Humanities desk
< December 30	<< Nov \| December \| Jan >>	January 1 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Humanities Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

December 31

Anyone else go like Saddam?

A lot of dictators die of old age (in or out of power) or by assassination, Saddam's case strikes me as kind of unique. I know there have been many international tribunals before but has there been anything like Saddam's case or anything else unique? - Pyro19 02:20, 31 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know which unique aspect you're referring to, but the Nuremberg Trials and the International Military Tribunal for the Far East saw international court trials resulting in the execution of former World War II leaders. See also Category:Executed_presidents, though most of the people named on that list were executed after being tried in kangaroo courts or without any process at all. ---Sluzzelin 02:50, 31 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Saddam was tried and excuted by his own people. That doesn't happen to every dictator. - Pyro19 02:58, 31 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I would point out that not entirely everyone who lived under Saddams' rule – 'his people' – wanted him hanged, or even tried for that matter. So, 'his people' didn't try and execute him. Some of them did. Vranak 04:23, 31 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My point was simply that the court was Iraqi and the Iraqis ended his life. Besides, you're never going to get 100% on anything, something like 75% is good enough. - Pyro19 08:12, 31 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Saddam got 100% of the popular vote in his last election! --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 17:20, 31 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Saying that "his people" killed him is not about popular vote, it is about civic institutions. --24.147.86.187 14:08, 31 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, this is all true. But let's not forget -- without US involvement, Saddam would probably not have been hanged the other day. Vranak 17:14, 31 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

See Benito Mussolini and Nicolae Ceauşescu. User:Zoe|(talk) 04:28, 31 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't know about Ceauşescu. Interesting. - Pyro19 08:12, 31 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I suppose you might also take into account the case of Maximilian of Mexico, if you extend the definition of 'dictators' to include those in the royal category. However, this might be a little unfair to Maximilian who, though his rule had minority support, was not the stuff of which dictators are made. On a point of information Mussolini should really be placed in the category of assassinated leaders, rather than those whose death followed from some legal process, arbitrary or otherwise. In the Romanian context, the trial and execution of the wartime prime minister, Ion Antonescu, was much more formalised than Ceauşescu's rushed affair. In the minor category the case of Vidkun Quisling has some passing importance. I expect there are many other examples, both large and small. Clio the Muse 00:41, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Some commentators have also suggested Zulfikar Ali Bhutto of Pakistan as a precedent, though his guilt has been questioned. Newyorkbrad 00:55, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You could also add the Hungarian Prime Minister Imre Nagy, executed by the Soviets after they crushed the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, though that is rather a case of the good guy being executed by the bad guys. You could also look back through history as well for many examples. The history of the Roman Empire might be a fertile ground for such "executions of previous leaders" - in fact, not so long ago, the rule when conquering a territory was to execute/kill the previous leader, for obvious reasons. Carcharoth 02:38, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The final resting place of executed/dead dictators is an interesting topic as well. From reading the above articles, and others, I learnt the following:

Mussolini: "Mussolini's body was eventually taken down and later buried in an unmarked grave in a Milan cemetery until the 1950s, when his body was moved back to Predappio. It was stolen briefly in the late 1950s by neo-fascists, then again returned to Predappio. Here he was buried in a crypt (the only posthumous honor granted to Mussolini; his tomb is flanked by marble fasces and a large idealized marble bust of himself sits above the tomb.)"
Ceauşescu: "Officially, the Ceauşescu couple do not have a tomb; their corpses lie in Ghencea cemetery under the assumed names of two generals who had died at around the same time. According to Jurnalul Naţional,[5] requests were made by their daughter and supporters of their political views to move them to mausoleums or churches built for the purpose of housing their remains, but such requests were denied by the Romanian state."
Hitler: "To avoid any possibility of creating a potential shrine, the remains of Hitler and Braun were repeatedly moved, then secretly buried by SMERSH at their new headquarters in Magdeburg. In April 1970, when the facility was about to be turned over to the East German government, the remains were reportedly exhumed, thoroughly cremated, and the ashes finally dumped unceremoniously into the Elbe."
Maximilian: "Maximilian's body was embalmed and displayed in Mexico before being buried in the Imperial Crypt in Vienna, Austria, early the following year."
Bhutto: "His remains were taken to Larkana, where he was buried in a public ceremony near his family home." (not related to all this, but I also discovered Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq who died in a plane crash)
Saddam: "Hussein was buried at his birthplace of Al-Awja in Tikrit, Iraq."

