Thread: new color?

Everyone's saying slightly scientific explainations, but I think that maybe thinking too deeply. When people make threads asking "What you can't you do in LDs?" many answer the only limit's your imagination.
Try imagining a new colour.
I'd say its impossible myself.

Seeing a new colour is impossible. Perceiving a new colour is not.

Originally Posted by Merlock

You don't compose new characters out of characters you've seen. You do it out of traits you know of. Same with colours. You already know all the possible colours there are in the physical existence of this world. You see them in the waking world. The entire spectrum.

Thus, if you want to create an original dream character, you create it with a set of traits but those traits are given (a nose but with a certain size, skin but with a certain colour and texture, etc.).
Colours aren't a complex structure such as a character. They are basic. Thus, they are given.

In addition to that, character traits are all but unlimited, as where our eye's physical capacity to see a set number of colors is limited.
ROYGBIV

Originally Posted by midnight_haze

Hmm... I have a small controbution.

For the past year or so, I've been able to hypnotize people into believing very subtle things such as that their left arm is lighter than their right; nothing much at all, but it's pretty entertaining. One day, maybe a little under a year ago, I decided to try something new and try to get one of my friends to see my normally brown hair as purple. It didn't quite work, at least not in the right way. For the next few days, he claimed that saw my hair as being a completely new color that he named "Glorbinge" or something like that. All along, I was pretty sure that he was faking, but it may add at least a microscopic amount of validity to the new color arguement. I might talk to him again, as he would have no reason to lie about it by now.

If this is possible in someone who is hypnotised, then why are can you not experience this yourself in dreams? I do get the whole "colours aren't basic structures, they're basics" argument and to a certain extent agree with them, but in the same way, we cannot fly, we have no reference points for how to fly, and yet we can experience in as real a way as if we did it every day. What makes colours so different and so special. We're not talking wavelengths or spectrums or anything else, we're talking about something composed *entirely* from your imagination. Optics don't come into this anywhere.

It's special because colours and everything we see is a physical trait, it's visual, of the sense of sight.
Our senses only perceive, they do not create anything.

Thus, like I said, you won't imagine a new colour until you see it from an independent source.

Originally Posted by orange_entity

This seeing new colors reminds me of synthesia where people have one sensation but see another. Someone could "see" 4 as green or smell something and see a color. Would the four that they see be the color 4 or would it be green that's associated with four?

I have this in a way. I have virtually no sense of smell as you'd know it (I can smell very strong smells if they are close to my nose but that is all) but subtle smells I can taste (I can taste my deoderant in the air after I spray it, but I can't smell a thing). A little off topic I know, but just wanted to add to the Synthesia argument...

Ahhh.... Nothing like starting a debate....

Perception and reality are two entirely different things.
So yes, we may perceive a new color in our dreams. It will look like no other color. It will seem like no other color,however it is not.
But little does it matter if we can hold onto that perception.

Because perception is reality. By that it is meant, reality is not truth. It is only the truth that is perceived. Perception is very erroneous.
Because of the so many variables in each perception, it is just inaccurate.

I think be possible.

Bee's can see UV.
Bee's have a small brain.
We got a big brain.
We can't see, or imagine UV.
Dream are different from imagination, in that we experience many surprising things that we never imagined.
Why shouldn't our big brain be able to simulate the image of UV, or other colors during a dream?
All it takes is a little bit of neuro-juggling, that will miraculously match the neuro-pattern of the color perception of a bee.

Originally Posted by dodobird

I think be possible.

Bee's can see UV.
Bee's have a small brain.
We got a big brain.
We can't see, or imagine UV.
Dream are different from imagination, in that we experience many surprising things that we never imagined.
Why shouldn't our big brain be able to simulate the image of UV, or other colors during a dream?
All it takes is a little bit of neuro-juggling, that will miraculously match the neuro-pattern of the color perception of a bee.

OK then.
As my next deam, I have decided to juggle my neurons to simulate Einstein's brain so I can finally grasp E=mc²
Or better yet, God. I will finally know.

Originally Posted by Howie

OK then.
As my next deam, I have decided to juggle my neurons to simulate Einstein's brain so I can finally grasp E=mc²
Or better yet, God. I will finally know.

:^D God may be easier than E=mc²...

I don't know if you are serious in this post, but in case your point is to show that the juggling idea isn't realistic, then my response is that the pattern that make a little bee appreciate UV, must be considerably simpler than the one that would be needed to spontaneously comprehend the answer to life, the universe, and everything.

