Why We Read: "How Culture Conditions the Colours We See" by Umberto Eco

In this episode, we explore Umberto Eco's argument that semiotics offers a powerful explanation for how culture shapes perception. We see color, it seems, naturally and automatically.  You look, you recognize, and that's the end of it. We assume everyone else sees the world in exactly the same way we do--even if they label it differently.  Yet we know from the study of history and from anthropological evidence that different cultures organize perception and the visible spectrum of light in different ways. We consider Eco's argument for how our perception of color is conditioned by culture, and we explore the implications of this argument for a variety of other situations in which our lumping and sorting of the world changes the way we see. So tune in and get ready to focus!