See also: Category:Executed_royalty. The quintessential examples being Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI of France and Charles I of England. Carcharoth 02:59, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

How could I forget Nicholas II of Russia!

Nicholas II of Russia: "The bodies of Nicholas and his family, after being soaked in acid and burned, were long believed to have been disposed of down a mineshaft at a site called the Four Brothers. Initially, this was true — they had indeed been disposed of there on the night of July 17. The following morning — when rumors spread in Yekaterinburg regarding the disposal site — Yurovsky removed the bodies and concealed them elsewhere. When the vehicle carrying the bodies broke down on the way to the next chosen site, Yurovsky made new arrangements, and buried most of the bodies in a sealed and concealed pit on Koptyaki Road, a cart track (now abandoned) 12 miles north of Yekaterinburg. Their remains were later found in 1991 and reburied by the Russian government following a state funeral. [...] A ceremony of Christian Burial was held in 1998, and the bodies were laid to rest with State honors in a special chapel in the Peter and Paul Fortress in St. Petersburg."

That is rather a long period between death and reburial. 73 years. Anyone know of a longer period between death and exhumation and reburial? Carcharoth 03:07, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes-the Princes in the Tower, who disappeared in 1483, never to be seen alive again. In 1674, during the reign of Charles II, two skeleton's were discovered and assumed to be those of the missing royal children, though on no compelling evidence, it has to be said. Neverthless, they were duly buried as Edward V and Richard, duke of York, a re-interment that really does exceed the mere 73 years of the Romanovs! Clio the Muse 03:25, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

191 years! Wow. I found one of 101 year here. Wonder if we have Pierre de Brazza? Carcharoth 03:52, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Is it true that the Romanovs were identified by comparing mitochondrial DNA from Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh? User:Zoe|(talk) 21:31, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Zoe, only, I believe, for the Tsaritsa Alexandra. On this issue you might want to refer to an article by P. Gill et al, published in Nature Genetics 6, pp 130-5, February 1994. Clio the Muse 01:57, 2 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Clio. User:Zoe|(talk) 21:25, 2 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Humans and Monkeys?

Is it scientifically possible for a male human to get a female monkey pregnant? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 72.134.73.15 (talk) 03:40, 31 December 2006 (UTC).[reply]

Anything is possible. But if you mean through sexual intercourse with no aids, then I'm afraid the answer is no. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by The Dark Side (talk • contribs) 03:47, 31 December 2006 (UTC).[reply]

By definition, individuals of two different species cannot interbreed. A hybrid is produced when individuals of different species mate; the page qualifies this according to levels of taxonomy. Apparently there are hybrids that are nonviable or sterile; consult those pages for clarification. -- Deborahjay 06:33, 31 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

