Optical illusions creating color

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

She has the knowledge, for instance, that colours can be made by passing white light through a prism. Therefore she would not have access to prisms, or any other devices with which she could refract light. Since she also has the knowledge that Benham's top produces sensations of seeing colours, she would be prevented from making such a top.

But this means that the books she reads to gain a complete understanding of the world would have to be censored. This opens a new can of worms: Does physicalism hold that a complete understanding of a physical subject must be able to be conveyed using an arbitrarily restricted pedagogy?

It's a tenuous enough link from the epistemic aspects of the knowledge argument to the ontological ones, but now we're screwing with the epistemic aspects.

~~ Paul

 

[Michael C]

As far as i can see, the Knowledge Argument refutes nothing at all. Fact is that Benham's top has no particular relevance to it.

If you want to start another thread on the Knowledge Argument I'll be happy to participate, but only if words such as "ontological" and "epistemic" are not used

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

As far as i can see, the Knowledge Argument refutes nothing at all. Fact is that Benham's top has no particular relevance to it.

I agree it refutes nothing at all. We've had a half dozen threads on the KA over the years, so I don't think I'll start another one. There an active thread on it over here:

http://forums.philosophyforums.com/threads/what-does-mary-learn-30653.html

~~ Paul

 

[alfaniner]

Here is an optical illusion that creates the perception of color in a black and white pattern, Benham's disk:

http://www.michaelbach.de/ot/col_benham/index.html

Does anyone know of any other optical illusions that create color from black and white?

~~ Paul

Interestingly, being color-blind I perceive a value difference in the same areas as described (when reversing, the perception also reverses). It appears as though "some" color is there, although I can't name it, I can say what it is "not". Like, I know it's not blue, or yellow.