A Philisophical Question

[Firenze_101]

So I was staring at my ceiling last night. As often happens in the later hours of the evening, I started thinking about the sort of randomly mind-blowing things that never seem to occur to me during the day.

Question: When I look at something that's "blue", do I see the same color you do when you see "blue"? What I mean is, there is a color that is universally (different languages aside) known as "blue". We know, for example, that the sky is blue (or at least it is when it's not grey or sunset-y, but I digress.). But when we look at the sky, how do we know that the exact color that I know as "blue" isn't the color that you know as "green". Linguistically, we call the sky "blue" and the grass "green". I'm not saying that for some people the grass is "blue" and the sky is "green", rather that we cannot know that the sky that appears to be "blue" to one person would appear as "green" to another person, who calls the sky "blue" but perceives it as "green".

I am aware that this explanation makes very little sense, but if you can fathom the numerous perentheses and quotation marks, can someone please explain why this is possible or impossible, or at least make this into an interesting discussion? Thank you.  

[God-Raped-Me]

I wondered that same thing too once upon a time. I asked my fiancee and he showed me how light travels. Light, colour, travels in wavelengths and everyone's eyes takes the same wavelengths in. However the cones and cylinders on the back of our eyes change from person to person. So my sky blue could very well be your light blue. They would be off a bit but generally the same. Your red can't ever be someone's green though.

 

[Saverio C.]

It won't matter one way or the other.

You see this as this.

Lets assume that my precpetion is correct and this really is blue. You see it as green and all blue things are green to you, but your green is my blue. If I tell you to paint a house blue it will painted correctly. You will see the house in this but it will really be this color. If I were looking from your perspective I would be all "What the ********", but in the real perception it is correct. You wouldn't know the difference, nor would I. Your grass would be blue in your eyes, but still green in the world. So long as you don't know of the error there is no different because you are calling blue (in your eyes) green.  

[Beware Of camaro2010]

Yeah, that makes sense. You are saying that people have different perceptions of what basic things are such as the sky being blue or the grass being green. The same goes for languages. People speak different languages but have the same meaning. For example, if someone was speaking Italian to a person that is speaking Spanish but they know what each other is saying but they both have different perceptions on what they are ACTUALLY saying. Not the meaning just what they are saying. Is thbat what you mean?  

[Taeryyn]

As someone who is somewhat colour-blind, I have thought about this quite a bit.
What some people see as "green" looks to be "grey" to me. Some shades of purple look to be grey to me, and others look to be very blue. I still see a very wide range of colours (at least, I think I do), but I know that the colours I see are not what everyone else sees.

We can all agree that the sky is "blue", but since we can't physically experience things through someone else's eyes, we don't know what "blue" looks like for anyone else.

Sorry if none of that makes sense. sweatdrop  

[Saverio C.]

Taeryyn

As someone who is somewhat colour-blind, I have thought about this quite a bit.
What some people see as "green" looks to be "grey" to me. Some shades of purple look to be grey to me, and others look to be very blue. I still see a very wide range of colours (at least, I think I do), but I know that the colours I see are not what everyone else sees.

We can all agree that the sky is "blue", but since we can't physically experience things through someone else's eyes, we don't know what "blue" looks like for anyone else.

Sorry if none of that makes sense. sweatdrop

However, if you only knew the shades of purple as grey and I showed you something grey you would call it grey correct. So long as you don't know that what you are seeing is purple it is grey to you and you will identify it as such.  

[Beware Of camaro2010]

Tha's what I mean. Everyone has different perceptions.  

[Taeryyn]

Saverio C.

Taeryyn

As someone who is somewhat colour-blind, I have thought about this quite a bit.
What some people see as "green" looks to be "grey" to me. Some shades of purple look to be grey to me, and others look to be very blue. I still see a very wide range of colours (at least, I think I do), but I know that the colours I see are not what everyone else sees.

We can all agree that the sky is "blue", but since we can't physically experience things through someone else's eyes, we don't know what "blue" looks like for anyone else.