But not human-monkey hybrids. StuRat 14:59, 31 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ability to produce a sexually viable offspring through sexual reproduction is one way to define a species, but there are others. There are different species that do not usually reproduce but that are closely enough related that they can produce sexually viable offspring. For example, domestic dogs and wolves (both subspecies of 'canis lupus') and coyotes ('canis latrans'), can and do interbreed. However, to produce offspring, individuals must be from very closely related species, generally within the same genus. Since humans are the only species in their genus ('Homo'), it is unlikely that they could produce living offspring even with their closest relatives, the chimpanzees. Monkeys are much more distantly related to people than are the other apes, so it would be impossible for humans and monkeys to produce offspring. The reason is that their genes are too dissimilar. In sexual reproduction, the genes in the sperm and in the egg have to be similar enough to match up when they combine to form a zygote. If the genes are not similar enough, they will not be able to form a zygote that can grow into a fetus and be born. Marco polo 15:08, 31 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Humans and monkeys are pretty distantly related, so it's a clear case: no. OTOH, humans and chimps: who knows? There is a lack of experimental data, so it's anyone's guess. Oh, and the species definition is often interpreted to mean whether they normally interbreed. If two populations don't normally interbreed, this doesn't mean they couldn't interbreed if they tried really hard. Chl 21:54, 31 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Modern humans and Neanderthals, on the other hand, may very well have been able to interbreed. StuRat 00:15, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Also, perhaps see Humanzee? Chickenflicker---♣ 00:23, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Slightly related, see Serge Voronoff for experiments involving grafting monkey testicles onto human males. Carcharoth 03:13, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Why doesn't that article mention such bizarre experiments ? StuRat 16:04, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Huh? It does. 1st paragraph, last sentence: "In 1920, Voronoff, made headlines in France by grafting monkey testicles onto human males." Admittedly, Wikipedia's editors may be misleading people here, as what I read elsewhere said that he actually chopped up monkey testicles and stuck the chopped up tissue inside human testicles, thinking that this would act as some elixir of life or something. Let me see if I can find that article again. [......] Well, what do you know, there is a cocktail named after the process: The Monkey's Gland [1] - and "in 1920, Dr. Serge Voronoff began implanting slivers of freshly-vivisected monkey testicle into the scrota of elderly Frenchmen. Voronoff, who had studied the physiology of Middle-Eastern eunuchs, was convinced that testosterone was the key to a long and healthy life, and promoted his xenotransplantion procedure as a $5,000 fountain of youth.", plus this article is very comprehensive. I think I'll go and expand our Serge Voronoff article. Carcharoth 16:55, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oops, looks like I missed that. I see you've done an extensive rewrite. So what happened ? I would expect the transplanted material to be rejected, die, and rot, causing a massive infection. StuRat 18:26, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Rewrite not really started yet. I'm just picking at the edges. I've found three or four good sources, which I've temporarily put in as external links. Follow those to find out more. From what I remember, the inserted tissue was sliced thin enough for interstitial fluid to penetrate the inserted slivers of monkey testicle, and eventually the new and old tissue fuses together. Definitely not one to try at home! :-) Carcharoth 02:35, 2 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yea, it would take real balls for any doctor to try such an experiment today. StuRat 16:49, 2 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Getting back on topic, it looks like the versatile Serge Voronoff did try to get female monkeys pregnant with human foetuses. From one of those links already quoted above [2]: "...he also attempted an odd experiment, transplanting a woman's ovary in Nora, a female monkey. He then inseminated Nora with human sperm .... with no result. Inspired by this odd experiment, the French writer Félicien Champsaur wrote the novel Nora, la guenon devenue femme (Nora, the Monkey Turned Woman)--one of the unexpected results of Voronoff's notoriety." Well, who would have believed it? :-) I'd like to see a copy of that book, just to make it a bit more believable! Carcharoth 02:35, 2 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds like Dr. Voronoff was a Dr.Moreau wanna be. StuRat 21:32, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Conflicting information on U.S. currency

The article United States Note says:

United States Notes (like the later Federal Reserve Notes) were fiat currency, in that they were never redeemable explicitly for any precious metal. However, while the United States was on the gold standard, it was possible to redeem them for gold indirectly by exchanging them for a currency of a different obligation, for example a Gold Certificate. Whoever accepted the exchange was left with the less-trusted fiat currency. At the time United States Notes were issued, this was a serious concern, as the government sought to strike a balance between coin shortages and fiat currency.

The article Federal Reserve Note says:

Before 1971, the notes were "backed" by gold—i.e., the law provided that holders of Federal Reserve notes could exchange them on demand for a fixed amount of gold (though from 1934–1971 only foreign holders of the notes could exchange the notes on demand).

So which is right? Were Federal Reserve Notes redeemable for gold before 1934? Were United States Notes? -- Mwalcoff 05:30, 31 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It doesnt matter because people used money to buy food, not exchange for Gold. --Judged 10:06, 2 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The Bible as the word of God

Why do we hear fundamentalist Christians refer to the Bible as the perfect word of God? From my reading of it, it does not claim to be the word of God. It is written in the third person with quotes from God. So theoretically, while the Bible may reveal God's intentions as presented to His prophets, it is not, per se, the revelation itself. And since the Bible is written by human beings, doesn't that lead to the possibility of mistakes by those human chroniclers, even if divinely inspried? -- Mwalcoff 05:47, 31 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You might want to look at Criticism of the Bible. --Ķĩřβȳ ♥Ťįɱé Ø 08:56, 31 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

