Is it possible to imagine a color you've never seen?
142 replies, posted
[QUOTE=hypno-toad;24452113]Because, there can only be only three primary colors in the radiation wavelength of 380 nanometers to 760 nanometers. Anything above that is infrared light and anything below that is ultraviolet light. How you perceive them is completely irrelevant. I don't know how I could explain this any simpler.
Regardless of how you perceive the colors, they will always be bound to the three primary colors. Any animal that can eprcive other regions of radition, they are still going to be interpreted in it's mind a visible color.[/QUOTE]
Imagine an alien on a planet a million miles away that's able to perceive ultraviolet and process it in it's brain.
Wouldn't what it's seeing be a colour unlike what we can see or imagine?
So therefore, there can be new colours, just humans cannot perceive or imagine them.
[QUOTE=BearsFan2136;24452116]What if the color you were seeing was red and the color and someone else saw it and recognized it as red but it would really be green or something to them?[/QUOTE]
First of all, I highly doubt that any people see colors differently, it just doesn't make sense from an evolutionary standpoint. It's quite likely that all animals that see colors see them in the same manner as we do since most animals started from the same place. I suppose it'd be possible for their colors to be interpreted differently, but then any colors that we see would also be invisible and completely unimaginable to them. Color is simply a way of interpreting the wavelengths of visible light, and there will always be three primary colors. There is no way to experience new colors, as the colors you already see have been programmed into your head. If there was a new color that you could somehow imagine, it would not actually be a color, as it is not confined to a wavelength that is visible to you, nor could it be pinpointed anywhere on a spectrum.; it would likely be an alternative to a color that is on your normal spectrum, therefore would still technically be the same color.
To imagine? No. To somehow stimulate the brain in such a way that you perceive a color you've never experienced? Plausible.
[QUOTE=hypno-toad;24451762]
because human brains have a built in color spectrum.[/QUOTE]
Source?
I'm pretty sure it's possible to "see" them in your dreams in rare cases, because real life science doesn't apply in your dreams.
Shit way of describing it, but you get the point.
Aside from that, though, no, what you see is what you get.
[QUOTE=P0cket;24452278]Imagine an alien on a planet a million miles away that's able to perceive ultraviolet and process it in it's brain.
Wouldn't what it's seeing be a colour unlike what we can see or imagine?
So therefore, there can be new colours, just humans cannot perceive or imagine them.[/QUOTE]
Highly unlikely. It's brain would interpret it as a color that is already on it's visible spectrum. I don't think any animal would be able to detect OR interpret the full wavelength in a span of different forms. I'd imagine that it'd likely detect the further wavelengths in shapes rather than colors if it needed to differentiate between them.
Lets stop calling them colors. Lets just say there's three visible positions, and the gradient space in-between them. There is always going to be red yellow blue, red green blue, cyan magenta yellow or any set of primary colors. The colors are based on wavelength position, NOT how you interpret them. If a creature can detect the full wavelength, the infa[B]red[/B]+ and ultra[B]violet[/B]+ are just going to be extensions of the primary visible colors.
Your argument is true only in the most deluded and far-out sense and is relevant to nothing.
[QUOTE=hypno-toad;24452425]Highly unlikely. It's brain would interpret it as a color that is already on it's visible spectrum. I don't think any animal would be able to detect OR interpret the full wavelength in a span of different forms. I'd imagine that it'd likely detect the further wavelengths in shapes rather than colors if it needed to differentiate between them.
[/QUOTE]
So you're saying that instead of seeing a colour which humans cannot recognise, it's far more likely that an alien with the ability to perceive and process any wavelength beyond the visible spectrum would see SHAPES instead?
Also, I fail to see how a hypothetical mind experiment about there being colours which we haven't seen is irrelevant in a discussion about hypothetical colours.
A good way to imagine the possibility of 'other colors' outside the spectrum we can see would be to compare it to Flatland. They couldn't see the three dimensional shapes, akin to how we can't see the colors outside of our visible spectrum. That doesn't mean they don't exist, but they still could never fully interpret the 3d shape as there was no way for them to view it. Just apply that to us and colors.
