No One Could See the Colour blue until modern times!

a reply to: Shadow Herder

Isn't it funny though that the other senses seem to work the same from one human to another? Our reactions to external simulations bears this out. I don't know what science says we all perceive colors differently but agree on the names. I can conceive of the notion and once read a science fiction story along those lines but I'd need proof that science bears this out. Peer reviewed science that is.

There's an entire therapy dedicated to how colors affect people. Lots of restaurants use red because it makes people hungry. Lots of hospitals choose blues and greens for their calming abilities. reply to: MasterMaximum

Lol. I could have told you that. I'm a decorator and explaining how colors relate to each other and in using samples it was much harder to get the husband's to see what their wives saw so easily. . They saw red when one was actually a warmer red with yellow undertones or cooler red with bluish undertones. Or yellow greens vs blue greens. Or peach vs apricot...
to: theabsolutetruth

a reply to: theabsolutetruth

As far as damage goes I think the discussion imagines a wide spread anomaly rather than individual handicaps. A society as a whole who could not perceive the color blue.

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

Well other appendages engorged with blood. Put a rubber band on your finger and wind it tight. See that wine dark color?

a reply to: AutumnWitch657

I said there are variances between men and women in colour perception and also EXCEPTIONS such as damage.

This is very interesting, since blue is near the high frequency limit of visible light before it turns to ultra-violet. In fact, there are reports of some people actually being able to sense ultra-violet that have deficiencies in their lenses, and they see it as a blue-white color. Perhaps , over time , our eyes have evolved to see more in the fringes of the visible spectrum than before.

This is certainly thought provoking and i love threads like this but i don't believe they couldn't see the color blue.

It seems they 'explained' blue rather than just name it. Where I come from ancient people have been traveling the seas since forever and because of nautical orientation they came up with 125 celestial asteronyms for different stars and constellations. We are third in the world after Arabs and Japanese but everybody else can still see and point out those stars (just never had the need to name them individually)

That's why I think everybody could see and give a description of blue until someone said we're naming IT blue, it's short and it fits

a reply to: theabsolutetruth

Oh well I kind of speed read through your attachment but I thought I addressed the items separately. In any event I was agreeing with you.

originally posted by: AutumnWitch657
I was under the assumption that that high was before man. Am I wrong?a reply to: All Seeing Eye

I used to believe mankind was, give or take, 100,000 years old. I have seen some information that challenges that belief.

Our linage may be, give or take, 70 million years old. Back before the oxygen content started to drop. As much as I prefer humanity to be quite young in geological terms, I am forced to consider the possibility of the opposite.

originally posted by: Krakatoa
How very Anglo-centric a view this is actually. SO, if there is no word for something in the Anglo (i.e. English) dialect, then it does not exist. Pshhaaaw...Humans could always see the color, however, they likely used other (non-English) words or phrases for it. I personally can think of many just off the top of my head that people around the globe (let alone in a confined area) would know (if they spoke English, which is my only language):

• clear daytime sky
  
• glacier
  
• warm ocean
  

I'm sure there are many others.

I had to reread part of the OP article before confirming its asinine conclusion...of course, they saw it, there just wasn't a term to describe it.

Just silly...

Coupled with the fact that pigment material of intense enough (or indicative) color, was/has been subject to availability and known properties...

Å99

originally posted by: Shadow Herder
a reply to: AutumnWitch657


Science states we all preceive colors diffrently and agree to call it what everyone calls it, orange being orange but if I had your eyes it would look purple to me.

Truth is that it likely took the longest time for colors to get their names because as language progressed it began with the numbers of things (how many mammoths are there out there?), the names of objects (rock, water, sun) then more and more refined as man and woman became more introverted and more able to communicate in a more intricate and intimate manner.

If you think about it, it would seem very logical that naming the colors of objects and having everyone agree on the colors should come in as one of the last tasks to do with inventing language. Can you imagine when people had a vocabulary of 30 words and life was so primitive how useless it would be to even think about the colors of things?

Then think about how difficult it would be to invent words for colors. Trying to discuss what you see without any way of verifying that the other person sees the same color would be no easy task.

No... Seeing the color blue was the first color evolved to see in organisms because it helped them see what way is up and if the sky is cloudy or clear.

Now blue eyes on the other hand are a relatively recent adaptation. Why would they evolve to see any color besides blue first because that would be the thing seen 90% of the time when the organism looks up.

When you say "modern times", you mean a few days ago with that dress color thing, right?

Also, the sky is white & tan, I don't know what sky you're lookin at!

a reply to: Eunuchorn

Since when is the sky white and tan? Haha I'm sorry but do you live In the city? Because my sky to me and to everyone around me it is very blue.

a reply to: Shadow Herder

I want you to look at this landscape from Pompeii (painted before August 24, 79 AD):

arttattler.com...


The doves are gray, the foliage is green - and yes, the sky is blue.
It doesn't matter how they called it (and late Latin actually had a LOT of words for different hues of blue) - the point is they most definitely saw it.

originally posted by: AutumnWitch657
Regardless of the words used the paintings clearly show blue skin. You know that saying about pictures speaking a thousand words? Maybe Sanskrit had lots of words for blue. I understand Eskimos have multiple words for snow.

reply to: Namdru

Yes, but that could be interpreted as they seeing the blue skin as something else, not blue. (I other words, they could have used blue for the skin, but they would have seen it as a different color.)

Landscapes (like that Pompeian one I just linked to), on the other hand, leave no doubt. They most definitely saw blue - and green, and yellow, and all the rest. It's language that's the problem - yet again.

originally posted by: AutumnWitch657
This page of ancient Egyptian paintings shows a use of blue though most colors were derivatives of henna shades which was cultivated to produce paints.


www.google.com... 3333334&bih=800&dpr=1.5

Lapislazuli was used extensively by the Egyptians (and by many European painters in later eras).
In fact, the word azureis derived from it.

O.k. so here we have many sources for Blue actually being in use by the ancients. Can we move this to the Hoax bin now?

Many people call cyan blue. Blue looks way different to me. It's less bright and a bit more dull.

Also pink and magenta looks different, too. Pink is more dull.


Just like brown is darker and more dull than bright energetic red and people easily recognize the differences since there's a common word for it; that's how. different blue and cyan or pink and magenta are to me.

a reply to: All Seeing Eye

Curious as to what info you have indicating 70,000,000 years of mankind? I know there's a whole lot of arcane lore that says that, but is there something more verifiable?

As far as the thread... this speculation is always fun, but blue IS pretty old... ancient statuary and hieroglyphs use it (lapis lazuli for instance) and as mentioned, it's been posited that it is one of the first to be seen due to a blue sky by simpler organisms.

But the old preschool mind blower "what if the red I see is different from the one YOU see??" still stands... until optics are explored a bit more, that is.

eta and oh yeah, the indigo harvested from mollusks (if I remember right) was a big trade item in the ancient Mediterranean region...