Thread: Vision

I would use the phrase "map combinations of wavelengths to visual phenomena", but it's really just arguing semantics. All that counts is that lights enter the eye and the information results in the experience of colors.

Originally Posted by NeoSioType

Does this make sense to anyone? It's like one say yes, the other no.

Our brains do not associate certain colors with certain wavelengths

Color is a reaction to and interpretation of specific wavelengths.

The brain is associating a color with a wavelength if it's doing so from reaction/interpretation. Right?

I think I see what he was saying, and it actually makes good sense, but i think he could of worded it far better.

Originally Posted by Korittke

I would use the phrase "map combinations of wavelengths to visual phenomena", but it's really just arguing semantics. All that counts is that lights enter the eye and the information results in the experience of colors.

Semantics? I must be not cut out for philosophy then. I still don't understand it.

Originally Posted by Omicron

I think I see what he was saying, and it actually makes good sense, but i think he could of worded it far better.

Yeah that's me. As I said many times before, I tend to word stuff funny.

This should answer any question you might have...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_vision

Colors are just colors and light is light... and humans are subject to biological evolution so that's why we have color vision. I don't understand your question or if you even have one.

Ha I hardly understand myself. Wait... by semantics you were refering to alternate phrasing of the post I had and not directly to the two contradicting phrases I had lined up right? If you were everything makes perfect sense.

Originally Posted by NeoSioType

Yeah that's me. As I said many times before, I tend to word stuff funny.

noo i meant xei.

Xei said nuffink.

Case Closed

Originally Posted by NeoSioType

Does this make sense to anyone? It's like one say yes, the other no.

Our brains do not associate certain colors with certain wavelengths

Color is a reaction to and interpretation of specific wavelengths.

The brain is associating a color with a wavelength if it's doing so from reaction/interpretation. Right?

Saying that wavelengths don't have color and our brains simply 'learn' to associate colors with them is like saying salt isn't salty, we just learn to think that it is. The color is an intrinsic part of the wavelength of light. An electronic device might percieve the wavelength as a number and we percieve it as a hue, but the number that the computer sees is still a hue.

There's a difference though. Digital cameras see a continuous band of numbers. We see discrete separate bands and as far I'm aware it's that property of discontinuity which we call colour.

Originally Posted by Xaqaria

The color is an intrinsic part of the wavelength of light.

How so?

Originally Posted by Xei

There's a difference though. Digital cameras see a continuous band of numbers. We see discrete separate bands and as far I'm aware it's that property of discontinuity which we call colour.

The perception of discontinuity stems from the fact that we really only perceive 3 colors. There are only 3 different types of cone cells in the eye. Everything that is not red yellow or blue stimulates different amounts of these three colors based on how close to them they are and a mixture is made. In reality though, I don't think we even really see a discontinuity. I think the evolution of the language of color attests to that. When words for colors first came in to existence, there was only white black and red. Over the thousands of years, humans have realized that there are many thousands of ways to differentiate between slightly different hues and new colors are being named all of the time. A trip to a paint store will illustrate that point. Take a look at the samples and at first glance it looks like they have 3 or 4 different names for each color, but a closer look will allow you to identify slight variations.

I think the real issue is that the human mind tends to want to compartmentalize everything into discrete values. Even our number line focuses mostly on integers, and the infinite number of possibilities between 1 and 2 are largely ignored. I think this is the same for our language of color. There comes a point when the difference is inconsequential and so we say there is no difference, even though we know there really is.

Originally Posted by Korittke

How so?

Color and wavelength are almost synonymous. The object of description is light. The light has a color, and the wave of the light has a length. It happens to be that the color of the light corresponds to the wavelength. Color is a visual representation of length, just as '3' is an arabic representation of [ . . . ]

Originally Posted by Xaqaria

Color and wavelength are almost synonymous. The object of description is light. The light has a color, and the wave of the light has a length.

The wave isn't a property of the light, it is the light.[/quote]It happens to be that the color of the light corresponds to the wavelength.[quote]Yes. But there are countless biological operations involved until this arguably direct correspondence results.

Originally Posted by Korittke

The wave isn't a property of the light, it is the light.

It happens to be that the color of the light corresponds to the wavelength.

Yes. But there are countless biological operations involved until this arguably direct correspondence results.

I would not say that the wave is necessarily the light. Depending on your interpretation, the light can be viewed as discrete particles; photons, that behave like a wave.

There is a chain of biological events that must take place in order to translate light into color, just as there are a series of linguistic events that must take place in order to translate Sanskrit into English. Still though, the Sanskrit word for light can be said to be the same thing as the English word light.

