Who’s to say my world isn’t prettier?

A discussion with a patient:

"You want to know a secret?" he continued, leaning in with the confidence of a father about to tell his son the ways of the world. "I’m color blind. All these beautiful flowers… and I can’t be sure I’m even seeing their intended color."

I thought for a moment about what he had said. Intended color.

Many philosophers have struggled with the subjectivity of our individual experiences in life. Reality is no more concrete than our perception of it. Color blindness is perhaps the best example of how two people, gazing at the same photograph, can so differently filter the outside world through their disparate senses…

"A lot of people pity me because I don’t see the right colors," he told me. "That never bothered me much. First of all I don’t know what I’m missing, and second of all who’s to say my world isn’t prettier."

Via: The Examining Room of Dr Charles