Does color exist?
 

Let me explain an abstract thought I was having. I used to wonder does everyone see the same color. Does "green" look the same to me as it does to other people. Then I wanted to expand on this, does color exist at all? Is colored light bouncing off everything within space or is color just how our brains process wavelengths of light as they enter our retina. Wavelengths within our range of sight is called visible light but is that just human bias?

Is visible light "visible" or is it just as present as all other forms of electro-magnetic radiation and our brains just comprehend it as color?

I introduce you to Colorimetry, AKA the science of color.

So the simple fact that we can study it, and perform experiments with it, means it exists.

Anyway, from that site, an average human can identify over 16 million different colors, so I imagine most of the population can see something, say a banana, and can say "It's yellow.", and a good number of folks can say it's the same shade of yellow, given even and steady lighting.

Granted, you have colorblind people, but that's more the result of genetics getting involved, and I imagine that's a whole other kettle of fish.

If people are going to insist time exists, we might as well consider our own perception of light bouncing off stuff as a thing that exists. It's measurable and all that.

Now, you need eyes to see it. Well, I need special equipment to see UV light. Does it exist? Yes. I need special equipment like an electron microscope to see a virus. Does it exist? Yes.

So even assuming there were no animals in the entire universe with eyes to see it, one could presume that color exists.

Yes. We're the ones making up the words, so of course they're biased to the human perspective. Biased doesn't mean "wrong" or "unusable." These aren't contradictory statements. Yes visible light is visible, as "visible" refers to things sensed by our eyes, and the thing our eyes are made to sense is a certain band of electromagnetic frequencies which we call "visible light" when we're speaking or typing in English. Also, yes your brain turns those sensations into usable perceptions which we call "color" and "light," but that last sentence was run-on enough as it was so I thought I'd start a new one to cover the last clause of your sentence that I'm essentially just expanding.

I mean, maybe we spend more time thinking about electromagnetic waves with frequencies between 400nm and 700nm, but that would be (imho) because we have specialized sensors for them, whereas other wavelengths are only perceived as heat or pain along with so many other stimuli (or not sensed at all). That doesn't make them any more real or less real than other frequencies.

I'm not going to get into how "It's just in your head" doesn't make something unreal, just difficult to measure.

Qualia might interest you but that's a lot of words so I'd just read phil_'s post and thank someone smart replied.

Yes these wavelengths of light exist, but in the objective reality outside human perception does it manifest as a color.

Let me use a very specific comparison to explain. A hot pepper is not in fact hot, it merely triggers the sensation of heat on the tongue. Likewise having your hands so cold they begin to burn. The sensation of "hot" is artificial, a perception of a physical property

Its more akin to the question, if a tree falls in the forest with no one around it does it make a sound? Obviously it creates vibrations in the air, but is that sound or is sound the interpretation of these vibrations.

I question my sanity about thinking the following or posting it for all to see. ^^;
 

There is something that does boggle my mind at times...

Premise 1: A sun's ray contains pretty much a full spectrum of colors (even if we humans can't detect them all naturally). So it pretty much has a rainbow of colors.
Premise 2: Humans (and certain animals presumably) cannot see color of objects unless light reflects onto the object and onto our retina.
Premise 3: In regards to most objects, the color white is the reflection of all the colors, and black is the absorption of all the colors with the other colors falling within the two extremes.

Mindscrew Conclusion 1: Doesn't that technically mean that regarding the actual physical properties of any object, that they are simultaneously multiple hues of colors and that the "color" we refer to is actually the make-up of all the colors that got reflected to us. So hypothetically, an apple which we think is red is actually NOT actually red in its physical layout, but just what we call it because the reflected combination of hues that is rejected/reflected by the object comes to our eyes and we call it the color Red because that is what we perceive (and because it is easier than saying "This object possesses X degree of red, Y degree of blue and Z degree of green")?
(The above Red/Blue/Green assumes the general computer pixel-color logic of mixing hues)

Separate Question: So if a black object absorbs all colors, why can I distinctively see a black object? Is it just that I can see its absence in contrast to all the other non-black objects? Is the shade of black we see in most objects an imperfect representation of the color black that does not in fact absorb all colors?

I know my thoughts probably sound retarded, but it has been nagging me in my head sometimes and while I assume I know the basics of what is taught to me in school, I don't claim to be an expert on the subject past the very preliminary facts...

