UPSB v3
Serious Discussion / Do you see what I see?
The thought of colour
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Date: Sun, Feb 22 2009 18:16:10
I do a lot of thinking and this is one of my thoughts...
I've always thought, are the colours that you see the same colours someone else sees? What you perceive as blue, can it be someone else's purple? Maybe that's the way it is and we've been so used to what we see that there's nothing wrong with it.
For example, person [a] might see a wall painted orange. Person [b] and [c] will also say it's orange. However, if [a] could see from [b] or [c]'s eyes [a] might see a green or yellow. Do you see how [b] and [c] have grown accustomed to their colours and how they will always know orange to be green or yellow in [a]'s eyes?
Maybe if one person had one eye of their own and the corresponding brain, and an eye of another's with their corresponding brain would be know colours are universally the same in everyone's eyes.
You could argue this thought, but how do you know for sure? How?
It's quite a thinker...
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Date: Sun, Feb 22 2009 18:33:47
Only happens if you're color deficient.
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Date: Sun, Feb 22 2009 18:37:45
We're all color blind, no one sees exactly the same things. Similar but not exactly :> .
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Date: Sun, Feb 22 2009 18:46:55
I talked about this with my bio teacher.... We ended up coming up with... since we can't figure out what each person sees because we can never see the world in another's eyes, we give up trying to figure it out =]
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Date: Mon, Feb 23 2009 03:32:06
i've actually thought about this too...
along with: what if you could go back in time to the time when you were four, but you keep your memories -
Date: Mon, Feb 23 2009 03:40:59
I have thought about this a couple times in the past. I always questioned myself, I may see this color as orange, but someone else might see this color as blue, but his/her sight of blue is named orange.
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Date: Mon, Feb 23 2009 03:45:58
I've thought of the same thing. But, as JC said, we can't see with another persons eyes so I just drop it.
It's an interesting subject though. -
Date: Mon, Feb 23 2009 04:48:22
thats always an interesting thought because what if
when ppl say their favourite color is blue, it's really my green, and it's someone else's red, etc...
which means basically everybody like the same color, but call it different name... -
Date: Mon, Feb 23 2009 04:50:00
same thing applies to all the other senses, like sound and taste
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Date: Mon, Feb 23 2009 05:34:10
why would someone call "blue" a "red"
i dont get it -
Date: Mon, Feb 23 2009 05:44:11
i always thought of it more broadly, as if everyone saw everything differently but in our minds everyone is the same. for example, i see this as the universal pen spinning board, and everyone as humans, but someone else might think that it is a alien invasion site, and everyone are aliens. however, i will still see that person as human, because that is how my mind works.
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Date: Mon, Feb 23 2009 05:46:32
Let's test it.
Quick what color is this couch...
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Date: Mon, Feb 23 2009 05:47:54
thats useless....the whole point of this is that there is no way of proving this, because people are trained to think that that color is blue
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Date: Mon, Feb 23 2009 05:48:00
freplen
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Date: Mon, Feb 23 2009 05:51:05QUOTE (テoh! @ Feb 23 2009, 12:47 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>thats useless....the whole point of this is that there is no way of proving this, because people are trained to think that that color is blue
Correct it is blue.
Problem solved.
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Date: Mon, Feb 23 2009 05:53:12QUOTE (SJ @ Feb 22 2009, 09:34 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>why would someone call "blue" a "red"
i dont get it
Let's say you have a pair of blue jeans. Someone else may see it as red jeans, but not know the color is called red. You say it's blue jeans, and they'll think that blue is the name of the color that they see, the color being red, so they'll call the red jeans they see, blue jeans.
Both of you will call the color "blue", but he or she is seeing the jeans as a different color than what you see, but that's what he/she learned the color of the jeans as.
Kinda hard to explain >_< -
Date: Mon, Feb 23 2009 05:56:44
?....
but isnt it a given that people were told blue is blue?
we're not talking about how people were told blue is red or vice versa
or how they didnt learn what a one color was
thats a different subject isnt it? -
Date: Mon, Feb 23 2009 08:09:49
We're talking about how someone may see a colour that you call blue, as the colour you call red.
I've had the same thought, and it turned out that I think it's actually quite a common one.
I wasn't sure until I thought that colours can make people feel certain emotions, maybe that's just because that colour is usually associated with that thing, but I'm not sure. Plus, there's also the idea of warm and cool colours, which I don't think people disagree with, and colour coordination, colours which look good together.
