Thread: I see a bunch of BS

"There's more of gravy then of grave about you"

Originally Posted by Mindraker

That's fine if you are having a grand old time -- please have a grand old time. But *believing* something to be a certain way does not necessarily make it so. As much as I believe the paint on my walls to be green, the paint is unfortunately white.

Actually, color is reflected light. If you put green light bulbs in your room, and the white wall looks green, the wall literally is green, not white.

Color is assigned by the visual system of the viewer, its not a property of light. Swap some nerves around and the wall can look any color you want it to, none of which are 'right'.

Light spectra coming off a wall is also not entirely a matter of reflection, though its the main factor most of the time. Some paint will re-emit spectra that are not in the incident light.

I'm surprised Jakob isn't in here yet Oops! I just jinxed this thread

Originally Posted by shadowofwind

Color is assigned by the visual system of the viewer, its not a property of light. Swap some nerves around and the wall can look any color you want it to, none of which are 'right'.

Light spectra coming off a wall is also not entirely a matter of reflection, though its the main factor most of the time. Some paint will re-emit spectra that are not in the incident light.

But doesn't that only amplify Nomad's point?

Originally Posted by WakingNomad

Actually, color is reflected light. If you put green light bulbs in your room, and the white wall looks green, the wall literally is green, not white.

That's only a certain way that the wall looks under a certain set of circumstances. The wall isn't green, the light reflecting off the wall would be green. The wall remains the same. Depending on the circumstances, it could look like a lot of things, but the actual molecular properties don't change. The reflecting molecules would still be what we define as white paint.

edit: Or for accuracy, I should say that the light itself isn't green, but the sum of all the wavelengths being reflected off of the wall is translated into what we see as "green" by our brains.

Originally Posted by Sageous

But doesn't that only amplify Nomad's point?

Yes.

Originally Posted by shadowofwind

Color is assigned by the visual system of the viewer, its not a property of light. Swap some nerves around and the wall can look any color you want it to, none of which are 'right'.

Light spectra coming off a wall is also not entirely a matter of reflection, though its the main factor most of the time. Some paint will re-emit spectra that are not in the incident light.

I can be colorblind, and the wall can look black, white, and grey, but the color is still a measurable, verifiable color, agreed upon by society which is inbetween a certain range -- which is "green".

This is something you can test and verify, no matter how incorrect someone else's eyes may be, or whether they are wearing colored eyeglasses, or if they are blind, etc.

Originally Posted by Mindraker

I can be colorblind, and the wall can look black, white, and grey, but the color is still a measurable, verifiable color, agreed upon by society which is inbetween a certain range -- which is "green".

This is something you can test and verify, no matter how incorrect someone else's eyes may be, or whether they are wearing colored eyeglasses, or if they are blind, etc.

Mmm, we could objectively measure the wavelength, but the qualia is completely subjective.

We could prove that a person was perceiving the same wavelength as everyone else (say, green), and even have the person agree that the wavelength they are perceiving equals 'green' (merely an associative label for the perceived wavelength); however, the 'suchness' or 'quality' of what they see could be entirely different (in theory).

Given this qualia is inherently subjective, then you can't objectively denote someone's perception to be 'incorrect'. You could merely say that because this person deviates from normality, he's wrong (not in label nor wavelength perception, but just 'suchness') -- not a particularly sound reason. Anyway, it's impossible to know if someone's qualia is different to yours unless you could somehow mind-swap, and so knowing what's normal or abnormal is seemingly impossible.

Obviously the likelihood of this is intuitively low.

To demonstrate a common disconnect between wavelength and perception, below are two colours with identical wavelengths that produce different qualia (one orange and one brown):



And then the squares A and B tend to look dark gray and off-white (qualia), but they're exactly the same (wavelength):

Originally Posted by Mindraker

I can be colorblind, and the wall can look black, white, and grey, but the color is still a measurable, verifiable color, agreed upon by society which is inbetween a certain range -- which is "green".

This is something you can test and verify, no matter how incorrect someone else's eyes may be, or whether they are wearing colored eyeglasses, or if they are blind, etc.

Which society? Throughout history different societies have defined the color spectrum in different ways. Many languages don't differentiate between blue and green; grass, sky, and ocean are all defined by the same word. In Japanese, the word for blue is often used for colors that English speakers would refer to as green, such as the color of a traffic signal. Furthermore, words for brown, purple, pink, orange and grey may not even emerge in a culture until it has defined blue vs green. More primitive languages would actually only distinguish between dark/cool colors and light/warm colors.

Maybe the wall isn't even green - its blue.

Originally Posted by hermine_hesse

Which society? Throughout history different societies have defined the color spectrum in different ways. Many languages don't differentiate between blue and green; grass, sky, and ocean are all defined by the same word. In Japanese, the word for blue is often used for colors that English speakers would refer to as green, such as the color of a traffic signal. Furthermore, words for brown, purple, pink, orange and grey may not even emerge in a culture until it has defined blue vs green. More primitive languages would actually only distinguish between dark/cool colors and light/warm colors.

Maybe the wall isn't even green - its blue.

Ah, I'm wasn't referring to linguistic differences, or even historical differences between peoples, I'm simply referring to the basic mathematical subsets of light wavelengths.

Those 'mathematical subsets' are not basic, they're almost arbitrarily defined, and they're defined differently for different human bodies, irrespective of language. For instance, for a person who has the same sensitivity to 'green' light as other bands, grass is actually orange.

Originally Posted by Mindraker

Ah, I'm wasn't referring to linguistic differences, or even historical differences between peoples, I'm simply referring to the basic mathematical subsets of light wavelengths.

Linguistic differences reflect and shape psychological differences. Sure, whatever "color" on the wall is a verifiable wavelength, but it is not a verifiable "color". Color is subjective. If a culture uses the same word to describe both grass and sky, then it is possible, if not highly likely, that the members of that culture also perceive grass and sky as the same color. Like I said above, a native Japanese speaker might call a traffic signal blue, while you call it green. Sure it emits the same wavelength, but you are both placing it into different color categories.

And just to beat the that deceased nag a bit more:

Cognitively speaking -- meaning all rods, cones, and wavelengths aside -- the perception of color itself is a truly subjective thing. Whatever society calls green, there is an excellent chance that what one person sees as green is what another person sees as red. In other words, two people could be looking at a wall that they both call green, but if a third person could get inside their heads, she might well notice that each viewer perceives completely different hues; even from the color she would have assigned the wall.

Which I think might loop us back around to where we started: One person might percieve an object, or its color, in a completely different way than another might, but both are looking at the same thing. Both are right, but both see a different thing. The same might work for ideas.

I also think we've done all done a fine job confirming the sentiment of the OP as well!