My theories of perception.

[lorothrigs]

Well I was sitting in my kitchen a couple months and I looked at my dog and wondered what it'd be like to see only blue and yellow. This prompted to think about the human brain and the world we live in and how we perceive it. Like, let's say, what if what I see as "green" is what you would call "blue". When we are learning our colors, our parents point to a color and say "That's green". I think what I perceive the world around me is probably different from yours in more way than one may think. What do you think?

ALSO: I also found a book written by Steven Lehar of Boston University about basically the same thing. Just in book form, alot more complicated, and alot more in-depth. I thought it was interesting. http://cns-alumni.bu.edu/~slehar/webstuff/book/chap1.html

 

[SuPa-]

Lol... funny you should mention this, one of my friends and I have discussed this a few times. It's really impossible to prove with the current technology I think, but it's more likely that we all see the same colors. Although, I sometimes think about color blind people, and how some see colors differently. One of my friends sees red as orange, but then again, watching TV, and being exposed to bright colors (like from a TV) slackened our skills of identifying colors from one another, and then it affected our genes as an adaption I suppose, something along those lines. My art professor was discussing that in class one day. "If we went back a few hundred years ago and held up something neon I can imagine the people's eyes would hurt that were looking at it." He said something like that.
Also, I reason people probably see colors the same is the psychological effect. An example would be if a room was painted blue on the inside. If we stayed in that room it'd feel a little bit cooler than the actual temperature
Another example is the McDonald's colors. Both red and yellow are warm colors. They make you for energetic, hungry, and they speed up the metabolism. And another advantage about those colors, after about 20 minutes, they make you want to leave because they get irritating

 

[Technomancer]

I thought about this a while ago. Don't think I came to a viable conclusion. I'm not sure if people would see different things or not, and I doubt technology will ever be able to test this. It's sort of like trying to describe red to someone who can only see in shades of grey. Your red may be completely different to my red, but they are still both 'red'.

 

[Tonks]

Well, I think I have some place to speak in this. I am essentially color-blind to red. I see it as the same color as orange, yet at the same time I can tell that it's red. It looks as orange as orange does, I just know it's not really orange..

One of my friends sees red as orange

Glad to know I'm not the only one.


Think of it this way; if we all saw in black and white, wouldn't we still refer to the shade of gray that's green as "green?"

 

[lorothrigs]

Well, I think I have some place to speak in this. I am essentially color-blind to red. I see it as the same color as orange, yet at the same time I can tell that it's red. It looks as orange as orange does, I just know it's not really orange..



Glad to know I'm not the only one.


Think of it this way; if we all saw in black and white, wouldn't we still refer to the shade of gray that's green as "green?"

Probably not, but who knows.

 

[Tonks]

Probably not, but who knows.

Yet it would look different than the other shades of gray. We would come up with a name for it, is my point.

 

[lorothrigs]

Yet it would look different than the other shades of gray. We would come up with a name for it, is my point.

Valid point. If there were only two primary colors, would we really have a need for different color names though? It would seem rather tediously unnecessary. Ya know?

EDIT: Take this picture for example, all I can see are gray, black, and white.

 

[Denu]

It doesnt matter how you percieve something but how you interpret it. If you percieve a color it does not mean anything until you interpret it. If you percieve a color then interpret it as blue then that is what it is (in your mind at least).

Say there is a specific pigment in a shirt. It does not change from person to person. But over time (when you are a lil baby) you associate that specific pigment with a specific color. I dont really know about color blindness in humans or any other animals for that matter. I imagine it might start with something different about their eyes or when the information gets to the brain the brain will misinterpret. If it is something with their eyes then there is something wrong with their perception but if it is something with their brain then their is something wrong with their interpretation.

 

[lorothrigs]

Well perception and interpretation are both key concepts in this topic. Seeing as you can't interpret anything until you perceive it. If you don't even perceive it then there's nothing to interpret.

 

[alfredx_sotn]

I think I saw a ghost.

 

[Denu]

If you had no senses you could still interpret through imagination. You would interpret your lack of perception and come up with your own unique ideas and thoughts. If one had a lack of input then that person would simply imagine their own input.

A blind man cant see but he can still have an interpretation of a color even if he never had the gift of sight. But then again he would allready have had to have heard of color to have an idea of it. For it would be a difficult concept to imagine on your own. Still through enough imagination such a feat could possibly be accomplished.

Humans cant see heat but we still have an interpretation of what it would be like. As long as their is imagination their can be interpretation. You cannot percieve morality; you can only interpret it in your own mind. And morality is a strong driving force in humans. Just because you cannot percieve something does not mean you cannot interpret it. So ultimately it is your interpretation that truly matters.

I dont think it is important that we each might percieve things differently but that we all interpret it similarily.

 

[Shados]

Aha, I remember having this exact discussion on the Hive ages back before the Weird Philosophies and Ideas forum vanished in a suitably mysterious way.

 

[GST_Nemisis]

Yet it would look different than the other shades of gray. We would come up with a name for it, is my point.

i know what you are saying and it is half right. the way we see comes in two forms, colour from cone cells and light intensity from rod cells. we combine these two to make an image. rod cells are used when we see at night. this is where you need some imagination. at night we can se colour, but usually not much, now imagine if you couldnt see any, it was all that dismal blakc/grey colour. this would be if you only saw in bi-tonal colours (black and white) instead of trichromatic (red,blue,green). you would be able to recognise things by their shade, but because you have no concept of colour you would be unable to identify the colours on something you have never seen before. if someone told you the sky was blue and lead them to a lake, they would not know that water is also blue even though the shade is the same. they would not be able to understand what blue is at all. or they would think everything what that shade is blue, even if it were light red or light green they would consider it blue.

the thing that is not understood is the brains conception of a colour. most of us have the physical ability to see colour, and well all see blue as blue but it is our brain that may change blue to something else which is where this theory comes from. we call something blue and we know it as that and we all see it as that, but the colour may be different for everyone.

 

[Shados]

Yeah, unfortunately it's a rather hard idea to explain. In any case, we could all really have the same favourite colour .

 

[Malufa]

This is basically the point I was getting at in my last thread but you worded it differently, good job tho.

To delve further with what Dan it is easy to have fewer\damaged cones and rods in your eyes, but what if you had extra? Would you simply see more colours or would your colour definition be clearer?

 

[GST_Nemisis]

i think it would be higher definition, you would only be able to see more colours if you had cells which were able to pick up other electro-magnetic frequencies. this would be a disadvantage in many ways as you could be bombarded with colours if you could see radio waves. being able to see infra-red intensity would be cool, just like using heat-vision googles. you would ofcorse need to have smaller cone cells with greater sensitivity because if you just had more the only advantage you might get is a larger field of view.

 

[Wolverabid]

This illusion demonstrates just how easily the mind can be fooled by the creative use of colors.

MentalBay > Optical Illusion > !

 

[GST_Nemisis]

this illusion works by making your eye focus on a single point which causes the area around that point to become distorted because you brain is not directly focusing on it and it is not correctly "shown" to you by your brain causing the picture to take longer to be correctly focused on which is why it appears to move over time. this causes you to move you eyes to where the movemtn was which starts the process again. if you focus on a single point and do not move your eyes the picture is completely resolved by your brain and it stops moving.