And yes, colour/s is spelt with a u after the second o, and before the r. -
Date: Mon, Feb 23 2009 08:28:44QUOTE (Tim @ Feb 23 2009, 05:09 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>And yes, colour/s is spelt with a u after the second o, and before the r.
go australia!
i've had the same thought as well
also other friends have had it
to those who dont understand, it my go to try and explain it
lets say that our eyes are goggle, and they can be taken off (/out) and given to other people to wear
and through your goggle, you see this
emoticon as yellow
another person looks at the same emoticon and say they see it as yellow
now, you take that person's goggle, and you look at the same emoticon
but you see it as red
its not that the other person is "retarded" so to say and see it as a different colour (but on a side note, playing with the mind of a colourblind person by testing them with a colourblindness test book is really really fun)
its just that they have a different perception of the same colour
we could test it, going with the goggle idea
we could gauge someone's eyes out and put them in other person's
but then, if they see the same colour, it could just be a lucky fluke
so.... who wants to be a test subject? XD -
Date: Mon, Feb 23 2009 08:36:55
Those well liked pen mods with odd colour combinations in SOYP may prove this.
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Date: Mon, Feb 23 2009 09:23:15
Yea i discussed this in school an year ago.
Yea. I think this applies to all of our senses -
Date: Mon, Feb 23 2009 14:29:50QUOTE (SJ @ Feb 23 2009, 12:56 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>?....
but isnt it a given that people were told blue is blue?
we're not talking about how people were told blue is red or vice versa
or how they didnt learn what a one color was
thats a different subject isnt it?
no its not something you learn, its something you were born with
it simply means we see the colors differently, it just happens that what I normally see as green exactly matches what you see as red
there's no way to prove this, the only way would be to rip out your eyes and give it to the other persons, even then it might be something in your brain, not eyes -
Date: Mon, Feb 23 2009 15:03:59QUOTE (CaliMartinio @ Feb 23 2009, 11:40 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>I have thought about this a couple times in the past. I always questioned myself, I may see this color as orange, but someone else might see this color as blue, but his/her sight of blue is named orange.
but, what happens if you are in this case, and your art teacher asked you to colour your favourite colour, you said orange but painted blue, wouldn't everybody be confused? -
Date: Mon, Feb 23 2009 15:08:10QUOTE (Heva @ Feb 23 2009, 10:03 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>but, what happens if you are in this case, and your art teacher asked you to colour your favourite colour, you said orange but painted blue, wouldn't everybody be confused?
no
you dont get it
the key point is that everybody know the same colours
if someone ask you to paint orange, you paint orange and everybody see it as orange FOR THEM. but it doesn't mean everybody see the same thing, it simply means everybody see something that is orange for THEM.
the thing is, there is no way you can prove to others what orange means to you.
i mean, how can you describe to me what orange is? you can only use words, if you show me the color orange, then it relies on my own perception of orange.
the only way it would be possible is for me to take control of your body, look at the color, go back in my own body, and see if it matches. -
Date: Mon, Feb 23 2009 15:27:45
I don't think that the small differences in the way people perceive color have much affect, sure somebody might see one shade different from another person, but hes not going to think green, is blue.
If someone sees green as red you have a big difference, probably caused by some physical problem.
But other than that red green orange, those are just words... and in order to describe those words you encounter more problems... So you show people something, and they tell you that is orange, you see it's orange and now you're on the same page.
Orange, is orange, computers can be trained to identify orange, and orange is orange for everybody except for the few with the actual medical problem.
A color blind person might know that he sees orange as blue, but thats a whole other case, wherehis mind has a substantial problem identifiying colors.
Colors can make people feel differntly though, orange might mean something to you, or make you feel something that another person might feel the opposite of, other than that I don't see how colors can be different to different people, blue, is blue because of the light that bounces off it, it's not something that has to be interperated or ambiguos.
Sure those waves of light can be interperated differently, but we're all human so we all see it the same way... -
Date: Mon, Feb 23 2009 18:50:12
I have had this thought as well. When I think about it now, I think there cannot be such a big difference in what people see because colours have an effect on the mind and body. Like: in a red room we tend to feel warm and in a blue room we tend to feel cold. But I do realize that this is no proof, only a thought.
