What does it mean that color a “visual phenomenon”? Does color not exist outside of our brains?

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What does it mean that color a “visual phenomenon”? Does color not exist outside of our brains?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

You have red, green, and blue sensors in your eyes.

Show your eyes magenta and the red and blue sensors shout. You interpret red and blue sensors shouting as magenta.

Now, show magenta to someone who does not have red sensors (say, a genetic anomaly that makes them red color blind) and only their blue sensors will shout. Now, show them a shade of blue and their blue sensors will shout the same way as seeing magenta.

This someone will see blue and magenta as identical!

However, take blue and magenta and put them in front of a wavemeter (machine that measures wavelengths) and they will have two different wave lengths.

So, the color blind person can only perceive 1 color but the wavemeter can still detect the difference. The person’s perception of color is not the same as the wavemeter’s perception of color.

Even non-color blind humans are the same way, but our eyes can figure out most visible colors pretty accurately using only red, green, blue sensors. However, there are some colors that can fool human eyes called “impossible colors”. They are two different colors the eyes perceive as being identical (similar to the color blind person, but partially color blind people perceive a lot more colors as impossible.)

Anonymous 0 Comments

You have red, green, and blue sensors in your eyes.

Show your eyes magenta and the red and blue sensors shout. You interpret red and blue sensors shouting as magenta.

Now, show magenta to someone who does not have red sensors (say, a genetic anomaly that makes them red color blind) and only their blue sensors will shout. Now, show them a shade of blue and their blue sensors will shout the same way as seeing magenta.

This someone will see blue and magenta as identical!

However, take blue and magenta and put them in front of a wavemeter (machine that measures wavelengths) and they will have two different wave lengths.

So, the color blind person can only perceive 1 color but the wavemeter can still detect the difference. The person’s perception of color is not the same as the wavemeter’s perception of color.

Even non-color blind humans are the same way, but our eyes can figure out most visible colors pretty accurately using only red, green, blue sensors. However, there are some colors that can fool human eyes called “impossible colors”. They are two different colors the eyes perceive as being identical (similar to the color blind person, but partially color blind people perceive a lot more colors as impossible.)

Anonymous 0 Comments

You have red, green, and blue sensors in your eyes.

Show your eyes magenta and the red and blue sensors shout. You interpret red and blue sensors shouting as magenta.

Now, show magenta to someone who does not have red sensors (say, a genetic anomaly that makes them red color blind) and only their blue sensors will shout. Now, show them a shade of blue and their blue sensors will shout the same way as seeing magenta.

This someone will see blue and magenta as identical!

However, take blue and magenta and put them in front of a wavemeter (machine that measures wavelengths) and they will have two different wave lengths.

So, the color blind person can only perceive 1 color but the wavemeter can still detect the difference. The person’s perception of color is not the same as the wavemeter’s perception of color.

Even non-color blind humans are the same way, but our eyes can figure out most visible colors pretty accurately using only red, green, blue sensors. However, there are some colors that can fool human eyes called “impossible colors”. They are two different colors the eyes perceive as being identical (similar to the color blind person, but partially color blind people perceive a lot more colors as impossible.)

Anonymous 0 Comments

Yes and no. The length of the light waves do change, which is what causes us to see different colors of light, but the actual “colors,” themselves are entirely produced by our brain.

Outside of our brain colors would be more similar to blades of grass: all the same “thing,” but all different lengths. If those blades of grass were light waves, we would see each individual blade of grass as a different “hue,” with shorter blades being closer to red, medium being closer to green, and longer ones being closer to violet.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Yes and no. The length of the light waves do change, which is what causes us to see different colors of light, but the actual “colors,” themselves are entirely produced by our brain.

Outside of our brain colors would be more similar to blades of grass: all the same “thing,” but all different lengths. If those blades of grass were light waves, we would see each individual blade of grass as a different “hue,” with shorter blades being closer to red, medium being closer to green, and longer ones being closer to violet.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Yes and no. The length of the light waves do change, which is what causes us to see different colors of light, but the actual “colors,” themselves are entirely produced by our brain.

Outside of our brain colors would be more similar to blades of grass: all the same “thing,” but all different lengths. If those blades of grass were light waves, we would see each individual blade of grass as a different “hue,” with shorter blades being closer to red, medium being closer to green, and longer ones being closer to violet.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Fun fact. Magenta isn’t a color…. Sort-of.

So yes, colors usually exist as a specific wavelength of light and have properties outside of just our brains. Except magenta does not exist as a wavelength of light. So what’s going on there?

Well we have cones in our eyes for seeing red light, green light, and blue light. What Magenta is is seeing red and blue light at the same time. Which you’d think your eyes would average out and show us green. But they definitely don’t do that, instead we see magenta.

And magenta isn’t the only color that doesn’t exist that we can see. There are several “impossible colors” that are also kind-of interesting. And in that sense…. Yeah your brain makes up what colors look like even if they usually have real-world properties.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Fun fact. Magenta isn’t a color…. Sort-of.

So yes, colors usually exist as a specific wavelength of light and have properties outside of just our brains. Except magenta does not exist as a wavelength of light. So what’s going on there?

Well we have cones in our eyes for seeing red light, green light, and blue light. What Magenta is is seeing red and blue light at the same time. Which you’d think your eyes would average out and show us green. But they definitely don’t do that, instead we see magenta.

And magenta isn’t the only color that doesn’t exist that we can see. There are several “impossible colors” that are also kind-of interesting. And in that sense…. Yeah your brain makes up what colors look like even if they usually have real-world properties.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Fun fact. Magenta isn’t a color…. Sort-of.

So yes, colors usually exist as a specific wavelength of light and have properties outside of just our brains. Except magenta does not exist as a wavelength of light. So what’s going on there?

Well we have cones in our eyes for seeing red light, green light, and blue light. What Magenta is is seeing red and blue light at the same time. Which you’d think your eyes would average out and show us green. But they definitely don’t do that, instead we see magenta.

And magenta isn’t the only color that doesn’t exist that we can see. There are several “impossible colors” that are also kind-of interesting. And in that sense…. Yeah your brain makes up what colors look like even if they usually have real-world properties.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Color is a visual phenomenon because it only exists in our brains as a perception of the different wavelengths of light that are absorbed and reflected by objects. It’s like a translation of light into the sensation of color that we experience.