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/sci/ - Science & Math

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4096028 No.4096028 [Reply] [Original]

How would you describe color to a blind person?

>> No.4096036

i'd beat the shit out of him till he mans the fuck up and knows what color is.

>> No.4096041

electromagnetic waves of different frequency hiting your eyes which send differend signals to your brain depending upon frequency, and the brain interprets those signals as another property of the objects in the world

>> No.4096064

>>4096041
Basically this.

Tell him colors don't actually exist in the physical world, they are merely a construct of the human brain to distinguish various wavelengths of light reflected by objects.

People born blind develop better hearing and sometimes have the ability to "see" sounds. The brain is amazing, it can adjust to many situations.

>> No.4096069

try with temperature

red=hot
blue=cold

>> No.4096074

red is hot and spicy, like standing too close to the fire. orange is warm and smooth, a velvet curtain heated by the sun. yellow is buttery and rich, like sunshine on your face, green is earthy and comforting, the smell of fresh pine needles. blue is cool and crisp, like dipping your foot in a lake in October, purple is dark and rich, a baritone sax bellowing jazz. brown is healing and ancient, the smell of earth on the forest floor. Tell them that.

>> No.4096075
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4096075

>>4096064
>colors don't exist

>> No.4096079
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4096079

>>4096075
Santa doesn't exist either

>> No.4096081

>>4096079

then how come i get presents every year, mr smartypants

>> No.4096086

I'd compare to sound and to temperature. High and low things, etc. I'd say colors combine and divide objects in our eyes, like you can tell the difference between a violin and percussion. That some objects with little color (desaturated, greyish) look bland.

I think that's the best that we can do.

I once helped a blind old man to find his way to a lecture in my university. He mentioned my hand was dirty and aksed what it was, I told him not to worry that it was only dry paint. Conversation got us talking about paintings and he began mentioning a few paintings he heard about before like the Sistine Chapel and Mona Lisa and asked me to describe. I tried to be a little poetic about it and with his old deep voice he went "oh! oh how beautiful! yes, yes, what about Guernica?". It was a great experience.

>> No.4096087

>>4096081
It's god

>> No.4096091

>>4096081
you better ask your parents

oh boy you're in for a big surprise!

also: remembering from time to time that colors don't really exist is kind of sad if you think about it

>> No.4096098

>>4096091
colors exist you moron. 0/10

>> No.4096107
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4096107

>>4096091
Colors exist. Yes, they are bound to our perception and so is everything else.

>> No.4096108

>>4096028
It's like eating pizza, getting your ass sucked out by a gorgeous ho and having your dicked sucked off by an even hotter blonde. Yup, it's about that good.

>> No.4096110
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4096110

>>4096108
You're a very cruel man.

>> No.4096111

>>4096098
it's like reading
>god exist you moron. 0/10

go and take elementary school physics lessons

>> No.4096115

>>4096111
Meh i'll pass. If I see it it exists, plain and simple.

>> No.4096117

>>4096111
>elementary school physics
That's exactly where retarded teachers misguide kids to keep thinking like you do.

Go and take high level education please.

>> No.4096122

>>4096111
>Implying that claiming that colors don't exist isn't any less foolish than claiming they do

>> No.4096127
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4096127

>>4096115
>>4096117
>/sci/ence board
>feeling like I'm really in /b/

>> No.4096135

>>4096127
Science rules!

>> No.4096153

>>4096117
I remember realizing how misguiding elementary physics and chemistry is. 'A piece of iron is magnetized because all the mini-magnets are coordinated' and the Bohr model is used without any clarification regarding the activity of electrons.

>> No.4096212

>>4096041
Well, I don't know whether colors may be called 'properties' that belong to the things. What garantee you have that what we call "red" is the very same quality of being red? Shouldn't it be possible that all humans in this planet see different color-qualities and just by a social training we can communicate to each other and say that "THIS" color in special is red, not by its qualia but only because we learned call that very color "RED"?

>> No.4096282

Chill the fuck out, I got this.

>>4096212
Colors may or may be not called properties that belong to things, it depends on the context.

If you are studying light you'll see that objects don't have color in them just as much as they don't have light in them. They reflect and absorb light. When something is red, all of the colors are absorbed but red, which is reflected to your eye. However, if you are talking about pigments, about basic compounds and their properties, then you could say they have color.

The discussion on whether my red is equal to your red is somewhat entry level philosophy and doesn't lead anywhere. That is because of the difference in approach between physics and perception theories. If you are looking at the wavelenght, it doesn't matter what you see or don't see, all there is are numbers. If you are talking about how we perceive color, then wavelenghts don't matter at all. If you go deeper into studying the perception of colors you'll notice that colors change depending on what color is NEXT to them. That is because of what we call gestalt, which is basicly how your brain configure a "whole". This goes to the opposite direction of analysis (which breaks things into pieces for research).

>> No.4096285

>>4096282 cont.

It is a quality of our eyes and brain that we cannot reach ultraviolet or infrared light, this is biology and physics, wavelenght and receptors in our retina. But it is gestalt that juxtapose the red next to the violet in color wheels, as if it tied a knot into the light perceived. To explain it better, just think of music. C,D,E,F,G,A,B... and it's one octave above with another C. It goes like that until it is too high (or too low) for us to hear. With light, we just see one """"octave""", colors don't repeat and all we are able to perceive is between red and violet.

Gestalt theory is also why color blind people know they are color blind. One would think "how would they know if their red is not green and their green is not red?" but because of the human context, they know.

Colors exist in all those senses. It is an illusion, yes, but just like any other thing.