Is Your Blue Different Than Everybody Else’s? – A Thought Experiment by Ludwig Wittgenstein
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We know that blue things are blue, painful things are painful, and happy things are happy. But what do these things look and feel like for other people? And can we ever know for sure? In this video, we reference and interpret Ludwig Wittgenstein’s beetle in a box ‘thought experiment’ in an attempt to explore these questions.
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Recommended readings associated with this topic:
Philosophical Investigations by Ludwig Wittgenstein: https://amzn.to/34mqaTy
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus by Ludwig Wittgenstein: https://amzn.to/2OQ6fpp
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@mr.unkown7427
August 30, 2025 at 11:42 pm
I am damn sure that the way I normally see life and feel life
Isn't how everyone else see and feel their lives .
It must be totally different because in some situations
, some unreal and weird moments that barely last a second
Even I get to feel life as totally different as if it's not Real,
Than what i defaultly and normally feel life as .
@bodegabonsai7069
August 30, 2025 at 11:42 pm
Ringo
@gunner5173
August 30, 2025 at 11:42 pm
This is a misconception of the thought experiment. The trap that this interpretation of Wittgenstein’s work falls into is the very confusion that his technique of analysis is aiming to avoid. Philosophical questions: ‘How can we know that other people have minds? By looking inside their heads?’ are already full of confusion – When do we ever puzzle over the problem, ‘other minds’? “When doing philosophy.” “Language sets everyone the same traps. It is an immense network of well kept wrong turnings.”
@CaptMang
August 30, 2025 at 11:42 pm
I don't think that's what Wittgenstein was saying. If you look at the later Wittgenstein, he directly refutes everything you say in the last 30 seconds of the video. Meaning IS use. He's refuting things like qualia and private inner worlds (as if they were actually a real thing).
@zyme5998
August 30, 2025 at 11:42 pm
I'll show you my beetle if you show me yours… J/K, but seriously this video title is the #1 most stereotypical stoner question in the world, I don't think I've ever seen anyone smoking weed who didn't come up with this question all on their own…
@Ffkslawlnkn
August 30, 2025 at 11:42 pm
It is impressive how to misunderstood wittgenstein exactly 180°. What you are claiming is precisely what he is arguing against. Please don't make videos based on wikipedia articles.
@Waterfront975
August 30, 2025 at 11:42 pm
When it comes to color it is probably not so likely that we perceive them much different than other people do, however I do think that people see some differences in color depending on their upbringing, as living in a rainforest perhaps, where the leaves never fall during the winter. They might feel that green is a more constant color a feeling of constancy, while we might think that it is a more fleeting aspect of life, since the leaves and grass will turn grey at winter. I think the color itself is the combined experience of everything that you have experienced as being green.
@GVanArsdale
August 30, 2025 at 11:42 pm
I've heard this called the explanatory gap. It is a real conundrum.
@Derfman9303
August 30, 2025 at 11:42 pm
“So no officer, I will not consent to a breathalyzer test”
@mcgregorhumanities
August 30, 2025 at 11:42 pm
I remember the channel Vsauce talking about this
@naimacherqi5144
August 30, 2025 at 11:42 pm
Were experiencing color the same as all of us but 'we can't prove it'
@TadBaterbomb
August 30, 2025 at 11:42 pm
I call it objective subjectivity, it’s the one unarguable objective thing imo
@navneettigga6751
August 30, 2025 at 11:42 pm
Wow……
@Dystisis
August 30, 2025 at 11:42 pm
You misrepresent Wittgenstein badly here, claiming that his point is the opposite of what it actually was. Wittgenstein's point is that the word "beetle", if everyone simply used it to mean what's inside their private box (which may be nothing, or differ for everyone), would have no meaning at all. It couldn't be used in any way in the language, since there would be no common criteria for how it is used.
So, language depends on publicly perceivable differences. That is why Wittgenstein held that subjectively tinged words like "pain", "red", "happiness", etc. must have publicly perceivable criteria for use. It makes no sense for a person sitting ordinarily, in a peaceful situation without a history of emotional trauma, looking happy, to suddenly say "I am in immense pain". According to Wittgenstein, that utterance would be nonsensical. The meaning of psychological vocabulary is tied to discernible behavior, appearances, dispositions, situations, etc.
A couple examples for evidence, from Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations:
261. What reason have we for calling “S” the sign for a sensation?
For “sensation” is a word of our common language, which is not a
language intelligible only to me. So the use of this word stands in need
of a justification which everybody understands.
580. An ‘inner process’ stands in need of outward criteria.
@ThatsMrPencilneck2U
August 30, 2025 at 11:42 pm
This question occurred to me when I was in the 6th Grade. Many years later, it occurred to me that in the great scheme of living matter on this planet, I am not appreciatively different from other human beings and that the uniqueness of my own perception only amounts to hubris.
@ahmadmuhaimin2852
August 30, 2025 at 11:42 pm
if only we could just transfer what's inside our head to another, it'd be utopian paradise, no more misunderstanding, no more conflict
@mckennalien5444
August 30, 2025 at 11:42 pm
if my colors are different than everyone else’s i’ll have you all know mine are absolutely astronomical and is definitely the best combination
@beatleme2
August 30, 2025 at 11:42 pm
Hence, my name, Beetle me 2 or also, to like-minded with others
@gerhitchman
August 30, 2025 at 11:42 pm
"We can never know what it feels like to be anyone other than our own self."
This is exactly the type of philosophy that W was actually arguing against. If you can't doubt that you're in pain, then you can't know it either. So we don't "know" that we feel the sensations we do. We just feel them. To W sensations are just not the types of things that one can know.
@rmcgraw7943
August 30, 2025 at 11:42 pm
I can find 1000s of references like this. Fact is, we live via sensory information and human constructs, not reality, and this is just part of our fated existence as such.
@rmcgraw7943
August 30, 2025 at 11:42 pm
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse. – T. S. Eliot
@rmcgraw7943
August 30, 2025 at 11:42 pm
This is a very common theme in the arts.
@rmcgraw7943
August 30, 2025 at 11:42 pm
Words
Axes
After whose stroke the wood rings,
And the echoes!
Echoes traveling
Off from the center like horses.
The sap
Wells like tears, like the
Water striving
To re-establish its mirror
Over the rock
That drops and turns,
A white skull,
Eaten by weedy greens.
Years later I
Encounter them on the road-
Words dry and riderless,
The indefatigable hoof-taps.
While
From the bottom of the pool, fixed stars
Govern a life.
-Sylvia Plath
@rmcgraw7943
August 30, 2025 at 11:42 pm
Wittgenstein was the only analytical philosopher to create 2 philosophies, each contradicting each other, and both equally valid. He truly knew the medium in which he worked. I think both books are good and worth reading, again even, but unless you like very hard and dry analytical books, you won’t like them. That is, this isn’t John Grisham. LOL
@rmcgraw7943
August 30, 2025 at 11:42 pm
“1* The world is all that is the case. …7 What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence. “ – this is from his first book, the Tractatus, not Investigations, but both are good books.
@rmcgraw7943
August 30, 2025 at 11:42 pm
It’s impossible to say exactly what I mean.
@rmcgraw7943
August 30, 2025 at 11:42 pm
obstensive definition
Comments are closed.