Page 74 - Darwin's Dilemma: The Soul

Darwin’s Dilemma: The Soul

apple red when you’re not looking at it,
so to speak? And when we think about
it, it’s a somewhat chauvinistic view of
ours to think that the world actually con-
tains the kinds of colours that we see it as
having. Because we now know enough
about other animals that we share this
planet with, and they have different
kinds of colour systems and they make in
An image of flowers seen through
the human eye some cases less discriminations amongst
colours than we do. And as a result,
there’s the view that they actually see the
world as differently coloured than us. So
we see it having certain colours, other an-
imals perhaps see it as having a different
set of colours.

Now, why should we think that our view
is the correct one—that the colours that
we see are in fact the colours the world
Bees see the same flowers like this.
actually has? Perhaps these are just two
different internal ways of coding the
world that is internal to the representations that we and other ani-
mals generate. 42
O’Brien’s analysis on this subject is highly important in terms
of questioning what “external reality” is like. There is no evidence
that other living things see light or perceive color in the same way
as we do. It is impossible for us to obtain any scientific evidence to
show the truth. That being the case, all we can state regarding the
external world is conjecture and guesswork, because our percep-
tion of the outside world—in the way we are familiar with it—
depends on our five senses.

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