Sorry if none of that makes sense. sweatdrop

However, if you only knew the shades of purple as grey and I showed you something grey you would call it grey correct. So long as you don't know that what you are seeing is purple it is grey to you and you will identify it as such.

I'd call it grey or green, since I know that I usually see green incorrectly. x3 But I get what you mean.  

[Saverio C.]

Taeryyn

Saverio C.

Taeryyn

As someone who is somewhat colour-blind, I have thought about this quite a bit.
What some people see as "green" looks to be "grey" to me. Some shades of purple look to be grey to me, and others look to be very blue. I still see a very wide range of colours (at least, I think I do), but I know that the colours I see are not what everyone else sees.

We can all agree that the sky is "blue", but since we can't physically experience things through someone else's eyes, we don't know what "blue" looks like for anyone else.

Sorry if none of that makes sense. sweatdrop

However, if you only knew the shades of purple as grey and I showed you something grey you would call it grey correct. So long as you don't know that what you are seeing is purple it is grey to you and you will identify it as such.

I'd call it grey or green, since I know that I usually see green incorrectly. x3 But I get what you mean.

I hate you, and your soul!

Camaro; Their perceptions don't matter beacuse they think they are seeing correctly and even if the color is wrong they identify the right color when asked.  

[God-Raped-Me]

No no and more no.

For the colour blindness thing I don't really know what you're seeing. What I do know is that you don't have all your cones and cylinders working. Or they're not taking the wave lengths in properly.



This is how colour travels. We know and have proven this. Blue can never travel as red does, ever. The cones and cylinders can have a slight variance within the wave length but as soon as red changes to orange that's it. Red travels faster than orange hence the change in wavelength. If you notice the wavelengths go from long waves to short waves. This never changes so therefor the colour can never change.

 

[Saverio C.]

This isn't a literal idea GRM. Yes it is physically impossible for the example to work, but it's the theory behind it we are talking about.

He is saying that if we are looking at a flower and we all call it a flower could one of us be seeing a spaceship and calling it a flower because of what we precive a flower is.  

[Taeryyn]

Obviously my cones and cylinders aren't working properly. x3 That's what I mean. I know that the wave lengths are always a certain way. But our bodies can be pretty damn glitchy.

So even though each colour has a specific wave , something gets lost in translation when it comes to my eyes.



I can see all the little dots. Individually, I can tell which ones are green, which ones are orange, and which ones are brown, etc. But as a whole, something goes haywire and I can't see the brown boat that's supposed to be there. None of the dots in that picture look grey to me, but I'm still not perceiving the colours correctly. =x

What I see is "wrong", scientifically speaking. But it still kind of fascinates me because I don't understand how I'm not able to see something that is definitely there. It's weird knowing that something is invisible to me, yet completely visible to most people. I think that's what I'm trying to get at, really. x_X Sorry for the lack of coherency.  

[God-Raped-Me]

I thought he wanted the physical answer.

If he was seeing the spaceship, because I like that one better, yes he would call it a flower, however he would have delusional psychosis and needs to get treated! 3nodding

 

[Firenze_101]

Wow, the idea was actually brought on by thinking about one of my friends who's colorblind... that's cool/random
And yeah, I was thinking more along the lines of the spaceship/flower thing than the light waves/physical possibility thing, but the scientific example is interesting too.
Oh, and by the way, I'm a girl smile  

[The Dinosaur Next Door]

I'd call the boat in the picture red, Tae. xd
The difference in perception of color depends entirely on the person, their eyes, and their cones and rods. The color is exactly the same because of the nature of light waves - when light hits an object, the wavelengths that it absorbs continue through it. The ones that it reflects back (based on the organization of its particles) are the ones we see. Because the light and the object's particles don't change,s the only differences in perception are caused by the person's tolerance of light and perception of light, the person's cones and rods and how they're functioning, and how the object is lit or where the person is standing.