I found this account to be the most interesting because my brother is colorblind. He does not see gray or black like Mr. I does but he does not see colors in the full effect like people who aren’t colorblind. He would and still constantly asks me about certain colors, “Hey, is this red? Is this purple or blue?” things like that. I recently learned that a regular customer where I work is colorblind too. He tells me that certain things he knows are a certain color because he has learned they are. He gave me an example: He knows a stop sign is red because he’s learned that a top sign is red but he can’t actually see it, the same thing with ketchup, and the red traffic light. Most of the time people are just born colorblind, but in this case Mr. I became colorblind because of an accident that affected his brain. “Total colorblindness cause by brain damage, co-called cerebral achromatopsia… it can reveal to us the mechanisms of neural construction-specifically, here, how the brain “sees: (or makes) color.” (4)

I think the situation in itself is interesting because Mr. I also had very sharp vision as a result of the accident. It goes to show how strange the brain works. I’ve heard that when a person loses one of their senses, some other sense becomes heightened. In this case, Mr. I did not become blind, but his vision was affected in various ways. Reading Mr. I’s description of what it was like to lose color was very depressing, everything in life becomes so much more restrictive and less enjoyable. He says he knows what certain colors are but he just can’t see them, he can’t even imagine in color. This kind of reminds me of The Wizard of OZ and Pleasantville because both films are in black and white and you don’t really know what the surroundings are until you actually see the rest in color. This accident stripped Mr. I of his perception and his qualia had changed. His experiences now were even more different than his original ones.

This situation also brings up so many questions about the brain and how the brain sees and creates color. In terms of qualia, everyone has a different experience of what colors they see. Some people who are not colorblind might even differ on what kind of color red they are seeing. It is even more fascinating to think about what a person who’s life is void of color, or cannot distinguish certain colors, and what they see.