What is color?

[_astheruinfalls]

So yeah, somehow my friend and I got into an arguement about color.

He is saying that there is no definate color and that even though something may be black, since he sees it as blue, it's blue.

I say that even though he may see it as blue, that does not change the physical color of it, which is black.

I can't really find any websites, so someone help here.

[Tanooki Suit]

The color we see is caused by one or more of the components of white light not being absorbed by pigments, but rather being refracted back.

[_astheruinfalls]

Yes, so dose that mean that a color has a definate color or the color is only how you see it, meaning that there is no definate color?

[Tanooki Suit]

Different wavelengths of light have objective colors, correct.

[_astheruinfalls]

Thank you.

I have no clue what the fucking hell my friend is thinking.

[gmc14]

Your friend just doesn't know shit about science. I get into tons of arguments with my friends because they think science is "stupid". Some people just don't get logic.

[venus/bacchus]

Different wavelengths of light have objective colors, correct.
How do you explain colorblind people, or even animals? Color is far from definite or objective. It's very possible for one person's cones to not have the same "output" (or color) of a certain wavelength as another person's. The wavelengths have an objective existence all forms of light with the same wavelength and perceived the same way in each individual, but color is completely subjective.

[_astheruinfalls]

But those wavelengths do not change, only the person's perception of that COLOR.

The wavelengths do not change. Colorblind people just can not fully comprehend certain colors.

[venus/bacchus]

But those wavelengths do not change, only the person's perception of that COLOR.

The wavelengths do not change. Colorblind people just can not fully comprehend certain colors.
Right, so when your friend says he perceives the light as "black," he may be perceiving it in the physical representation of how you see "black." That doesn't mean he isn't seeing black, because if you were to take a momentary look through his eyes, you would see what you usually see as black, but instead it's actually the light wave with the wavelength equivalent to "blue." Light is definite, our perception of it changes.

That's really hard to explain, I hope you get it.

[_astheruinfalls]

Even though he SEES it as black, that does not change it's PHYSICAL color.

[gmc14]

How do you explain colorblind people, or even animals? Color is far from definite or objective. It's very possible for one person's cones to not have the same "output" (or color) of a certain wavelength as another person's. The wavelengths have an objective existence all forms of light with the same wavelength and perceived the same way in each individual, but color is completely subjective.
look at computers for an example... every color has a number, now matter how you SEE it, it is still the same combination of reds blues and greens and is therefore the same color

[venus/bacchus]

Even though he SEES it as black, that does not change it's PHYSICAL color.
Light doesn't have a PHYSICAL color. If we didn't have eyes, light wouldn't be able to be touched, smelled, perceived at all. It is nothing. It only has color through the eyes of individuals, which would mean in turn that it has no "true" color, only the color that we assign to it.

[_astheruinfalls]

But that would be throwing out wavelengths, which define a color.

[venus/bacchus]

look at computers for an example... every color has a number, now matter how you SEE it, it is still the same combination of reds blues and greens and is therefore the same color
You're giving color a definite physical being, but that isn't the case. Yes, every "color" has the same wavelength (combination of reds, blues, and greens) and is in essence, the same, but color, the way we see color doesn't have an objective being. Blue through my eyes may not be blue through yours. Like I said before, if you were to see through the eyes of a colorblind person, you wouldn't see completely different "colors" than you usually do for the same type of wavelength. There is no objective reality of colors.

[Tanooki Suit]

Light has a physical color in which x wavelength range defines a certain characteristic that we call color. This characterist would still be there regardless of whether we had eyes or not.

[venus/bacchus]

But that would be throwing out wavelengths, which define a color.
They don't define a color, they define an individual's perception of them. It just so happens that the vast majority of us all perceive most respective wavelengths the same way.

[_astheruinfalls]

Yeah.

That's like saying a tree doesn't make a noise when it falls if no one sees it.

[venus/bacchus]

Light has a physical color in which x wavelength range defines a certain characteristic that we call color. This characterist would still be there regardless of whether we had eyes or not.
No, we do not call its individual wavelength as its color, we define our internal perception of it color. These are very distinct things.
Yeah.