Originally Posted by dodobird

:^D God may be easier than E=mc²...

Ha ha True.

Originally Posted by dodobird

I don't know if you are serious in this post, but in case your point is to show that the juggling idea isn't realistic, then my response is that the pattern that make a little bee appreciate UV, must be considerably simpler than the one that would be needed to spontaneously comprehend the answer to life, the universe, and everything.

I don't know, is it?
If it is outside the limitations of our physical being then a simple UV ray may be just as incomprehensible as anything else, no?

Originally Posted by Howie

Ha ha True.



I don't know, is it?
If it is outside the limitations of our physical being then a simple UV ray may be just as incomprehensible as anything else, no?

Perhaps, but I think we can't know for sure. Until we understand the brain better, I think that it should remain as a theoretical possibility.

Recently i started thinking about the actual amount of colors there are. We can see electromagnetic radiation in the range of 400-700nm.(1nm=0.000000001m)
The entire electromagnetic spectrum as we know it, ranges from tiny gamma rays of <0.00001nm and to enormous radio waves of 100+kilometers.
The part that we can see, is far less than a billionth of the entire spectrum.

Maybe one day we will be able to tweak our eyes and brain to see all these colors ... now what would that be like ??? Seeing more than a billion times as many colors as now...

MAXxyz, we mus tnot forget that our eyes are transparent to many of these colours. If they weren't, looking at a mobile phone would make it not work (would be similar to having it out of area.

You'd need metalic eyes for most wave lengths.

Originally Posted by Kromoh

MAXxyz, we mus tnot forget that our eyes are transparent to many of these colours. If they weren't, looking at a mobile phone would make it not work (would be similar to having it out of area.

You'd need metalic eyes for most wave lengths.

Your are right about that, and it's just a crazy thought of mine.
When i said "tweak", i did'nt say anything about how much we would have to tweak out bodies to make this happen
It's already possible to make blind people see, by connecting a camera directly to thier brain, so who knows what the future will bring...

After all the attempts at a detailed explanation, it comes down to a cell phone analogy.
--- Makes note to self

Here's an interesting thought:

How do you know that me and you experience the color red in the same way? Maybe i see red as you see blue. Or maybe I see red as something completely different to any of your sensations. Maybe even, i see red as you taste chocolate. Or you might feel cold as i hear the note C. Or you smell a rose in a way that I cannot even imagine.

There is no way we could compare our sensations - when we are born, we attach the sensations to things - we label them. So each time I see something red, i attach the meaning "red" to the sensation. Every time i see the something that corresponds to the wavelength of light which is the frequency of red, I associate the signal that the nerves in my eyes send to my brain with some feeling. The sensation is subjective, everyone might have a different feeling that they have been told is red. This is why everyone would recognize red, and be able to say that it is red, but it does not mean that they all experience it the same way.

Originally Posted by george

Here's an interesting thought:

How do you know that me and you experience the color red in the same way? Maybe i see red as you see blue. Or maybe I see red as something completely different to any of your sensations. Maybe even, i see red as you taste chocolate. Or you might feel cold as i hear the note C. Or you smell a rose in a way that I cannot even imagine.

There is no way we could compare our sensations - when we are born, we attach the sensations to things - we label them. So each time I see something red, i attach the meaning "red" to the sensation. So each time i see the wavelength of light that responds to red, i associate that with the sensation i have chosen for red.

At first, this seems like it would float.
There are too many comparisons that match one thing to another, day after day, hour after hour. Red, yellow and green lights. The list can go on. If in fact there was discrepancies, there would ultimately be confusion.
Just as you explained in your second paragraph, the confusion would be narrowed down and eliminated.
If an adolescences was taught incorrectly, confusion would ultimately follow at some point.

I slightly edited my original post..

I'm not sure if i understood correctly what you meant, I do not see why you mentioned confusion.

I did not mean there are discrepancies in your own perceptions - you always experience for example red in the way you are used to. It might differ from person to person, but the experience of one person would remain the same.

Originally Posted by george

I slightly edited my original post..

I'm not sure if i understood correctly what you meant, I do not see why you mentioned confusion.

I did not mean there are discrepancies in your own perceptions - you always experience for example red in the way you are used to. It might differ from person to person, but the experience of one person would remain the same.

Look at it this way.
When to parallel one color next to the other on a consistant basis you will rule out any discrepancies.
Much like numbers. If you learned them the wrong way, it would not work.
I know it seems unrelated but try to give it much thought and the process of how we learn association.