See also Biblical literalism and Biblical inerrancy. If Christians are willing to believe any part of Christianity that requires true belief (a God who tells us what (not) to do, a man who is also God), why shouldn't they go the whole way? Or conversely, if any of it can be doubted, why not all? --Lambiam ^Talk 09:02, 31 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Probably because they were told so. Worst of all, this answer is most likely right! The whole chain must have started a long, long time ago. I suppose people kept being told to just trust the bible and the messages of god it contained, and stop making questions about it, so the idea of infallibility could easily arise from that, passing on and getting stronger in each new generation. — Kieff 09:11, 31 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

But just to make sure, they made the pope infallible too. --Shantavira 11:10, 31 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As a former evangelical Christian, I can tell you that fundamentalists believe that the Bible was "inspired" by God - the individual writers who wrote the books were influenced by God to write exactly what he wanted them to write. The text I most remember being used to justify this belief was 2 Timothy 3:16, which in the King James transation says "All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness", which depends on the assumption that the word "scripture" means "the books in the Bible" and not "all writings". The American Standard Version renders the same passage as "Every scripture inspired of God [is] also profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction which is in righteousness", which isn't quite the same thing. --Nicknack009 11:34, 31 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

For the current Bible to be infallible, not only do the original authors need to be infallible, but so do those who selected which writings to accept as part of the Bible, those who did translations, the printers, etc. The very fact that there are translations with different meanings proves that not all translations are "divinely inspired". Genesis appears to have been written from several similar documents (one version of which was found in the Dead Sea Scrolls), which each had a slightly different account (promoting the self-interests of the authors), so that pretty much disproves the authors of those documents all being "divinely inspired". If they all disagree, then, at most one can be the "perfect word of God". StuRat 14:31, 31 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Why would the authors need to be infallible? Something can be right without being written by a perfect person. But in any case, different people have different ideas of the concept of biblical inerrancy and biblical inspiration. But what kind of mistakes? Would a person stand before God and say, "I didn't believe what the Bible said because it someone said that Moses didn't eat or drink for 40 days, which is medically impossible?" The person had better make sure that a) they are absolutely certain that it is, in fact, a mistake (difficult to prove in the case of past events), and b) supposing that it were a mistake, that it means that everything else that the Bible says must therefore also be wrong. But that would be throwing the baby out with the bathwater. BenC7 11:37, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Whenever asked by Christian proselytizers "which "translation" of the Bible have you read?" I answer them quite frankly. I don't rely on translations, I've read it in the orignal Hebrew of course. That's when they walk away. Loomis 08:33, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Even then there is the question of which of the original writings you've read (E document ? J document ? P document ?). Also, many of the books of the Bible were written in other languages, like Greek, Latin, and Aramaic. StuRat 16:01, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know why they would. It makes no difference. BenC7 11:39, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In the beginning was the the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Clio the Muse 14:22, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What I find really funny is how some preachers rave that their bible is the correct bible (most of the time they are talking about the King James bible) and that the others have somehow been manipulated or some crap like that (King-James-Only Movement). Flamarande 15:11, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The Word was God. Clio the Muse 15:32, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Re Flamarande's comment: rather like the (lavishly illustrated hardback copy of) the Bhagavad Gita I got given in the street many years ago called 'The Bhagavad Gita As It Is', with a preface explaining that all previous English versions had been translations, but this was the work As It Is! --ColinFine 00:34, 2 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Resolves of the Pennsylvania Assembly on the Stamp Act

I was asked to write a paper by my teacher on the different Acts. He has given us topics to write the paper on and I've got most of the paper done. One of the topics he has given is

September 21, 1765 -- Resolves of the Pennsylvania Assembly on the Stamp Act

I'm not quite sure what this means. It would be nice if you could help with some clarification and some resources on where I can find this information for this topic. Your help would be greatly appreciated!! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 63.224.245.74 (talk) 07:03, 31 December 2006 (UTC).[reply]

There's some basic information about what a stamp act is in the Wikipedia article Stamp Act - this includes something a bit more specific on the 1765 act. The text of the Pennsylvania Assembly's Resolves is at The Avalon Project. Hope this gives you something to start with. --Zeborah 08:38, 31 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You miht also have a look at :taxation without representation. - Nunh-huh 08:50, 31 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As you read the text of the ten Pennsylvania Resolves, think of ideas and phrases that you also find in the Declaration of Independence.--Wetman 06:24, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Do Objectivists support prison rehabilitation?