[QUOTE=onforty;24438396]I had much trouble with "The Colour out of Space" by Lovecraft, so i think you cant.. Its about a undescribeable colour that came with a comet, making people mad and killing them..[/QUOTE]
It's not indescribable, it's called blurple. It looks like this:
[img]http://cubeupload.com/files/a49feauntitled.png[/img]
hnnngggg adhaoi;h f8ao
They say you can forget what a tree looks like in ten years.
Shit's crazy
[editline]10:42PM[/editline]
[QUOTE=ZekeTwo;24452850]It's not indescribable, it's called blurple. It looks like this:
[img_thumb]http://cubeupload.com/files/a49feauntitled.png[/img_thumb]
hnnngggg adhaoi;h f8ao[/QUOTE]
Welp I wont be able to sleep as long as this color is stuck in my head
Colors (light) can be detected because they radiate from the source, hit a solid, opaque surface, and bounce back. Our eyes detect the bounce back. Any light-emitting source emits white light, a mixture of all the visible wavelengths. Those wavelengths hit a surface, and depending on the pigmentation of the surface every wavelength BUT the matching color will simply be absorbed. White light is made up of the three primary colors, any other wavelengths will either burn or pass through any solid surfaces they encounter due to their wavelength. Radio can bounce back, bu there's not really any practical reason for any animal to detect it, and if they could they'd likely see it as a shape, or a color already on the spectrum.
Radios work by detecting radio waves as they impact with the antenna (after they come from a transmitter). There is really no point in perceiving ultraviolet, xrays, and gamma rays as all of them are harmful to all carbon based living organisms. Infared can be seen by a large number of animals, but microwaves and radio waves can not (no reason to anyway)
To my knowledge, certain colors do not absorb or reflect microwave, radio, ultraviolet, xrays, or gamma. Therefore any animal that could perceive them would not need a color for it as there would simply be no point, as it could use a shade or a color that it already interprets. What you can perceive and how you perceive are two different things. From a receptor-perceptory sense, there "*can* be different colors, but they are going to be assigned to the visible light spectrum, therefore will be bound to primary and secondary colors and will still be blue, yellow, or red in one form or another. Saying there are "other colors" is strictly wrong. THEY ARE ALL THE SAME COLORS regard;less of how your brain interprets them. I have my doubts that people could imagine NEW colors as all the colors your brain can imagine are going to be based on the colors you would normally use to interpret what you see.
A blind man can imagine colors and shapes. The visible color spectrum will already be known by his brain, regardless of how your brain interprets visual information in comparison to his.
There was a very interesting article in popular science about this earlier this year about the same topic.
It mainly talked about how many mammals have dichromatic vision, seeing only mixtures of blue and green, or some other combination of two colors, and how humans evolved to see red because many fruit/berries/whatever reflect that wavelength of light when ripe, useful for the hunting/gathering of thousands of years ago, and then later talked about the genetics of colorblindness and how if some person by chance had genetics that allowed them to see in a fourth range of of wavelengths aside from red/blue/green that it'd almost certainly be a woman who would have it and see colors where we would only see white and/or the colors our eyes are able to perceive.
[QUOTE=P0cket;24450608]It's impossible to imagine anything which you haven't already perceived, unless it's a conglomeration of a few different objects.
I.e, Horse + horn = Unicorn.
Therefore, no, we can't imagine any colours we haven't already seen.
This doesn't mean that there aren't other colours out there however.[/QUOTE]
Yet any 5 year old might say something like hornhorse, or pointyhorse or something.
get really really really really really really really high.
like, baked to a crisp.
The fundamental question of what the EXPERIENCE of colour itself is remains unanswered. Sure, you can fix a wavelength and frequency to a colour, but that does nothing to explain WHY red is 'red'; why we EXPERIENCE it the way we do.