No black is actually completely black unless you're like, looking at dark matter or some bizarre magical nano material that literally doesn't let photons escape.

No, I'm going to make the dumbest question:

Our eyes detect light in a certain range and our ears detect noise in a certain range. Of course, they're orders of magnitude apart, but would it be somehow possible to HEAR light and SEE sound?

Nope, because of photons, which is what makes up light.

To a degree but there is also another aspect of how our brains work. We can tell something is there because we cant see it. The human eye isn't all that powerful, but our brains can process the continual stream of information into very accurate approximations. For example, there are no color receptors for your peripheral vision. All that color is based on memory and context to color it in inside your head.
they sense different things, sight is measurement of a type of radiation while hearing measures compression waves through a medium

[edit] something else. Probably the main reason we see visual light is because physical objects reflect it but air and water merely diffuse it. So swimming or walking we can filter out objects easily.

Something I read on xkcd suggested that person A may in fact not see the same color yellow as person B, depending on how much they have trained to recognize and name different shades of color. The naming part may be essential. Like the old Greeks whose name for the color of the sky was "bronze" maybe have perceived the sky as a variety of yellowish brown shades of the kind Iggy hates.

Now, I don't know much about the facts, but I can appreciate the conceptual dilemma of if things that exist only as fictional constructs in the human mind can be said to exist or not. I would say yes, even if it's a complete fiction, it is something other than nothing. Even the Twilight saga is something that exists as an observable reality. I'm not referring here to the mere physical reality of the trashy novels, but the story, created by the diseased mind of Stephanie Meyer and passed to innocent teenage girls minds like a virus, exists as a measurable thing that affects things in the physical world. This asinine quasi-misogynistic turd can and has changed lives, and not for the better.

So if the color blue is a fiction imposed on our brains by the limitations of our sensory organs, which apparently is unlikely, but if it is, does that mean it serves no practical purpose outside of human perceptions and psychology? Then what about Picasso? I think I've heard of dogs being affected by his paintings. Surely even color blind people can get something out of those paintings he made inspired by the color blue. Probably space aliens without eyes could get something out of them if they had radar senses keen enough to read the bumps on the canvas. This to me speaks of the implicit reality of colors, although it also says something of the ability of humans to take things from inside our head and make them real.

Someone has been dipping into the special brownies, I see.

We only do drunk threads here. Take your stoned threads somewhere else.

I also strained my eyes trying to tell if stuff in my periphery was black and white.
 

I kind of hope that's what was going on with this thread, and I was glad to see a post like phil_'s in response.



In fairness to Aero, despite the awful line of thought/wording used, I suspect Mumu's link (Qualia) is the actual topic, as evidenced by his next post that brought in the sound element. And at that point it's not about it "existing" -- as clearly it does -- but in how its perception and detection might differ among humans or other beings across the universe.

Regardless, we can go to phil's post again -- the fact that we are naturally equipped to detect certain things within the universe and have labeled these things certain names doesn't negate their existence, and arguing that sound is just "the interpretation of those vibrations" or whether or not "visible light" is truly the only part of light that's visible is a fruitless endeavour serving to merely point out that we label the stuff we perceive with a bias towards that perspective.

This is why people claiming that drugs boost creativity irks me. I create ideas and contemplate the very nature of reality through human perception just on the drive home. Either they are fooling themselves into thinking it boosts their mental state or are pathetically uncreative if after such a boost they are still at what I can think up when laying in bed.
While I have spent much time trying to expand my vocabulary to accurately articulate my intent doesn't mean it always works. One of my favorite quotes "its difficult to describe the inner workings of the universe using a form of communication created to tell each other where the best fruit is"

No, you see the joke here is you're sober but asking a question cookie cutter movie potheads talk about. For a lauded contemplating the very nature of reality idea this very thread reeks of insipid creativity.

So, before you call me out specifically for it do us all a fucking favor and pull something more interesting from your ass.

Oh no that was my point, I am not a good writer. My skills are lackluster. As you said its simplistic and uncreative and also the kind of thing one would expect from someone thats high. If its something that would cross my mind clearly its nothing to be proud of.

http://i.imgur.com/cU5ah8H.jpg

When did Aero become a cat?

Holy shit it's a dragon.

: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.