Does Objectivism support a stance of prison rehabilitation over punishment, or is the very act of rehab and equipping of new skills etc seen as promoting altruism and the needs of the weak (in this case, convicts) over rational self-interest?

Harwoof 09:29, 31 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know what an Objectivist would say, but one can easily find ways to say that rehab is not really altruism at all—it is not really done for the benefit of the criminal, but for the benefit of society (though it no doubt fails at that). The goal of prison rehab is to adjust the rational self-interest of the convict, so that it is in their rational self-interest to get a non-criminal occupation rather than a criminal one. In that sense it is a perfectly utilitarian method, not a humanitarian one at all. --24.147.86.187 14:04, 31 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent point. On the other hand, if my tax money (forcibly taken from me) is used to fund it, that's a problem. Instead, I might voluntarily contribute to a charity involved with rehab (for example, to satisfy a selfish need to feel good about myself, or in the belief that it will ultimately lead to reduced prison costs). And of course, if someone else is paying for it, that's great. —Keenan Pepper 16:55, 31 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"for the benefit of society" "if my tax money (forcibly taken from me) is used to fund it, that's a problem" You live in a society, yes? So how is it a problem if your tax money is taken to improve the society you live in, and reduce your chances of being a victim of crime? Simply taking the two points here, I fail to see the problem in your taxes being used to improve your life. 86.139.237.132 21:31, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Objectivists have no problem with thinking that the state should provide military defense, police, and basic infrastructure. I'm just saying that you could argue, if you wanted to, that prison rehabilitation could just as easily be considered a utilitarian function of police as could punishment (they both cost money. In fact, rehabilitation should cost less, in the long run, than long-term incarceration).

I should be honest here and say that I find objectivism to be a pretty bunk philosophy for just these reasons: it pretends to be based on "cold logic" and pure utilitarianism, etc., but it is incredibly easy to come up with mutually incompatible positions using just "cold logic" and I've never seen an objectivist who would really acknowledge that many of their "rational conclusions" come more from more mundane emotional values than it does their "cold logic". The prison question is a good example of that — it's perfectly conceivable to view either one as being the more utilitarian of the options, in the end I imagine that one's pre-held emotional views towards punishment and criminals is going to determine the point of view that one finds to be most reflective of "cold logic". --24.147.86.187 16:47, 2 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Rome travel guide

I'm travelling to Rome for the first time. Can anyone suggest a good travel book? I'm interested in historical places and museums as well as walks. And I want to be able to find places to eat in each area. I've seen couple of books but they usually list restaurants separately so I guess it would be difficult to find them. Thanks Mahanchian 15:31, 31 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've been quite happy with the Lonely Planet guide every time I was in Rome - their shopping and eating recommendations were generally spot-on (LP has a Rome city guide and a large Italy guide whose Rome part is obviosuly written by different authors than the city guide since their recommendatiosn differ quite a bit - I'd recommend getting both, but then I have a reputation for hoarding books by the dozen :P ). As for a cultural/historicla guide, the one by Filippo Coarelli is pretty much the standard work (I am not sure if it's available in English, but the original is in Italian and there's been a German translation ever since it was first published, I'd be surprised if there was no English edition available). Oh, and a sidenote: not exactly a guidebook, but a highly recommmended book before heading to Rome is "The Ancient City" by Peter Connolly - makes navigating the ruins of ancient Rome much more interesting. -- Ferkelparade π 15:45, 31 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Addendum: Coarelli's guide is indeed available in English, see ISBN 978-0520069618 -- Ferkelparade π 15:52, 31 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I would personally recommend The Rough Guide to Rome, which I used in my own perambulations around the city. There is also the larger Rough Guide to Italy, which has quite an extensive section on Rome. The Rough Guides cover much the same ground, more or less in the same format, as the Lonely Planet, though in my estimation anyway they tend to be much more matter of fact in their appraisals. Enjoy Rome: it's a wonderful experience! Clio the Muse 02:15, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The Michelin Green Guide to Rome is unbeatable.--Wetman 06:15, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