That's like saying a tree doesn't make a noise when it falls if no one sees it.
haha. That's exactly what it is. It only took us 2 pages to get the the existentialism of it all.

[_astheruinfalls]

So you're saying the tree won't make a noise?

[venus/bacchus]

So you're saying the tree won't make a noise?
No, it doesn't make a noise.

[_astheruinfalls]

Why not?

[venus/bacchus]

Why not?
Noise is our perception of sound waves. The sound waves themselves are nothingness, just ripples in the air. The tree will make a wave, but no physical "sound."

[_astheruinfalls]

Yeah. I knew you were going to say that.

I am too tired to debate anymore.

And I have no clue what to say to the noise one. Haha.

[venus/bacchus]

haha, it's cool

It's really a pointless debate, we can do nothing but go in circles.

[_astheruinfalls]

Yeah. I think I'm going to ask my teacher tomorrow just to see if she has any thoughts on it.

It's really pointless, but I'm really intrigued now.

[Tanooki Suit]

Alright, here is how it is. Color and sound may be undefinable. But the waves have objectve parts that are there regardless of whether we are there to perceive them or not. Booyah. I win.

[venus/bacchus]

Alright, here is how it is. Color and sound may be undefinable. But the waves have objectve parts that are there regardless of whether we are there to perceive them or not. Booyah. I win.
That's true, but it's far from a victory. You can't just summarize a thread to attain it as your own.

[Tanooki Suit]

That's true, but it's far from a victory. You can't just summarize a thread to attain it as your own.
Sure I can, and just did.

JUST ADMIT YOU GOT PWNED, BITCH

[venus/bacchus]

never.

[Tanooki Suit]

never.
rough translation: "Just a flesh wound."

[SkaBum14]

I'm colorblind and it's always funny when people find that out because they automatically think I can't tell what color anything is or all of the colors are somehow switched. So, it's nonstop "what color is this? what color is this?" I've been used as an example so many times in science classes it's not even funny.

Anyways, I just finally got the whole "tree falling in a forest thing." I never really thought about it before (sound being only our interpretation of vibrations in the air). I never understood what the question was trying to get at before.

But yeah, I don't think me seeing reds/greens differently than most people because I have a red/green cone deficiency means that color is completely subjective. I'm just unable to correctly process the information that's coming into my eyes. On the other hand, I can see how one could look at "color" as being a subjective interpretation of light waves by the individual's brain. I guess it all comes down to how you define a bunch of these terms. If you look at color as an objects physical property of reflecting/absorbing different wavelengths of light, then color would be a pretty objective property. But if you define color to be the way the brain interprets these incoming wave through the eyes, then it could be more subjective because each person's brain is not going to interpret it exactly the same because we all have different levels and ratios of rods and cones.

I don't know if I made any sense there or not. Oh well.

[_astheruinfalls]

I talked to my teacher about it.

She said that no matter what, it would be there because it's a pigment and the color is still going to reflect off of it.

[Tanooki Suit]

I talked to my teacher about it.

She said that no matter what, it would be there because it's a pigment and the color is still going to reflect off of it.
Your teacher is wrong. The wavelengths will be reflected, but without our rods and cones to process them and our brain to interpret them, they are merely wavelengths. For example, an animal without color vision would still see the flower, but without the colors, just in black in white.

[_astheruinfalls]

Light has a physical color in which x wavelength range defines a certain characteristic that we call color. This characterist would still be there regardless of whether we had eyes or not.
Flip flop?

[Tanooki Suit]

No. The characteristic to produce color in our brain is still there, but color won't actually be produced without something to process and interpret it.

[_astheruinfalls]

That's not what you said.

And plus, the color is emitted becaused of the white light.

