a thing mean anything if you're the only one around to see it? Would it make a difference if you decided that the sky was green and the trees were blue? Who would it make a difference to? You? The trees?

826 posted on 06/17/2002 8:54:59 PM PDT by general_re
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To: general_re
I don't have an objective reference point for "green" beyond a collective decision that humans have made that the grass is "green", and when you have no perception of things that are objectively green, how can I make you understand something as subjective as "greenness" itself"?

A wholly indescribable subjective awareness that is neverthless very objective and perfectly consistent in the way we experience it.

True Christians likewise collectively share an experiential awareness of the Holy Spirit every bit as vivid and real as the "greenness" of green. You can deny that you yourself can discern or experience it, but you cannot deny this collective experiential awareness on the part of Christians themselves.

And it is not as simple as describing color as a wavelength. All the detailed, measurable, weighable, chartable information about the electromagnetic wavelength that lies between the wavelengths of yellow and blue will not impart the experiential sense of "greenness" to someone who is color-blind to green.

835 posted on 06/17/2002 9:19:13 PM PDT by Kevin Curry
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