# Colors



## Nemesis (Jun 22, 2012)

I can not remember where I saw the post, but there was a discussion about the possibility that every one points sees a different color going by the same name. Example: The color I see as green, is not the same color that you percieve.  some one said it wouldn't work like that, because we all see the same color. But how would you really know? If I point to a color that I see and assign it a name, it doesn't matter if you are seeing a different shade or color because names are what we make them. I say that color is blue, you see that color (possibly as something different) but it can still be called blue. If blue is the word to describe the color (and it could just as well be called anything else) even if we all see it differently the name remains the same doesn't it? After all you wouldn't be able to describe it at all to someone who cannot see color or cannot see at all. This may be entirely silly, there may be a scientific way to prove that we percieve all colors the same way. I'm just curious really.


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## Jeko (Jun 22, 2012)

Can't get enough of those...

I don't think it can be proven. Don't think it matters either, to be honest.

Spiritually, how we percieve things is different anyway.


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## Trilby (Jun 22, 2012)

If the colour I see as red is not the same colour you see as red, then how do certain colours match, blend?


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## Nemesis (Jun 22, 2012)

Think about that. when the colors you see blend (yellow plus blue = green) it still works that same as I see them. Its all how the brain percieves them. The principle remains the same


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## IanMGSmith (Jun 22, 2012)

It seems logical that given differences in physiology, temperament etc. some of us will see things differently from others however it seems equally logical that given the finite nature of wave-lengths which form the basis of color, most of us will see color in more or less the same way. - BBC - BBC TV blog: Horizon: Do you see the same colours as me?


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## Nemesis (Jun 22, 2012)

I have no doubt that the wavelengths are the same, and that our eyes operate more or less the same. I'm just thinking that our brains take them in differently.


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## Nemesis (Jun 22, 2012)

just read the article, very fascinating


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## Gamer_2k4 (Jun 22, 2012)

This question is one of those things not even worth thinking about.  It's like asking, "What if 2 plus 2 equaled 5?" Yeah, what if? Who cares?

Sometimes it's fun to thing about impractical things because you can gain philosophical insight from them.  What if we could travel in time? Does teleportation through matter/anti-matter conversion kill the original person? Is the universe deterministic? With questions like these, there's a lot to be learned and considered.

"What if we see different colors?" is not one of those questions.


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## Nemesis (Jun 22, 2012)

I think it depends on how you look at it really. But if it doesn't sprak any thought in you then *shrug* I kind of see it as a gateway question.


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## Kyle R (Jun 22, 2012)

I'm slightly red and green colorblind so I know I see colors differently than some others.

When I used to play pool, my friend used to get frustrated because I couldn't tell the difference between the 2-ball (blue) and the 4-ball (purple). They look exactly the same to me.

The "green" (go) light in the intersection looks whitish/gray to me.

I can see green and red, but for a color-seeing person to use my eyeballs, those colors would look more muted, dulled, like they are in grayscale. 

I have trouble distinguishing between orange and yellow. When I pick mango, it's hard to tell if one is yellow (ripe), or yellowish green (not ripe yet), because I can't really see the green. It's like invisible.

So sometimes I'll pick one and then my family members will say "Why'd you pick that? It's not even ripe yet!" and I'll just blink at it and frown.

Seprately, I can see both colors fine. But when they are mixed with other colors, I have some issues.

I know that's not as philosophical as the OP's question, which would be something more like "When I look at the sky, it looks blood red!" That'd be pretty interesting if there was a case of that, though!


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## Nemesis (Jun 22, 2012)

Thats the very idea though. I could very well be seeing a blue blue color, while some one else is seeing vibrant reds, but since its always been called blue, they'd never know it! Because their red would be a different color entirely.


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## Kyle R (Jun 22, 2012)

John sat on the bench, watching the sun dip below the horizon. There was always something magical about the way that blazing blue sphere dropped, as if it were dunking straight into the firey yellow sea. The water shimmered green beneath it, as if the sun were an ice cube chilling the golden ocean as it sank.

"Isn't it amazing?" he asked, gesturing with a tilt of his head.

Beside him, Carly sighed and rested her head on his shoulder. She loved the way the dazzling green of the sky seemed to swirl and melt where it touched the black sun. The pink ocean almost looked like it was frothing and boiling. "The colors are amazing," she sighed, squeezing his arm.

For once, they finally found something they could agree upon.


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## Gamer_2k4 (Jun 22, 2012)

KyleColorado said:


> The "green" (go) light in the intersection looks whitish/gray to me.



I can't imagine what that would be like.  Just sitting at my computer now, I see a full spectrum of colors: the red of my IM avatar, the orange of Firefox and on Hobbes in your forum avatar, the yellow of the folders in Windows Explorer and the smilies in my chat window, the green of the forum trim and my desktop background, the blues of my window backgrounds and syntax highlighted text, and the purple in my Eclipse and OneNote icons.  Everything is so vibrant and colorful, and not being able to distinguish between them or not being able to see them feels like it would just be such a loss.

