How to Lose an Argument With a Bird
One of the things we have as humans is what you might call a designed view of the universe.
Light behaves the way it does because we are able to perceive it this way and that way, and such.
I pose a question: If we are able to see things for what they are, do our own perspectives change how the other person—or the other being—sees? Let's dive deep into this example.
A bird is able to see magnetic field lines (especially those of the Earth) because of an existing CRY4 receptor in its eyes. Humans do not possess that. Does that affect the way we see light and colors? Definitely. But does that inform how the universe works in that regard? I would say no.
Our designed view of the universe—for simplified reasons referenced as Logic—helps us navigate this vast space, hopefully for some uncovered reason we find ourselves. Quite ironic. Logic dictates that a statement can be either true or false. But is that really true? If the statement is true in some ways but false in others, does the logic hold? What state does this statement exist in when held against either side of the logic we've designed? Can we achieve real objectivity with this view of the universe?
Back to the bird case: If we had the CRY4 molecule, we could definitely perceive a different spectrum of light. That would potentially change the way we categorize light and its variant spectral values. We might have called mauve blue in some cases—like I always end up doing. The argument here is that the premise of green grass being green because of color is totally true, but also has a contradiction when perspectives are involved—like with our case-study bird's super ability. I could say my blue ball is blue, but a talking bird could say the ball isn't actually blue. So where do we derive our sense that a statement can only be true or false?
The concept of light itself is a dicey (you see what I did there, Einstein?) topic. It has its own quirks, and one of the conversations around it is its duality. Are we dealing with discrete quanta of light, or are we playing with waves of electromagnetic interaction? A physicist could step into the argument about light and claim there is an objective truth to why the ball could be blue or not, rendering one of the premises—either the human's or the talking bird's—false.
Thus, our logic holds… but does it really? Let's say, hypothetically, an alien species with its own cryptic language encounters our space, bringing unknown physics and a logic that doesn't follow our conventional design. Would that bring us back to the conversation of the blue ball case? Would our designed view of the universe come into question? Who, then, would be the "physicist" to debunk either of the truths presented in the case of humanity versus aliens?
So many questions—but here's the thing:
Logic is, by definition, a construct. And there's a valid argument here that nothing is really absolute—or, in the right terms, objective per subject. Human logic is a tool forged by evolution to solve human-scale problems. And there's a solid case that nothing's truly absolute, nothing's really objective when you peel it back. The universe just is. We're the ones drawing lines in the sand and calling them laws.