Are the colours we see the right ones?

Think about this. If someone had an eyesight problem where he/she saw a particular colour differently, say he/she saw red as blue, he/she would live out their life without knowing they where seeing things wrong. If that person was born with that defect, then they wouldn't know anything different, and because an optition cant see things through your eyes, they would never tell you you had a problem. What's to say the colours we see are the real colours, if we are seeing things wrong there is no way to find out.

Since there is no way to compare the color people actually "see" there is no "right" color. The closest you can come is seeing if patterns in the brain are similar.

Synesthesia is a brain disorder that goes a step further. It actually mixes up sight, sound, touch, and the other senses so you can "see" sound or "see" salt and bitter as different visual "colors".

Basically, you can't know what is in other people's heads. You can only agree upon words you apply to the same thing. You can't actually know how their brain processes it.

One other neat little fact, the visual area of a bat's brain processes sound. This suggest that they "hear" things and their mind provides a picture similar to what we think of as sight.

I have sat wondering this many times.. including last night...

I remember i had a colorblind friend and i think he said his purples looked blue and some other mix ups but, i never understood how he could know this and not just assume his favorite color would be say purple when he is actually seeing blue.

I use to think colorblind was everything was black and white.

I have seen tests in a science book where it had a weird 2 or 3 color pattern and you apparently couldn't make out the number if you were.

Why can't so many people see the difference between pink, red and orange, yellow?

for some reason I seem to be able to see color differs better then most people i talk to.

Well, questions like this always revert back to the issue of perspective. What one person sees is almost never the same thing as what another may see. For example, there may even be a difference in contrast between the color of an object to an upbeat person as opposed to someone who is depressed. To an upbeat person, the color may look very bright and almost surreal; whereas, to the depressed person, the same color may appear dull and boring.

My favorite color is sky blue. While I view sky blue as being very similar to powder or light blue, most would argue that it is darker than either. To me, this is sky blue: My Sky Blue

I have come across some people who would say this is sky blue:

Other People's Sky Blue

In my opinion, the second link shows a blue that is wwwayyyy too dark to qualify for sky blue.





[edit on 12-11-2007 by SpeakerofTruth]

>Disclaimer<
I have no real expertise in this area beyond the most rudimentary layman's knowledge, so don't ssume I know what I'm talking about.

Originally posted by sc2300
What's to say the colours we see are the real colours, if we are seeing things wrong there is no way to find out.

"Color" isn't really an objective property of things. It's only the way the eye and mind process the different wavelengths being perceived. So there really aren't "colors" to be real. There are wavelengths of reflected light which the anatomy of the eye sends to the brain generating what we refer to as "color". It's all in your head.

Yeahright, I'd say that is a pretty reasonable summary.

Here is a link to one online set of tests for various patterns of color vision dysfunction:


www.nanyang.com.sg...


Some professions have always had tests for color vision problems as part of their screening process, such as medical schools, nursing schools, police academies, and pilot training.

[edit on 11/12/2007 by Uphill]

Originally posted by SpeakerofTruthMy Sky Blue

My Sky Blue

I'm colorblind and often wonder what I'm missing. Those subtle little things that everyone else can see, that I cannot.

" I wonder what all those little red streaks in that rock is " Etc....

reply to post by SpeakerofTruth


The first one is quit light...

I understand what your getting at but...

seen as though, you apparently see the sky brighter.. would you not have posted a darker picture more identical to the sky and looked at it as being bright?

ohhh man, I'm soo much more confused now!

the second picture looks like everything from white to blue..

I see the sky DARK blue, thats of course before 1000 airplanes fly over and mess it up.

My sky blue
What I usually get ;(


[edit on 11/13/2007 by Bumr055]

Originally posted by SteveR

My Sky Blue

Steve, I'd say that was closer than what most people typically label as sky blue.

First and foremost, color is determined by shape. How the light absorbs into, then bends off of a surface to your eye. Optics is one of the trippiest things you can study in my opinion.

First, I have normal color vision according to the eye doc. However, the one color that I have a very difficult time with is the color of green lights (as in stoplight green). I have always called the color of that light blue, and to me it is blue rather than green, even thought I know it is green. It is very difficult to explain other than to say that I see the color of that light differently than most.

Two persons will communicate a color correctly, for example blue. We can't possibly peek into someone's eye whether what he/she percieve is blue relative to my sight. It might be brown or yellow relative to his/her sight, if I'm able to peek. But it will be communicated nontheless as blue.

Thanks for the thread. This is actually one of my favorite thought experiments. We are trained to call a particular color that we see "orange" or "green" because some one before us was trianed to call that color (which they see maybe the same maybe differently) "orange" or "green". We have absolutely no way of knowing if the "orange" we are trained to name looks the same as the "orange" another person is trained to name.

It's a mind-bending thought. For all I know your beautiful green trees are my Mar's orange dirt. I have no idea.

reply to post by sacrifice


I am Colour Blind, both Red-Green and Blue-Green. when it comes to what people call Aqua Blue, I see green for example.

When did you get tested? You may be colour blind and were not diagnosed properly.

I've often wondered if what I see as yellow, most people dont see as red. If the human brain can process colours differently for each individual, it is possible that everyone is colour blind to an extent. It's just that it shows up in different places within the spectrum.

Maybe the most common areas of confusion are within say, the section most would call blue, and colour blind peoples confusion areas are on the fringes separating blue-green for example.

When I close my left eye the colours seem normal but when I close my right eye colours seem a bit duller. I suppose many folk have this to varying degrees. I wonder if folk see no colour at all, just mono? Reminds me of what my nephew said to his mum one day while out in the car. "Mum, was the world black and white when you were wee?" He obviously watches too much TV, AND he thinks his mum is real old, lol.