[FastEscape]

Light doesn't have a PHYSICAL color. If we didn't have eyes, light wouldn't be able to be touched, smelled, perceived at all. It is nothing. It only has color through the eyes of individuals, which would mean in turn that it has no "true" color, only the color that we assign to it.
just because something isn't precived doesn't mean it's not there.
think about this...when you close your eyes, you don't see light, do you? but that doesnt mean it's not there, it just means that your not sensing it. just like deff people, they dont hear sound, but it's still there.
so does color still exist if no one is here to see it? yes, of course. because those waves of the electromagnetic spectrum are still there, they still exist.

and also, you cant smell light.
just sayin :)

[FastEscape]

allright. my dad and i just had a talk about this after i posted what was up there ^ and i just wanted to add to it.
and here is what we came up with-
first off, i'll define (in my words) color----color is the brain's preception of the visable light spectrem.
keeping that in mind, realize that when you close your eyes, you are taking away color from yourself, because you're taking away the brain's preception of those wavelengthes.
but...
you still dont take away those waves. they still exist, but to you, color is nolonger there because your brain cannot precive the waves.

does everyone get what i'm trying to say?
im not exactly sure how else to explain it. :(

i know thats not exactly answering your question, but those are just my thoughts. sorry if i was a little off topic :(

[Misstamara]

Australia spells "Color" as colour weird..

[FastEscape]

Australia spells "Color" as colour weird..
yeah, so does every other english speeking country. cept the U.S.
lol.
i find it kind of weird

[Misstamara]

yeah, so does every other english speeking country. cept the U.S.
lol.
i find it kind of weird
yersh very weird..itz a disgrace
but meh ..
lol

[tonyC4L]

hello 5 year old thread

[kdefrisc]

Even though he SEES it as black, that does not change it's PHYSICAL color.


ok here's the thing about color though, technically color cannot be defined solely as the wavelength of light absorbed or emitted by an object, color has three parts: the wavelength, the light source, and the observer. All three parts are necessary for making color. For example, in a deep cave or the bottom of the ocean, color does not exist because there is no light.

Also, hows this for blowing your mind: if I have a blue pen and I leave it in my room, and lock the door (when no one is in there) the pen is no longer blue. The observer element is gone. I would say your friend is not completely off base, since the observer element is just as important in color as the wavelength

[kdefrisc]

just because something isn't precived doesn't mean it's not there.
think about this...when you close your eyes, you don't see light, do you? but that doesnt mean it's not there, it just means that your not sensing it. just like deff people, they dont hear sound, but it's still there.
so does color still exist if no one is here to see it? yes, of course. because those waves of the electromagnetic spectrum are still there, they still exist.

and also, you cant smell light.
just sayin :)

philosophically though, you could argue against this. to use your example, deaf people do not hear sound, so sound does not exist for them. it is a wholly sensory experience and completely objective

[Volo]

I know this is a 5-year-old thread, but oh my god, people.ok here's the thing about color though, technically color cannot be defined solely as the wavelength of light absorbed or emitted by an object, color has three parts: the wavelength, the light source, and the observer. All three parts are necessary for making color. For example, in a deep cave or the bottom of the ocean, color does not exist because there is no light.Color doesn't exist when there's no light, but it definitely still exists without an observer present. This faux philosophical "dohoho but if u can't see it it isn't real" shit is cute and all, but physics disagrees. That's like saying if you cut off the circulation to your hand and put it behind your back, it ceases to exist.

Also, hows this for blowing your mind: if I have a blue pen and I leave it in my room, and lock the door (when no one is in there) the pen is no longer blue. The observer element is gone. I would say your friend is not completely off base, since the observer element is just as important in color as the wavelengthAgain, no. If the whole world were deaf, sound would still exist. That's like saying infrared light didn't exist before we could detect it.

philosophically though, you could argue against this. to use your example, deaf people do not hear sound, so sound does not exist for them. it is a wholly sensory experience and completely objectiveLearn the difference between objective and subjective pls.