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Date: Mon, Feb 23 2009 19:06:27QUOTE (fairy @ Feb 23 2009, 01:50 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>I have had this thought as well. When I think about it now, I think there cannot be such a big difference in what people see because colours have an effect on the mind and body. Like: in a red room we tend to feel warm and in a blue room we tend to feel cold. But I do realize that this is no proof, only a thought.
you feel warm because fire is red
you feel cold because ice is blue
but the color you see fire is the same as red and same thing for ice -
Date: Tue, Feb 24 2009 10:04:45
2 people look at a wall,
they both see the colour they call yellow...
they both say "hey, thats yellow",
both people agree, because they see their yellow
but they may not see the same colour
person 1 may see what person 2 calls blue... but person 2 calls this colour yellow... because every1 else has
even though 2 people see a different thing, they've grown up seeing that thing as yellow, just because they see a different thing doesnt mean they dont call the thing the same name
im pretty sure thats what the OP means -
Date: Tue, Feb 24 2009 12:31:53
Let's turn this into the 'Who can explain this whack theory to everyone?' thread.
My go!
Let's just assume that people learn which colours are which when they are in school. The teacher points to a big piece of coloured card and says "THIS IS PURPLE". That's all well and good, the colour that you saw on that card is called purple. Imagine that your friend (we both know you don't have friends, let's just assume you do for now) across the room also associates what he sees on that card as purple.
What is there to prove that you both actually see the same colour (visually)? Note that this has to do with perception of colours, not plays on words or anything.
Btw, I don't actually believe that this is the case, but I thought I'd give it a go. -
Date: Tue, Feb 24 2009 13:33:02
here's an easy way to explain I think:
you have objects of different color. They represent external stimuli.
when you look at the object, you receive information from this stimulus and your brain translates that information into the image you have in your head. This is the translation from stimulus-to-image. in addition, you have the translation from image-to-word. as you can see, there is also a translation stimulus-to-image-to-word if you combine the two translations which allows you to name the color of any object you see.
for everybody, the following are the same:
stimulus and word. you've learned to associate the same stimulus to the same word. But the intermediate transition to the image, this CAN be different from everybody and there's no way to prove it.
in other words, everybody could have different image in their head of the same color, but they learned different translations such that the property that stimilus-to-word is still equivalent for everyone, which makes it possible for us to ccommunicate and agree on colors -
Date: Wed, Feb 25 2009 00:24:41
You can't ever prove this, and in a sense is a long the lines of trying to prove that other people are living thinking beings.
A color is certain a color as much as a square is not a circle.
It's all in a persons consciousness, and then again how do you know that anybody in the world is conscious...?
Even if you went into someone elses mind you wouldn't be able to determine that they were seeing different colors as you would see the colors the same... -
Date: Wed, Feb 25 2009 10:42:11
well we can't prove this. Isn't that why we are talking about it here?
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Date: Wed, Feb 25 2009 13:26:21
If you're telling me that 'The Simpsons' could be any colour but what I see as yellow, you're crazy.
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Date: Wed, Feb 25 2009 18:07:46
You can't really prove that everyone sees the same colors as you do but you can concieve that they do as all evedince points to it, jsut as you can't prove that other people are real people at all, but all evedince points that they are.
Everyone is made of the same mateirial and have brains and eyes which process color in pretty much the same way... aside from disfunctions and mutations you should conclude that everyone sees the same color.
Even if this isn't true it isn't relevant because the colors they see are the right colors to them and you could never prove that they see different colors, just as you can never prove that we really even exist as people. -
Date: Sat, Mar 7 2009 11:20:13
I thought about this too when I was around 10 and I asked pretty much everyone and even if I asked people today no one would be able to actually know unless we had some eye transplant. However, the electrical signals our eyes send to the brain might also be the same but we perceive it differently, so if somehow we could transplant the part of the brain that gives us our vision maybe we could find out >_>
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Date: Wed, Mar 11 2009 13:35:38
Ok...what if your teacher asks you to have light colour...and what will happen if this person has a yellow for it but the second person sees yellow as black....wouldn't their perspective of dark and light gets confused too?
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Date: Sat, Mar 14 2009 16:10:48
Is there a ratio of how many people see the colors one way compared to another? in class 4 guys couldn't see green and considered it brown.
Does this apply to skin color cause who decided Asians were yellow? -
Date: Sun, Mar 15 2009 00:06:50
If you can never prove this. How to people decide if someone's color blind or not? And theres a guy in my class who is apparently half color blind. He can't see a certain color. Doesn't see green, instead he sees like white or something.
QUOTEDoes this apply to skin color cause who decided Asians were yellow?
I think thats just generalising. Africans aren't really black. Caucasians aren't really white.