All roads may lead to Rome but I would not recommend going there. It's vast and has practically no trees. Vranak 06:30, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

When going abroad I always take the Rough Guide and the Blue Guide. The Rough Guides are good general guides (much, much better than Lonely Planet in my opinion), and are written in a very readable, amusing, irreverant and cynical style, while the Blue Guides are more scholarly and detailed guides for lovers of art, architecture, museums etc (they can be a bit dry, but they're still brilliant at what they do). The Blue Guides to cities are organised into walks around the architectural landmarks (I've spent days using them to see pretty much every church and other historic building in a number of European cities), although the brand new Rome edition has changed format and only has a few walks, sadly - you're better off getting the previous edition if you like to see everything. -- Necrothesp 11:44, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Colour-madness

While having a siesta today I encountered a strange question regarding colours. Do all the human beings see the same colour or they see different ones. As they are inculcated to identify certain colours by cetain names since they start using words to express feelings, how can one be sure that the 'blue'(certainly,I'm not referring to porns here) you are seeing is the same blue that I see or the 'green' you see is same as the 'green' I see. Cannot we be seeing different colours but out of the inculcation since infancy pronouncing it with the same word? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Aumtatva (talk • contribs) 16:19, 31 December 2006 (UTC).[reply]

At present, the answer to your question is now known. We know a lot about the mechanics of colour vision; we can tell whether two people are using the term 'blue' consistently; and the consistency of colour categories across different languages shows that people in different cultures divide up the colour spectrum in roughly the same way. But we don't know much about the mental processing of colour beyond the retina. So we don't know whether one person's perception of 'blue' is the same as another person's - indeed, we don't even have an objective way of detecting or measuring that perception. Our article on colour says "The exact nature of color perception ...and indeed the status of color as a feature of the perceived world or rather as a feature of our perception of the world, is a matter of complex and continuing philosophical dispute (see qualia)". Gandalf61 16:37, 31 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Have you heard the one about the man who claimed to be colorblind, was "cured" by a charlatan, and immediately began naming the colors of objects? An astute audience member pointed out that, if he had really been colorblind, he would not have been able to associate the color sensations with their names. —Keenan Pepper 16:59, 31 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This is dramatised in Act II Scene 1 of Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part 2. AndyJones 13:17, 2 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Short answer: Most humans see color the same, but many do not.

More detail: Psychovisual processing is a very interesting and somewhat complicated field. Much of the pioneering work in this space was performed in the early 20th century, and you might want to start your studies by understanding the CIE 1931 color space and tristimulus values. Most humans see color very similarly. This has been established through exhaustive testing, and has been of great importance to the television and film industry (who are responsible for making devices/substances that reproduce color in a way natural or pleasing to humans). However, many conditions cause various types of color blindness that prevent some people from perceiving some characteristics of color. Color blindness is very common, affecting approximately 1 in 13 men, and 1 in 200 women.

Also interesting: human psychovisual processing dramatically simplifies the information contained by the light actually entering the eye to a "flattened" color space: many different combinations of light will be perceived as the same color by humans. This is a result of humans using only three different types of cones in our retina, each with a specific color-matching function. (Our eyes evolved not to provide us with the most accurate vision, but the vision that would best help us run away from things that would eat us and toward things we could eat). There are several theoretical modifications one could make to the human eye that would improve our color processing, allowing us to see "new colors" or perceive differences between colors that other humans could not see. (But since humans have designed their environment for 3-cone eyes, such a change could be terribly confusing. Imagine looking at a page in a book in which the background color appeared only to you as a blotchy, dirty mess and the inks were an oily swirl of multiple colors.)