[kdefrisc]

I know this is a 5-year-old thread, but oh my god, people.Color doesn't exist when there's no light, but it definitely still exists without an observer present. This faux philosophical "dohoho but if u can't see it it isn't real" shit is cute and all, but physics disagrees. That's like saying if you cut off the circulation to your hand and put it behind your back, it ceases to exist.

Again, no. If the whole world were deaf, sound would still exist. That's like saying infrared light didn't exist before we could detect it.

Learn the difference between objective and subjective pls.

well, it's not really faux philosophical, these are actual philosophical debates. i won't get down to the possible inability to obtain true knowledge of science such as physics, i don't want to hurt your brain.

as for if the whole world were deaf, that poses an interesting situation because consider: what if the whole world was deaf from birth? would there be sound? how would there be? how would we have any way of knowing? does it really "exist" if our cognitive faculty is unable to assess it?

and you are absolutely right, i wrote objective when i meant subjective. that was quite embarrassing. i did mean that it is subjective, that is being the object of perception or thought. how would you describe what sound is like to someone who has been deaf from birth?

[Volo]

well, it's not really faux philosophical, these are actual philosophical debates. i won't get down to the possible inability to obtain true knowledge of science such as physics, i don't want to hurt your brain.I'm well aware of what's discussed in Philo 101, thanks. There are millions of better philosophical arguments, though, than the "if you can't sense it it doesn't exist" one.

as for if the whole world were deaf, that poses an interesting situation because consider: what if the whole world was deaf from birth? would there sound? how would there be? how would we have any way of knowing? does it really "exist" if our cognitive faculty is unable to assess it? Again: if you cut off the circulation to your hand, and put it behind your back, all your senses tell you your hand isn't there. Does your hand stop existing if you're alone in a room with it tied off behind your back? Before we had ways of seeing infrared or detecting gamma / beta / UV rays, we couldn't sense them. Did they magically come into being when we could detect them?

Look at this way. People are deaf; that's a given. But sound still exists. We keep increasing the number of deaf people, but sound still exists, until finally only one person in the world can hear. But sound still exists. Suddenly, if that one last person loses his hearing, all sound everywhere spontaneously blinks out of existence?
and you are absolutely right, i wrote objective when i meant subjective. that was quite embarrassing. i did mean that it is subjective, that is being the object of perception or thought. how would you describe what sound is like to someone who has been deaf from birth?You don't have to be able to describe something to say it exists. How do you describe pain to someone with CIPA?

[rosieh93]

another cool thing is that if you managed to get in a room with ONLY PURE red light, and you had like a green plant that reflected only pure green or whatever, it would appear black/colorless. :D

[kdefrisc]

well i'm not going to try to argue against your hand example, i dont think its really comparable. obviously, your hand it connected to your body, it is not something that you are sensing that is outside of yourself such as color or sound

and as for infrared light not existing before we discovered a way to interpret and percieve it, yes it could still be argued that they did not exist. i think what we are getting down to now is how you would define "exist". yes, it is completely possible that those rays were there before we knew about them, we could even be very confident in our belief that they were there but there is no real way of knowing. and even if they did in fact exist, would it even matter if we couldn't percieve them? its kind of an egocentric view, but its one to consider. BKS would even argue that theres no real reason to even trust your own senses as you are percieving things.

i really don't know what the answer is here, i'm not saying this side is absolutely correct, as you noticed i am taking phil 231 this quarter and i just think this kind of stuff is really interesting to debate about

[Volo]

Then take the converse example of phantom limb syndrome. Someone who very clearly does not have a limb still feels it; are we to say it exists because that one person can still sense it even though it's incredibly evident the limb isn't attached?

Philosophy about anything that's pretty clearly dictated by physics is for the bored and the college students. Philosophize about something where there's actually some wiggle room. This "WELL LOL I CONTEND THAT MY HEAD IS ACTUALLY A GRAPEFRUIT, PROVE ME WRONG" bullshit is just stupid.

[concernedparent]

Your friend sounds like some of the retards in my Philosophy class that argued maybe everyone's views on God are right. Just thinking something's true doesn't make it true.