Go lights are such a cool green, too.  It's a shame you can't see them. :/

Hmm...can you at least kind of envision what the missing colors would be like? For example, you say blue and purple look similar, but since the visible spectrum is a continual progression, are you able to fill in the blanks?

EDIT:
Or is this what your color-blindness is like?





In which case, man, I don't know what to tell you.  That's just really rough.


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## Kyle R (Jun 22, 2012)

I think there are varying levels of color-blindness, though I'm not fully sure about that. The bottom example isn't what I see, but maybe for some that is what they see.

For the top example, I see Red, then some sort of tan color, then yellow, then that same tan color again, then pink, then blue, then another blue.

Lol. I'm sure that's probably wrong.

But, I can tell there are slight differences. The second blue, for example, is slightly darker, just barely recognizable, like a shadow is falling on it, so I figure it's purple.

I know the color after yellow is green because it looks green next to yellow. But if you slapped it up somewhere else I might think it's brown or beige.

*shrug!* I see the world fine, I have no complaints, colors are just a bit iffier for me. On the plus side, blues and whites seem extraordinarily vivid for me. Perhaps it's some sort of color compensation.


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## Nemesis (Jun 22, 2012)

That very interesting. But isn't color blindness the inability for your eyes to perceive certain colors, or perceive them to lesser extant?


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## ElDavido (Jul 5, 2012)

Damn someone beat me to the Horizon program. The whole Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is fascinating, if language is structured in a certain way then by using it we begin to think in a certain way. Which is why how the small tribe they speak to see colour is so different.

How can you not be interested in this thing?Damn someone beat me to the Horizon program. The whole Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is fascinating, if language is structured in a certain way then by using it we begin to think in a certain way. Which is why how the small tribe they speak to see colour is so different.

How can you not be interested in this thing?


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## Nemesis (Jul 5, 2012)

I agree. It may be a rather small mystery and maybe it doesn't affect anything else, but I still find it fascinating.


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## IanMGSmith (Jul 5, 2012)

I'm pretty sure we also hear things differently, not only from person to person but also from time to time. Hearing some songs again after 30 years, I wonder what the heck we saw in them before. LOL

We certainly are "groupies" and because some songs make such a desirable impression on their senses, my neighbor's kids think everyone will be similarily impressed. In fact it's quite the opposite and I'm sure the same would apply in reverse if I turned up my own hifi.

Yes, you and the other posters are so right. Upbringing, culture, peer pressure/influence, fashion, advertising etc. all influence our imagination which in turn plays a big part in how we see, hear and feel things. Of course, it's a two-way street and just as we are being influenced, so we are influencing others. 


You must love Lewis Carroll's '*Alice in Wonderland*?


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## Cefor (Jul 5, 2012)

I've always wanted to be able to find out definitively what it's like for a colour-blind person when they see. If I could switch out my eyes for theirs for a day or something. That'd be interesting.

Kyle, your info on the spectrum picture was really intriguing. I've known a couple of people who can't see red, so purple appears blue to them. But what really bugs me is that I don't know what their idea of 'red' is. When they see something that's red, they have to see something... but what is it?! Argh, bugs me to no end.

They always got annoyed when we asked things like "So, if I wore a whole outfit of purple... I'd be invisible to you? AWESOME!"

Cue looks of annoyance and a quick departure. Haha, oops.


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## philistine (Jul 5, 2012)

Berkeleyan idealism. 

Interestingly enough, the Japanese colour 'aoi' is actually translated as 'green-blue'; people see it either way, and have done for centuries, hence the name. Is it blue, or green? I don't think it's genetically endemic to one race, though it does support the whole concept.


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## patskywriter (Jul 5, 2012)

You can always rely on the Pantone Matching System if you want to convey the colors in your stories just so: Search - find a PANTONE Color


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## Kyle R (Jul 5, 2012)

Cefor said:


> I've always wanted to be able to find out definitively what it's like for a colour-blind person when they see. If I could switch out my eyes for theirs for a day or something. That'd be interesting.
> 
> Kyle, your info on the spectrum picture was really intriguing. I've known a couple of people who can't see red, so purple appears blue to them. But what really bugs me is that I don't know what their idea of 'red' is. When they see something that's red, they have to see something... but what is it?! Argh, bugs me to no end.
> 
> ...



I think if you used my eyeballs you'd find it to be very anticlimactic.

My best guess is that my red and green look duller and faded than what you normally see.