Now before some smart-arse jumps in here and tries to give me a lesson in physics or neurobiology, don't just skim over what I'm saying and try to make yourself sound smart by going, "WELL YOU SEE LIGHT BOUNCES OFF OF PARTICLES LARGER THAN ITS OWN WAVELENGTH WHICH YOUR EYES REGISTER AND SEND TO YOUR BRAIN TO BUILD AN IMAGE." Yes. I'm COMPLETELY aware of this. What I'm saying is that there is currently no way to explain why 'colours' as we experience them exist. Why we see blue the way we see it. Why we see green the way it is. Yes, it's the brains way of differentiating between light of different wavelengths so that everything isn't just one huge, monochromatic blur to us, but why this gives rise to the experience of colours itself and not some other method of differentiating them is not known.
Until we have some grasp of how the experience of colours arises we're not gonna be able to answer this question because we're all confined to relating things back to the colours we all know, love and understand. I'm gonna take a stab in the dark and say that it's not impossible that some life form could develop somewhere in the universe that has an entirely different perception of light than we do. It may see things as we do, in 'colours'. But those colours may not be in any way comparable to the colours we humans experience.
If you were seeing inverted colours they'd all have to be fairly similiar to what another person as seeing, you can describe with words certain aspects of colours.
Like if you thought black was white, and someone thought white was black; you could tell them that black is a light colour and they would correct you to say it was dark.
Chances are that everyone is almost identical in what they see, but since a few people are born different with things like unable to detect subtle colours or blindness 1 in every few thousand may be seeing something different.
Nope. Not yet. We were born too early.
What I always think of is: what if everyone sees different colors but they are all called the same name. For example, I see what I call red, and another person sees it and calls it red, but in their vision, it's actually the color that I call blue.
Kind of difficult to explain.
no, but it's possible to be an idiot
I talk about things like this with my friends and they say I always sound high. I've never been high in my life.
[editline]11:51PM[/editline]
BUSTIN MAH AUTOMERGE
c
[QUOTE=ZekeTwo;24452850]It's not indescribable, it's called blurple. It looks like this:
[img_thumb]http://cubeupload.com/files/a49feauntitled.png[/img_thumb]
hnnngggg adhaoi;h f8ao[/QUOTE]
holy fuck im seriously actually bothered by this picture
Thanks, reading this thread saved me about an hours worth of going through Science notes. I have to write a physics exam tomorrow.
[QUOTE=ZekeTwo;24452850]It's not indescribable, it's called blurple. It looks like this:
[img]http://cubeupload.com/files/a49feauntitled.png[/img]
hnnngggg adhaoi;h f8ao[/QUOTE]
That's such a nice colour.
[editline]04:50AM[/editline]
[QUOTE=hypno-toad;24453169]Colors (light) can be detected because they radiate from the source, hit a solid, opaque surface, and bounce back. Our eyes detect the bounce back. Any light-emitting source emits white light, a mixture of all the visible wavelengths. Those wavelengths hit a surface, and depending on the pigmentation of the surface every wavelength BUT the matching color will simply be absorbed. White light is made up of the three primary colors, any other wavelengths will either burn or pass through any solid surfaces they encounter due to their wavelength. Radio can bounce back, bu there's not really any practical reason for any animal to detect it, and if they could they'd likely see it as a shape, or a color already on the spectrum.
Radios work by detecting radio waves as they impact with the antenna (after they come from a transmitter). There is really no point in perceiving ultraviolet, xrays, and gamma rays as all of them are harmful to all carbon based living organisms. Infared can be seen by a large number of animals, but microwaves and radio waves can not (no reason to anyway)
To my knowledge, certain colors do not absorb or reflect microwave, radio, ultraviolet, xrays, or gamma. Therefore any animal that could perceive them would not need a color for it as there would simply be no point, as it could use a shade or a color that it already interprets. What you can perceive and how you perceive are two different things. From a receptor-perceptory sense, there "*can* be different colors, but they are going to be assigned to the visible light spectrum, therefore will be bound to primary and secondary colors and will still be blue, yellow, or red in one form or another. Saying there are "other colors" is strictly wrong. THEY ARE ALL THE SAME COLORS regard;less of how your brain interprets them. I have my doubts that people could imagine NEW colors as all the colors your brain can imagine are going to be based on the colors you would normally use to interpret what you see.
