I suspect that achieving a clear mental picture of the sheer depth and breadth of the mind projection fallacy is a powerful mental tool. It's hard for me to state this in clearer terms, though, because I don't have a wide collection of good examples of the mind projection fallacy.
In a discussion yesterday, we all had trouble finding actual example of the mind projection fallacy. Overall, we had essentially two examples:
- Taste. People frequently confuse "I like this" and "this is good." (This really subsumes the attractiveness example.)
- Probability. This seems like a pretty good just-so-story for where frequentist probability comes from, as opposed to Bayesian probability.
Searching for "mind projection fallacy" on Less Wrong, I also see:
- Thinking that purpose is an inherent property of something, instead of it having been placed there by someone for some reason. (here)
- Mulling or arguing over definitions to solve object-level problems. (actually, most the ways words can be wrong sequence)
When did I say that color was a near-universal attribute? I said that there were near-universal attributes associated with certain parts of the visible light spectrum, not that colors themselves were universal. You are right though--for that claim to make sense colors also have to be assumed to be near-universal. And near-universal is probably too strong a term to describe the kind of weak color assocations I'm thinking of. Any studies that showing such effects (like red and yellow being associated with hunger) were probably Western-culture-based and should be taken with a grain of salt and a Big Mac.
I do know about the examples to the contrary that you mentioned. Color perception can vary from person to person, and naming conventions for colors are REALLY not universal. However, notice how color blindness and tetrachromacy are considered exceptions to the norm. These exceptions are largely the reason I specified near-universal for humans rather than simply universal for humans. And while different cultures divide their bleggs and rubes by different rules, it does not diminish their ability to perceive the variations of shades within the individual blegg and rube bins.
Unlike color-blindness. Colorblindness will diminish that ability.
Here's what indicated as much:
An "attribute for color" is not much different from showing that a name is an attribute for a color. Again, you were making the same mistake by thinking that a name for a color is an absolute. Definitely not the case, which you recognize:
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