14 DAY TRIAL // Have you ever wondered how it is that we recognize colors? Sure, it seems quite simple, we see a color, let's say red and we learn the name for it, so every time we see that color we call it red and people around us do the same. Nevertheless, how can one tell if what he calls red is the same thing with what another person calls red?
We can imagine a situation where a person has seen, from birth, red instead of green, and green instead of red, but he learned to call red green, and green red, so even if that person sees the two colors completely reversed, he/she will still act normally. That person will drive through the red and green lights correctly, eat tomatoes and cabbage, and never realize that for him cabbage is actually red and tomatoes are green.
A scientist will say that colors are generated by certain frequencies and that it's possible to scientifically demonstrate the true nature of the colors we see. Still, even if that is possible, how will we ever be able to have access to the quality of other people's experiences when seeing colors? Philosophers have called the subjective quality of our experiences qualia, and some have struggled to prove that these qualia belong only to the consciousness of the perceiver and there is no scientific method to explain them away. We will never know, they say, what it is like for somebody else to see red, for example, we can only associate that experience with our own, but have no proof it is the same experience. Maybe that person sees a completely different tone of red, or a completely different color. And some numbers and frequencies won't really tell us a lot more about other people's experiences when seeing colors.
Let's imagine the following story, told by Frank Jackson (a philosopher that deals with problems like mind, consciousness). Mary is a famous color scientist. She knows all the possible scientific information about colors that somebody can know, plus other useful scientific information about laws of physics and chemistry, and so on. The only thing is that Mary has never seen colors in her life, she has been raised and lived in a completely black and white environment, up to the age she became a great scientist and probably very curious about colors, since they've been pumping so much information into her.
Finally, Mary is let out into the world. Now the question arises: will Mary be able to recognize colors like red only based on the scientific information she knows? Or is this only about her subjective experience of actually seeing a color, which doesn't have much to do with science, and learning to associate a name to it?
There are some funnier remakes of this story by famous British writer David Lodge (in his book Thinks). In one version of the story Mary falls in love with the scientist that was conducting the experiment on her. She is quite frustrated since she has been locked up in a black and white environment all her life, and quite alone, so her passion for the Professor is great. When he appears in the day of her release with a bright red rose in his hand, she gets so excited that she has some kind of stroke and dies, never answering the question of whether she recognized the red or not.
An even funnier version of the story, by the same author, is the following: Mary is finally released from the black and white environment and put in a room where she can see nobody, only hear the voices of the scientists that observe her from the next room. They are all very eager and anxious to see the problem of colors finally resolved, and they bring a red rose, or tomato (don't remember exactly what) into the room. Then they ask Mary if she can tell what color it is. Mary answers very sure of herself and even a little disappointed: It's red, of course I know how the color red looks like, every woman knows that!.
If you think that at the end, after hearing all these stories, you'll receive an answer to the problem Mary deals with, you're wrong. For now there is no definite answer, just interminable discussions on the topic. Nevertheless, the literature on the subject is quite interesting because it makes you a little more aware of the world around you. After reading about Mary and colors, you became conscious of the fact that there are many things we take for granted - like the ability to see and recognize colors, things that if you examine a little further might appear a lot more interesting and complicated.
Some final remarks: Mary does not exist. Please do not try to conduct this experiment at home!
