Wednesday, January 26, 2011

The Mutant Theory

Hello!
And for my first post, a personal favorite of mine, the Mutant Theory. This philosophy is particularly interesting to me, because I am always curious about how others think and interpret the world. I even thought up a version of this theory on my own, long before I knew it was an actual philosophy question!

The Mutant Theory is simple enough, but may be tricky to explain. It goes something like this:
How do I know that you sense things the way I do?

In other words, look at something around you. Sniff the air. Wiggle your fingers a bit, and feel what they are touching. Identify those sensations: the bag is green, I can smell my soap, and this key board feels hard. 

 When you were learning what different words meant, and connecting them to your senses, you saw a shade and connected it to a word. However, if you were to place your eyes behind mine, you could see what I see but could think your own thoughts about it*, how can you be sure that the shade you consider to be green is what I consider to be green. How do you know that what you learned to call green is the color that I would call yellow?

To agree with this philosophy, you do not need to believe that everyone other than you senses things differently: you just need to agree that you can't know one way or another.

This philosophy is linked to a philosophy I plan to talk about soon, what I was introduced to as the Zombie Theory.

What do you think about this concept?

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