Bluest blue

Language reflects how we see the world, so in acient times our colour blind ancestors were describing the sea as "wine-red". Similarly, while fruit and vegetables are common categories in Western cultures, they are not universally recognised. In Norwegian Pålegg reffers to any ingredient you can add in a sandwich.

This makes one wonder what else we are not seeing? What concepts will the language of the future describe? What will be the not yet seen colours and abstractions?

Social aspects of knowledge

"Values and norms are also formed within cultures and this affects the way people classify, e.g. fruit and vegetables are common categories in Western cultures, but are not universally recognised and Western language and culture is sometimes characterised as encouraging people to think in categories, whereas Eastern cultures are described as promoting thinking in terms of concepts."

 

"If it is accepted that knowledge is a social process, affected by issues of power and dominance, it follows that the powerful do not merely dominate how knowledge is represented or used, but what counts as knowledge at all. Political philosophers such as Foucault claim that what is considered true by any community at any time is dependant on a dominant discourse influenced by socio-political or cultural factors."

Assessing information taxonomies using epistemology and the sociology of science, Fran Alexander