[p0isonedgames]

Your friend sounds like some of the retards in my Philosophy class that argued maybe everyone's views on God are right. Just thinking something's true doesn't make it true.

But neither does it make it untrue.

[Volo]

But neither does it make it untrue.DOHOHO U R SO SMART N DEEP

[dtrzcin]

I'm American, but "colour" is spelled more awesomely than "color".

[concernedparent]

But neither does it make it untrue.
I'm not sure if this was a joke or just really dumb logic.

[theguy77]

haha this got way off topic. i dont think the guy's friend was arguing that color didnt exist haha, he was arguing that people perceive it differently. thats all the argument was, and i think its a feasible one.

like, i have a red piece of paper. you see the piece of paper, and you also call it red. the light refraction has the wavelength of the color red. however, what if we SEE this piece of paper differently? we both call it red, because we were taught early on and have known that color to be red all our lives, so we can both agree that it is red. but what if my perception of red looks like your perception of blue?

[aoftbsten]

I don't know if this has been said in here. Sort of off topic, but here it goes.

How do describe a color to someone who is blind or color blind?

[Volo]

haha this got way off topic. i dont think the guy's friend was arguing that color didnt exist haha, he was arguing that people perceive it differently. thats all the argument was, and i think its a feasible one.

like, i have a red piece of paper. you see the piece of paper, and you also call it red. the light refraction has the wavelength of the color red. however, what if we SEE this piece of paper differently? we both call it red, because we were taught early on and have known that color to be red all our lives, so we can both agree that it is red. but what if my perception of red looks like your perception of blue?If you see Superman flying, and one person calls him a plane, and one person calls him a bird, he's still the goddamn Superman.
What you actually see something as doesn't change the fact that, scientifically and objectively, it is a certain color based on the part of the spectrum it's reflecting. If someone, say, sees green where he should see blue, the universe doesn't suddenly go HOLY SHIT REFLECT A DIFFERENT COLOR WHEN THIS GUY'S AROUND; shit's still blue.

I don't know if this has been said in here. Sort of off topic, but here it goes.

How do describe a color to someone who is blind or color blind?You don't, but that's completely irrelevant.

[kdefrisc]

Sound existing is not objective.

yeah i know, this was already pointed out. i said objective when i meant subjective. just mixed them up

[davidmest]

Your friend just doesn't know shit about science. I get into tons of arguments with my friends because they think science is "stupid". Some people just don't get logic.

science is stupid if you don't understand it. if you can't grasp its concept then it seems like dreamt up bullshit.

[YoMusicSoFat]

Of course colour exists or we wouldn't be talking about it. Also, colour could be imaginary- I had a dream where I discovered a new colour. For all we know the colours we see could just be something in our heads, rather than our retinas which means there is absolutely no proof that what I consider ''green'' will be someone else's ''green''. However, there is scientific evidence that colour exists.

[FastEscape]

philosophically though, you could argue against this. to use your example, deaf people do not hear sound, so sound does not exist for them. it is a wholly sensory experience and completely objective

good point.
i geuss in this world you can argue just about anything. those were just my thoughts on it. i see what your trying to say, though. and i can look at it that way too. sound dosent exist for deaf people because they can't hear it, just like color dosen't exist to colorblind people because they can't see it

[theguy77]

If you see Superman flying, and one person calls him a plane, and one person calls him a bird, he's still the goddamn Superman.
What you actually see something as doesn't change the fact that, scientifically and objectively, it is a certain color based on the part of the spectrum it's reflecting. If someone, say, sees green where he should see blue, the universe doesn't suddenly go HOLY SHIT REFLECT A DIFFERENT COLOR WHEN THIS GUY'S AROUND; shit's still blue.

thats exactly what i was saying, hahaha.

i said, it has the wavelength of red, and we both agree that it is red, but we see it differently, and thats waht the initial argument was about before we got into arguing about this semantical perception-based philosophically self-indulgent bullshit.

[pennie]

On a sidenote,I believe it is "colour" with a "u" ;-)