The speaker, VSauce Michael, discusses the concept of color perception and the inability to truly understand another person's internal experiences, a concept known as "qualia." He explains that color is created in our brains, converting a certain range of the electromagnetic spectrum into color, and that we can measure the wavelength of radiation but not the experience of a color inside someone else's mind.
He notes that even though we all see colors, the perception of color can differ. For example, color blindness is a condition where individuals can't perceive certain colors. However, he also mentions that there might be ways of seeing that cause colors to look differently in different people's minds without altering their performances on any tests.
The speaker then introduces the concept of "qualia," ineffable raw feelings that we can't connect to physical phenomena, leading to the "explanatory gap." He mentions the case of an alien from a faraway solar system who could never feel pain, even though he could learn every single cell and pathway involved in the feeling of pain.
He also talks about Tommy Edison, a blind man who describes what being blind is like and the difficulty he experiences in understanding the concept of colors. Some philosophers like Daniel Dennett argue that qualia may be private and ineffable due to a failure of our language, not because they are necessarily always going to be impossible to share.
The speaker concludes by emphasizing the importance of curiosity and the inability to know for sure about many things, even though we can use tools, problem-solve, communicate, cooperate, exhibit curiosity, plan for the future, and even use language to communicate with animals. He ends with a call to stay human, stay curious, and let the world know about our existence.
1. The speaker is discussing the concept of color as an illusion created inside our heads.
2. Our brains convert a certain range of the electromagnetic spectrum into color.
3. The speaker can measure the wavelength of radiation, but cannot measure or observe the experience of a color inside our minds.
4. The speaker is discussing the concept of "qualia" or raw feelings, which are ineffable and cannot be shared.
5. The speaker mentions Tommy Edison, a blind person who has a YouTube channel where he describes what being blind is like.
6. The speaker discusses the concept of the "explanatory gap", which is our inability to connect physical phenomena to these raw feelings.
7. The speaker mentions that there may be an alien race that communicates in a language that causes colors to appear in your brain without your retina having to be involved at all.
8. The speaker discusses the concept of "qualia" again, and argues that we have no way of knowing if my red is the same as your red.
9. The speaker is frustrated that we have no way of knowing if my red is the same as your red, but also acknowledges that it's quite incredible that we can ask about these internal experiences.
10. The speaker discusses the concept of a "theory of mind", and how it suggests that animals lack a theory of mind, meaning they don't understand that other people have separate minds with knowledge access to information that they might not have.
11. The speaker mentions the famous "Sally Anne Test", which is used to test when a human child first develops a theory of mind.
12. The speaker concludes by reminding us to stay curious and let the entire world know that we are.