dpotter 19:08, 31 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If you pick up any elementary psychology textbook and turn to the chapter on perceptions, you'll find that some people, for example, see numbers as having colors or something like that. It'll explain it better than I, but basically in some people the senses are intertwined and I wouldn't be surprised if one of them hears a musical note when they see a color. Xiner (talk, email) 02:42, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What you're referring to, Xiner, is synaesthesia. As to whether everyone sees the same colour, it simply is not known and is a common problem mentioned in the philosophy of visual perception. There is simply no way of knowing whether what one person sees is the same as what another person sees, but the question is so tangled in philosophy that it's difficult even to formulate the question, let alone answer it. basically, the question is usually given thus: A light of a specific wavelength will appear blue to all people with normal colour vision. But how do we know that what one person perceives as "blue" would not be perceived by another person as "red" if the second person could perceive that colour through the first person's neural connections? And the answer is simply that we don't know, but what we do know about the visual process makes it very unlikely. We know, for example, that the same wavelengths affect the same type of retinal cells in the same way, which would seem to indicate that - at least at the level of neural impulses entering the optic nerve - the sensation of a light is identical to different viewers. Beyond that point, it becomes a little harder to tell, though there is no reason for suspecting that this is not the case throughout the visual system, and occam's razor suggests that - unless we have evidence to the contrary - it makes sense for us to assume this is the case. Grutness...wha? 07:20, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The question is closely related to the philosophical debate on the existence of qualia. One can take the Wittgensteinian position that the question is the result of a "language game" and has no intrinsic meaning. And even if it has a meaning, it would seem that the answer is unknowable. But perhaps an experiment could tell us something. There is a famous experiment in which the subjects wore "reversing spectacles" for extended periods, turning everything upside down. After sufficient time had elapsed, they experienced the world as normal again: what was up, even while being flipped by the apparatus they were wearing, was subjectively experienced as up. When the experiment was terminated and the spectacles were taken off, they now saw everything upside down and had to adjust again. So in the proposed experiment subject would wear colour-reversing glasses until they are fully adjusted (or it has been decided that no further progress towards adjustment is being made). If then things they see appear subjectively to them as they remember them from before (also for things they did not see at all during the adjustment phase), then I feel we can safely conclude that colour notions form a wired-in system for labelling perceptions, and that the brain at some point of visual processing translates a representation of the physical colour from the stimulation of S- M- and L-cones into an essentially symbolic one. In that case it is reasonable to conclude that the experience is the same for everyone. Should the appearance of the world remain unfamiliar to our subjects, then the colours are more or less perceived as is, and indeed the question is unanswerable.

While colours are a favourite example for this kind of musings, one can ask the same question for all things subjective: Do some people experience the same pain 1000× more intense than I do? Do they live more slowly, where one second for me lasts a century for them? Do they live backwards in time? Do some people experience left and right reversed? Or colours like I hear sounds, while to them sounds are like tastes, and tastes like colours? And so on... --Lambiam ^Talk 12:00, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Cor Blok

I'm trying to find collections of paintings by Cor Blok. Reproductions or prints would be good, as would any info as to where if anywhere such art is exhibited. Thanks.87.102.22.137 19:31, 31 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There are some online images here. --Lambiam ^Talk 20:17, 31 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Defunct UK magazine - nothing here and little elsewhere

In the interests of completeness I was going to add info to the Now page about a now defunct British news magazine called "Now!". From my recollection I believe that it ran from the mid 80s through to about 1992, but due to its name, and the number of rival publications of a similar name, finding info about it has proved impossible. Can anyone help? Jooler 22:48, 31 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There seems to be a current UK magazine with that name (without the exclamation mark): [3]. Are you sure it's not the same one ? StuRat 23:21, 31 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm positive it's not the same one. That is a gossip magazine. This was a News magazine along the lines of Time or Newsweek, but it was a British publication. My older brother used to get it, but the circulation wasn't high enough so it eventually folded.

Definitely not the same one - if memory serves this one was founded by James Goldsmith and was never seen without its exclamation mark. It was rather earlier than Jooler remembers, I think, more like the early 1980s. It gave rise to such parodies as the "Not! The Nine O'Clock News" annual. -- Arwel (talk) 00:24, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think I had that now you mention it! Jooler 00:42, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Goldsmith's mag started in 1979 [4], and folded within 2 years. --HJMG 09:36, 2 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]