:whatisthematrix:Everyone is a cat when no one is watching.

Color is merely our representation of the wavelength of the light, which is a physical property of the individual photons that happened to hop skip and jump into our eyes.

Follow: (Energy = planck's constant * frequency) & (The speed of light = wavelength * frequency) (For vacuum / non-medium situations only. Things change a bit otherwise but the principle holds.)

When that wavelength gets too long (thus decreasing the frequency / energy) we enter the infrared range.

When that wavelength gets too short (thus increasing the frequency / energy) we enter the ultraviolet range.

Light has this property regardless of observation. Our "naming" of it is merely a classification system, similar to identifying different breeds of dog as different breeds. Before we came along, they were just dogs (not even that, they were just a thing that was there because even "dog" didn't exist, really). But the distinction existed regardless of outside perception or nomenclature.

Carrying the analogy further, if someone was told their entire life a chihuahua was a doberman, they'd be pretty confused at why people were scared of dobermans. Same with colors, as explained before. Genetic abnormalities can result in different perception of these colors through either sensory or neurological defects. Either a problem where the light is taken in, or where it's processed. Either way, still physically the same color we see, regardless of how it is perceived.

Re: Trees, sound waves also exist regardless of perception or nomenclature, but do require a medium for propagation.

Slight correction: Frequencies are measured in Hertz, or 1/s
These are the correct (roughly) wavelengths of visible electromagnetic radiation.

---------- Post added at 01:35 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:02 PM ----------

Look at spectral emissions as an example. Hydrogen atoms only absorb visible light of energies at the colors in that first picture, which excites electrons from particular energy levels to particular energy levels. Of course, if we looked at Hydrogen absorbing white light, we'd just see an amalgamation of those colors sent back at us, as those excited electrons eventually crash and drop back down to their previous energy state (and in doing so emit an equal energy photon). With our biological sensory equipment we can't discern those individual spectra, and generally just see the most overpowering of them. For plants as an example, this is often green, because they've evolved to absorb around that range (non-green) of the spectrum because of their receptors for photosynthesis specifically needing that energy to begin their electron transfer.

Black-body radiation. It's still emitting something.

---------- Post added at 01:47 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:35 PM ----------

Yes.

Synesthesia.

---------- Post added at 01:53 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:47 PM ----------

A hot pepper is hot because of capsaicin, and this is again an evolutionary adaptation. Mammals don't travel well. Birds do. Birds don't have receptors for capsaicin. Mammals do.

It's essentially a deterrent to aid in seed delivery. More to the point: It's a physical response, your nerves essentially do believe they are burning. It triggers (roughly) the same response as burning, the same endorphins are released. (This is actually why some heat-seekers go after them. The "masochistic high.") The only reason non-mammals don't respond specifically to this property is because they don't have the receptors for it. However this is a much less viable analogy as the burning property is bestowed by the receiver, rather than inherent to the "particle."

Re: Hands BRRR: Nerves again. They so wacky.

E: Edited for clarification / corrections / candy

Oh I know Synesthesia, I mean, other animals can see infrared or ultraviolet, would it be possible - I don't mean humanly possible, just possible in general - to "see", say, radio waves and/or hear a color?

Through photoreceptor implants and neurological triggering? Maybe. We can already "see" these wavelengths with computers, antennas, etc. The trick is not only transferring the signal to the brain, but making the brain effectively "color code" the signal for us into something we can perceive.

The problem is we still effectively know so very, very little about the brain.

And I tried so hard to use the correct terms in that post. :(

Aside from the word flub you were fine. You even had the correct wavelengths generally used to broadly describe the visible spectrum, which is miles ahead of the layman.

Are you ready? I'm laity.
 

Full disclosure: I googled "visible spectrum" to get the range from image results. I am as lay as a man with a B.S. can be. I even looked up "layman" to make sure that sentence made sense. It doesn't, but I got an awful pun out of it.

What I wonder is, will we see new colors, or will our brains perceive them as closest thing it can correlate like ultraviolet being a very deep purple or something.

It will be octarine, clearly.

That's part of what I was getting at. What sort of signal would we even send? Assuming we have control over sensory perception, we could accompany the ultraviolet spectrum with the scent of violets, and then just scale through it in a similar manner, but then how do you discern between the UV radiation and visible radiation? Context clues?

Perception and the ability to deliver that perception would be the biggest hurdles. We already have photoreceptors down pretty well.