A blind man can imagine colors and shapes. The visible color spectrum will already be known by his brain, regardless of how your brain interprets visual information in comparison to his.[/QUOTE]
Quit trying to be smart, you're totally wrong.
[QUOTE=sltungle;24456235]The fundamental question of what the EXPERIENCE of colour itself is remains unanswered. Sure, you can fix a wavelength and frequency to a colour, but that does nothing to explain WHY red is 'red'; why we EXPERIENCE it the way we do.
Now before some smart-arse jumps in here and tries to give me a lesson in physics or neurobiology, don't just skim over what I'm saying and try to make yourself sound smart by going, "WELL YOU SEE LIGHT BOUNCES OFF OF PARTICLES LARGER THAN ITS OWN WAVELENGTH WHICH YOUR EYES REGISTER AND SEND TO YOUR BRAIN TO BUILD AN IMAGE." Yes. I'm COMPLETELY aware of this. What I'm saying is that there is currently no way to explain why 'colours' as we experience them exist. Why we see blue the way we see it. Why we see green the way it is. Yes, it's the brains way of differentiating between light of different wavelengths so that everything isn't just one huge, monochromatic blur to us, but why this gives rise to the experience of colours itself and not some other method of differentiating them is not known.
Until we have some grasp of how the experience of colours arises we're not gonna be able to answer this question because we're all confined to relating things back to the colours we all know, love and understand. I'm gonna take a stab in the dark and say that it's not impossible that some life form could develop somewhere in the universe that has an entirely different perception of light than we do. It may see things as we do, in 'colours'. But those colours may not be in any way comparable to the colours we humans experience.[/QUOTE]
Yes, the way our brain generally works is very badly known. Difficulties already arise in strictly defining terms such as "intelligence", not to mention in explaining how it's achieved in the brain.
[QUOTE=st0rmforce;24438471]There's a guy who had the lenses in his eyes replaced with artificial ones. His new lenses didn't block UV, so he could see it.
He said that it does look different to other colours, he was going to try to describe it, but realised that it was impossible.
You have to see it to understand it.[/QUOTE]
movies are not documentaries
Actually I've always had a weird argument with people.
What if we both percieve different colours yet the colour we see, we both call "Green" if you see what I mean..
From an early age you are told what colour is what and what to call it, so everyone calls recognizes the same colour by name..but what if we don't see it the same way?
Colourblindness, we call it that because people who have the condition are in the minority of the population. What if they were the majority, then I'd be the one that was colourblind.
As far as I know, a human can see a colour because of something in the eyes, I forgot what it's called, but I was told like near the center of the pupil, there are all kinds of the thing I forgot that allow you to see colour and more at the 'edge' there are those things that allow you to see black and white. It's why the edge of the vision of a normal human being is black and white. And it's why dogs can only see black white, they don't have those things that allow you to interpret colours.
And I can imagine that if you're colourblind, one of those colour seeing things do not work properly.
Don't kill me if I'm wrong, please do correct me
But I've also actually wondered whether there is any colour besides the rgb combinations.
Have you guys never heard of anti-colour? Gawd.
[QUOTE=BrQ;24462912]As far as I know, a human can see a colour because of something in the eyes[/QUOTE]
But it's because of fact that each color reflects light differently if you ask me
[QUOTE=Broni;24462870]Actually I've always had a weird argument with people.
What if we both percieve different colours yet the colour we see, we both call "Green" if you see what I mean..
From an early age you are told what colour is what and what to call it, so everyone calls recognizes the same colour by name..but what if we don't see it the same way?
Colourblindness, we call it that because people who have the condition are in the minority of the population. What if they were the majority, then I'd be the one that was colourblind.[/QUOTE]
As far as I know, colourblind people don't just see like red and blue as green and yellow. They can't distinguish some colours
Like this picture:
[img]http://www.appelogen.be/wp-content/images/kleurenblind_zien.jpg[/img]
You can call it 'change of colours' but what happens is that certain colours start looking the same like others. But not all.
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