Originally Posted by Schmaven

Of the entire electromagnetic spectrum, our eyes allow us to see just a narrow band of the energy that all matter emits. What would it be like if that range was extended somehow and we could see not just colors, but all wavelengths of what is emitted? I think it's interesting how our brains distinguish the minute differences in wavelengths as completely different colors. If our eyes let us see radio waves and such, what would they look like?

I don't believe they would be able to be seen...only sensed. But not by any of our typical 5 senses.

I'm not certain if we're talking about the same thing or not, but sometimes I'm able to sense the energy around matter.

Yeah, I get that all the time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermoreceptor

Originally Posted by Xaqaria

Still though, the Sanskrit word for light can be said to be the same thing as the English word light.

They sound different, spell different and are used differently. I don't see how they are identical when they are different in all of their properties save for the object they reference.

I would not say that the wave is necessarily the light. Depending on your interpretation, the light can be viewed as discrete particles; photons, that behave like a wave.

But not as a color.

Originally Posted by Korittke

They sound different, spell different and are used differently. I don't see how they are identical when they are different in all of their properties save for the object they reference.
But not as a color.

The object of reference is what we are talking about. If you are arguing that the english word 'wavelength' is not the same thing as the english word 'color' then we are on a completely different page here.

Originally Posted by Xaqaria

The object of reference is what we are talking about. If you are arguing that the english word 'wavelength' is not the same thing as the english word 'color' then we are on a completely different page here.

surely the wavelength is different in that it produces the experience of colour.

The experience, or qualia, of colour is a product of the wavelength, which exists solely in our experience.

Or that said, I guess its all dependant on definition. I'd define colour on the experience of yellow, or whatever, rather than the components that create that experience in our mind.

I would not say that the wave is necessarily the light. Depending on your interpretation, the light can be viewed as discrete particles; photons, that behave like a wave.

Everything you perceive in this world is nothing but a wave. Therse nothing but energy and waves, theres no more to this world. The universe is like a huge pool of water, and we are the waves in the water. Without the water, we would not exist. The essence of everything is just energy formed by waves. How we humans perceive the world is like looking at a surface of water, perceive waves by their outlines, and giving the waves names.

You are also nothing but a bunch of standing waves of energy. Light is nothing but a traveling wave of energy.

Originally Posted by Aquanina

I don't believe they would be able to be seen...only sensed. But not by any of our typical 5 senses.

I'm not certain if we're talking about the same thing or not, but sometimes I'm able to sense the energy around matter.

Infrared waves resonate with the molecules in your skin and they start to vibrate more rapidly. This increase of vibration, kinetic energy, is what you sense, usually it's a perception of heat. All objects emit infrared waves, our skin works like an infrared receptor.

Also I don't think we can see or feel radiowaves because we have nothing in our bodies that can resonate with them afaik. They just pass through us.

Originally Posted by Xaqaria

The object of reference is what we are talking about. If you are arguing that the english word 'wavelength' is not the same thing as the english word 'color' then we are on a completely different page here.

The color is the result of the processing of the wavelenght. I don't see the problem. Take a drug and the process might change, so changes the color while the wavelength stays the same.

Originally Posted by Korittke

The color is the result of the processing of the wavelenght. I don't see the problem. Take a drug and the process might change, so changes the color while the wavelength stays the same.

I don't know what drug you are taking, but among the host of drugs that I've taken I've never seen light to be a different color than what I would normally expect. I have seen color in the absence of any light, that is; I've hallucinated the presence of a certain light when it is not present, but I have not seen one color become another.

What drugs are you on?

Originally Posted by ChaybaChayba

Everything you perceive in this world is nothing but a wave. Therse nothing but energy and waves, theres no more to this world. The universe is like a huge pool of water, and we are the waves in the water. Without the water, we would not exist. The essence of everything is just energy formed by waves. How we humans perceive the world is like looking at a surface of water, perceive waves by their outlines, and giving the waves names.

You are also nothing but a bunch of standing waves of energy. Light is nothing but a traveling wave of energy.

Infrared waves resonate with the molecules in your skin and they start to vibrate more rapidly. This increase of vibration, kinetic energy, is what you sense, usually it's a perception of heat. All objects emit infrared waves, our skin works like an infrared receptor.

Also I don't think we can see or feel radiowaves because we have nothing in our bodies that can resonate with them afaik. They just pass through us.

You really like that water analogy, don't you? even under the assumption that everything is made of waves, they are very unlike water waves. Even still, stating as much doesn't go towards explaining a whole lot anyway.