Great parable, but I don’t think things would actually happen like that. If that really happened, a Green would almost certainly see the sky as just as green as a Blue would see it blue. Light underground is probably of substandard quality most of the time, no pigments underground exactly match the color of the sky, there have been experiments that have shown that native speakers of different languages will classify the same color as closer to different colors based on their native language. The Greens and the Blues may have the same language but their perception could change if they were raised and lived in their own isolated group.
Finally, there are some human above-ground cultures for which the color of the sky and the color of vegetation are the same word, Hawaiian uliuli for example. So we can just say it’s all uliuli and then there’s no more possible debate at all anyway.
I think his point was that the greens and blues probably used the terms green and blue in a matter that describes an empirically different aspect of the world from how we use them.
The Japanese until fairly recently used the word blue to refer both blue and green. The green light on stoplights is still called blue by convention. I’ve heard stories from people who get confused when their own grandparents talk about colors.
Great parable, but I don’t think things would actually happen like that. If that really happened, a Green would almost certainly see the sky as just as green as a Blue would see it blue. Light underground is probably of substandard quality most of the time, no pigments underground exactly match the color of the sky, there have been experiments that have shown that native speakers of different languages will classify the same color as closer to different colors based on their native language. The Greens and the Blues may have the same language but their perception could change if they were raised and lived in their own isolated group.
Finally, there are some human above-ground cultures for which the color of the sky and the color of vegetation are the same word, Hawaiian uliuli for example. So we can just say it’s all uliuli and then there’s no more possible debate at all anyway.
Just like we can just say it’s cerulean, right?
I think his point was that the greens and blues probably used the terms green and blue in a matter that describes an empirically different aspect of the world from how we use them.
The Japanese until fairly recently used the word blue to refer both blue and green. The green light on stoplights is still called blue by convention. I’ve heard stories from people who get confused when their own grandparents talk about colors.