How Would You Describe Green To A Blind Person?

[inksplotter]

Apart from being the colour of trees, leaves and grass? Something they could imagine?

[Elina]

Bazile, I understand where your coming from. May be should ask woodelfs opinion.

[heathfield]

I remember a TV programme years ago testing the ability of blind-from-birth people being able to differentiate colours by touch. They were intoduced to identical fabric dyed in different colours. After some practise, they could tell one colour from another by there being something about the 'feel'. Even though they experienced nothing visually, they could eventually give a name to the colour of many different items.

[inksplotter]

Why do people always like the taste of the blue Smarties?

[Arksided]

It is impossible to answer if they've never had any experience of Colour. A bit like having no sense of smell (Like my brother).

I think that the blue Smarties had 'white chocolate' inside them.

[pixie373]

I don't think you could imagine any of the senses if you lacked them from birth. Those of you with five senses - it is hard to picture an extra one. What would it be?

[hc4361]

A lot of people believe they have the third eye, or sixth sense, pixie

[pixie373]

Telepathy? That isn't a sense, but forgetting that- if you had to make up another one, what would it be? It is very hard to picture senses that you have no experience of.

[hc4361]

Most people have a sense outside of the recognised five senses, I think.

We can walk in to a room and sense that the person sitting on the sofa is in a foul mood without seeing their face or hearing them speak. It is just an atmosphere that we feel without using the sense of touch.

We often get the sense that we are being stared at by somebody behind us only to turn round and catch a stranger staring.

We get a feeling of apprehension where the hair on our arms stands up for no reason.

I have never jumped from a great height but often feel the sensation of falling when I dream.

[hc4361]

I would like a form of sonar that bats have so I don't bump in to things in the dark.
I would also like an internal GPS so I can always find my way home.

[pixie373]

Yes- there are more than five senses- my son has sensory processing disorder and language and vestibular are included. What I'm trying to say is- if you made one up that doesn't exist- how would you be able to describe it? I just think it's impossible to imagine a sense you don't have. Most of what you've described do come under other senses- someone staring at you is subconscious peripheral vision.

[pixie373]

...should have added, emotions are sensory, too.

[inksplotter]

Aren't emotions due to the hormonal system or the brain rather than the nervous system, which tends to govern the senses?

[pixie373]

They are classed as sensory, inksplotter, although I'm sure hormones etc have a part to play. They are literally "feelings" though.

[jno]

how would you describe it to a sighted person? If you couldn't mention anything that actually was that colour?

[Zeuhl]

Green is the colour of freshly mown grass

[Tilly2]

I used to use this idea as a creative writing exercise in my English classes.

[Tilly2]

........with the stipulation that they had to use the other senses to describe the colour.

[inksplotter]

(Patiently...) Ziehi, maybe reading the question? Okay, grass is green, but that's an exception I've put into the question.

[Zeuhl]

/Okay, grass is green, but that's an exception I've put into the question./

inksplotter: why is that an exception?

(patiently) i didn't refer to grass - i referred to newly mown grass.

blind people will experience a very profound olfactory experience of mown grass (as most of us do) which they can transpose into their own internal model of what green looks like.