New Color

Re: New Color#47869

By SilsuCrow - Sat Nov 19, 2011 6:44 pm

- Sat Nov 19, 2011 6:44 pm #47869

Prodigy9 wrote:
SilsuCrow wrote:InB4 The Colour of Magic.
More like the magic of color, eh?

Not so much. The Color/Colour of Magic has been described as a "greenish purple".

Try to picture that.

Re: New Color#47870

By imahaxor - Sat Nov 19, 2011 6:48 pm

- Sat Nov 19, 2011 6:48 pm #47870

Prodigy9 wrote:
alexrybicki wrote:Here's something to think about:

Color isn't intrinsic to anything. Nothing you see is an actual color. Color is just an interpretation that happens in the brain.
Take for example...some people 'feel' color, or 'smell' sounds. It's called http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia

So...the real question you should be asking is if color exists at all. What happens if you could experience all of the extended electromagnetic waves as color? Or what if we could "see" heat, in the way that snakes do.

What if other people go thru their whole lives seeing "red", when it's really what you see as "blue"?

...Something to think about.
I partly agree with what you're saying. Light color is based on wavelengths of EM radiation, of which we can see only a small range. So it's not totally arbitrary--if I see light at 400 nm, and you see light at 400 nm, then we're seeing the same thing.

Of course, this still doesn't resolve the issue of whether our brains interpret things differently... if light that my brain interprets as blue might be interpreted by your brain as what I would call red. And of course, any attempt to figure this out by describing colors to each other wouldn't work either--if I describe "blue" as being "the color of the sky during daylight hours," you will certainly agree with me, but perhaps only because in your brain, "the color of the sky during daylight hours" is what I would call red.

Interesting stuff. Exit question: does this also apply to black, the absence of color/light?