Page 815 - Atlas of Creation Volume 3

Harun Yahya

We can never know whether the color we refer to as green appears the
same to anyone else. For instance, the picture on this page could be seen
differently in two different brains. One could be seeing green, while the
other sees blue, even though he still calls it green. This can never be known.
We can never know whether two people who look at red tulips see exactly the
same tones of red.

Drew Westen, a professor of psychology from Harvard
University, says that from the scientific point of view we can
never know whether somebody else perceives a rose in the
same way we do:

If perception is a creative, constructive process, to what extent

do people perceive the world in the same way? Does red appear
to one person as it does to another? If one person loves garlic and
another hates it, are the two loving and hating the same taste, or does
garlic have a different taste to each? The constructive nature of perception raises the equally intriguing ques-

tion of whether, or to what extent, people see the world as it really is. Plato argued that what we perceive is
little more than shadows on the wall of a cave, cast by the movement of an unseen reality in the dim light.
What does it mean to say that a cup of coffee is hot? And is grass really green? A person who is color-blind for
green, whose visual system lacks the capacity to discriminate certain wavelengths of light, will not see the

grass as green. Is greenness, then, an attribute of the object (grass), the perceiver, or some interaction between
the observer and the observed? These are philosophical questions at the heart of sensation and perception. 55

As we see, the fact that we make the same definitions, or call the colors by the same name, does not
mean that we see the same things. To compare the perceptions of people is absolutely impossible, be-
cause everyone sees a distinct world within his brain which belongs to him alone. The next objection in-
cludes yet another explanation pertaining to this objection.

Objection: "I am in a garden with two friends, and the three of us see exactly the same things. If what we each

see in our minds is the same, that means that there must be originals of these things outside our minds."
Reply: The fact that you and other people see the same things is no confirmation of the claim that
there is a physical counterpart of what you all see. That is because you also see your companions in your

mind. For example, when strolling with your friends in a fruit garden, in the same way that the apples,
apricots, colored flowers, the sounds of the birds, the warm breezes, and the smells of the fruit and flow-

Adnan Oktar 813