For example, I have a digital sony alarm clock, just like this one:






Real old school! I've had it since grade school. I'm looking at it now, and the red numbers are very hard to see. It was like that ever since it was brand new, so I know it's simply my vision. Trying to match what I'm seeing to the photo, in terms of shade, this is what it looks like to me:


I don't know how it is for others, but that's how I see it. So, I can say, "oh yeah, it's red. it's just kind of hard to see."

And then people go, "but how can you tell it's red? What does it LOOK LIKE?"

Well, now you know. Lol. I see the color, it's just somewhat harder to see.

And it's not like "Ohh, the world must be so drab and ugly for you!" I don't think so. At least, I don't feel that way. Colors are beautiful to me. I believe I see red and green fine in most cases. It's just certain shades (or against certain backgrounds) that give me visual difficulties like those seen above.


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## Potty (Jul 6, 2012)

View attachment 3006

This should be interesting. For those of you who haven't done one of these before I want you to tell me what number you see in each circle. If you can't see a number and can only see spots please say so. 

Top left is number one, Top right number two, middle left number three, middle right number four, bottom left number 5 bottom right number 6.

When I have a few replies I will let you know who is colour blind


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## IanMGSmith (Jul 6, 2012)

Potty, I can see 25, 29, 45, 56, 8, and 6 but failed to fully identify the eighth figure in this one - Color Vision Testing 

If someone claims to see all the numbers but gets some wrong, would that indicate color blindness, dyslexia or carelessness?


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## Potty (Jul 6, 2012)

Probably carelessness, but I'm red green colour blind and I have mistaken a number... so maybe a little of both.


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## Bloggsworth (Jul 6, 2012)

Noxicity said:


> That very interesting. But isn't color blindness the inability for your eyes to perceive certain colors, or perceive them to lesser extant?



No, it's physical - Perception is a brain thing. If, hypothetically, you take a newborn child and they spend their first few years in a room which is only black and white, and when feeding or tending the child all clothes, coverings, food etc., are black and white, then what would happen when an interloper entered the room carrying a red rose? Would the child be aware that it was seeing colour, it certainly wouldn't know that the colour was red, it having never been introduced to the concept of colour, it certainly wouldn't know that there were many colour and all had different names. The ancient Greeks referred to the colour of the sky as bronze, the colour blue did not exist for them, we see bronze as a golden-brown colour, so what did they call bronze...?


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## Nemesis (Jul 6, 2012)

IanMGSmith said:


> Potty, I can see 25, 29, 45, 56, 8, and 6 but failed to fully identify the eighth figure in this one - Color Vision Testing
> 
> If someone claims to see all the numbers but gets some wrong, would that indicate color blindness, dyslexia or carelessness?



I couldn't read #8 and could barely see #9, ten was also hard but I managed


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## HKayG (Jul 6, 2012)

I think everyone's idea of colour is slightly different, you know those inbetween colours? Where my mum and i argue that "No it's orange" "no it's red" or "no it's blue" "no it's purple".  For some reason this whole conversation reminds me of the Romeo and Juliet quotation:

_"For a rose by any other name wouldn't smell as sweet"_


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## Nemesis (Jul 6, 2012)

HKayG said:


> I think everyone's idea of colour is slightly different, you know those inbetween colours? Where my mum and i argue that "No it's orange" "no it's red" or "no it's blue" "no it's purple". For some reason this whole conversation reminds me of the Romeo and Juliet quotation:
> 
> _"For a rose by any other name wouldn't smell as sweet"_



Actualy the quote is "

What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name *would *smell as sweet;"

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


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## Potty (Jul 6, 2012)

Well the results for my eye test are: 

People with normal colour vision: 25, 29, 45, 56, 8, 6

Red Green colour blind: 25, spots, spots, 56, spots, spots (this one applies to me but I even had trouble reading 56.)

How it was explained to me, I might have this a little mixed up as I was quite young when I had the tests, is that from birth I was told the colour red is red... so whatever shade everyone else associates with the colour red, so do I. However, my version of red has basically been made up by my brain since it can't actually see the colour through my eyes. So if I was to swap bodies with someone else, I will see a totally different colour, probably something I've never seen before and so would the other person in my body as the colour red has been "estimated" by my brain.

So yes I can see the red on a traffic light, and I can see the green becuase from a young age I was taught to spot the difference in those shades. However, if you jumble up red and green spots together, the colours would hop about and I would find it near impossible to tell you which was which as my brain would be constantly trying to fill in the colours. Only when they are seperate can I manage.

All I can say is that my version of green is a wonderful colour and you can keep whatever version you lot see.


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## patskywriter (Jul 6, 2012)

I've always had trouble discerning pinks from oranges and purples from browns. I've also been unable to choose colors that really resonate with me. When people ask, "What's your favorite color?" I usually say that they're all pretty nice. I do prefer strong colors to pastels, however. I figure if you're going to choose a color, then make a strong statement and be done with it.


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