What's the word for something that defies explanation - Something that has to be experienced to be understood? Like color; There's no good way to explain colors to someone that's been blind since birth. Color is a ________.

Or, another example from the movie Blast From the Past, is baseball. Christopher Walken plays the father of Brendan Fraser, and he raises Fraser in a fallout shelter for 30 years following a false alarm about nuclear winter during the cold war. Walken tries to explain baseball to Fraser, to no avail, for the full 30 years. As soon as Fraser gets out of the shelter and goes to a baseball game, it all "clicks" instantly and he says "you just have to see it!"

Or another of my personal examples, describing the taste of anything that doesn't taste like chicken. The taste of a durian fruit is a _________.

Or describing music to someone whose been deaf since birth.

So far abstract is the closest word, but that's not a 100% fit because these things are quantifiable, once you experience them.

I've searched and asked and have almost come to the conclusion that there isn't a word in English that fits the bill. So, some of you speakers of other languages, do you have a word for this?

 

I have three for your consideration:

1. unfathomable
2. incomprehensible
3. inscrutable

 

A mystery?

 

What's the word for something that defies explanation

Your usage examples call for a noun, thus by your definition (above) the answer is "inexplicability," which is a noun back-formed from the adjective, "inexplicable." There are some other noun choices, such as "inexplainable," "inexplicableness," and "inexplainability," but I like the sound of, "Wow, that is an inexplicabilty." Try that on your friends.

 

Your usage examples call for a noun, thus by your definition (above) the answer is "inexplicability," which is a noun back-formed from the adjective, "inexplicable."

Well, that's the best one yet. It conveys the fact that the subject cannot be explained, but that's where it stops. It does not convey that the subject is impossible to explain but still quantifiable. Inexplicability seems to me, to be synonymous with mystery, and the word I am looking for is not synonymous with mystery. I thank you for your submission, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to be pedantic about this.

Edit:
"His presence off the coast of Florida after passing through the Bermuda Triangle was an inexplicability"
"His presence off the coast of Florida after passing through the Bermuda Triangle was a mystery"

There's no mystery about the colors; red is red and blue is blue. Anybody who has seen the colors can agree.

 

His presence off the coast of Florida after passing through the Bermuda Triangle was inexplicable ???

Alternatively a colour may be indescribable

 

An unworldliness?
A snark?

 

an existential ineffability?

I'm convinced there must be some word in some language that captures the whole idea in one noun.

EDIT: I'm stuck on ineffable quale.

 

It looks like this would fit as qualia:

qua·li·a
noun PHILOSOPHY
plural noun: qualia
1.
the internal and subjective component of sense perceptions, arising from stimulation of the senses by phenomena.

 

A conundrum?

 

Phenomenon
.

 

A posteriori knowledge.

 

It depends on what a persons condition ,do they know what black is... that's a

question. Close your eyes ,you can see different colors..you can see light.

So do you know anyone that just see black ,with no out lines. Have them

close there eyes tight and describe what they say.

 

I closed my eyes tight ,I saw Hemingway ,and a six digit paw of a cat.

 

Color is a soft touch.

 

Empiricism perhaps.

 

Well, obviously this conundrum is an enigma! E

 

Strantor (stran-tor): n - a concept that can only be comprehended after experiencing the concept. As in, sensory experiences, emotions, altered realities, complicated rules or instructions,...

E.g.:
(1) There are so many instructions in baseball that it is a strantor for many people. I finally understood most of it after I watched a few games.

 

inenarrable

adjective

\ˌi-ni-ˈna-rə-bəl\

—incapable of being narrated

Examples of INENARRABLE


<the filmmaker's decision to depict the essentially inenarrable phenomenon called love by means of a series of lush metaphors>



Origin of INENARRABLE

Middle English, from Latin inenarrabilis, from in- + enarrare to explain in detail, from e- + narrare to narrate
First Known Use: 15th century

 

Strantor (stran-tor): n - a concept that can only be comprehended after experiencing the concept. As in, sensory experiences, emotions, altered realities, complicated rules or instructions,...

E.g.:
(1) There are so many instructions in baseball that it is a strantor for many people. I finally understood most of it after I watched a few games.

We have a winner!!!