Quote:But if it is possible to have an impairment (by the way I never said either she or I have one, but that's not the point) which alter perception of colour, is it not also possible to begin that way?
of course it is possible to be borne with an impairment. i was talking about a normal healthy human...there will always be exceptions.
Quote:twyvel, the point is that research indicates a given receptor responds to a given wavelength in essentially the same manner regardless of species. Of course it is impossible to KNOW
yes, of course...this is the whole point. I hope and assume that everyone here is already familiar with the science behind vision...but we are talking about how the brain interprets the data. there is plenty of evidence to show that what the brain puts in its minds eye is not always a direct representation of the true physical world...
anyway, i still think that my deductive proof that we all see the same (unless they acquire/are born with a rare impairment) is a valid one.
stuh505
Quote:1) The fact that we can recognize opposite colors, and arrange colors in terms of value etc, shows that the potentially subjective visualization of the colors is relative to each other. In other words, if one person sees blue as being a little bit more reddish than I do, then they must see ALL colors a little more reddish. This was my first point.
2) My second point is that, once we know the first point, if we discover that ANY one color is seen excactly the same by two people, then we KNOW that ALL colors are seen exactly the same by those two people...because the color hues are all relative to each other.
anyway, i still think that my deductive proof that we all see the same (unless they acquire/are born with a rare impairment) is a valid one.
fresco said,
. "same" and "different" are observer dependent,
"
stuh505: I meant begin with an alternate perception, not begin with an impairment.
couple of what are, i think, relevant examples:
on the subject of the 'experience' of light, there are variations in the sensitivity of perception, between men and women; take for example 'fluorescent lighting'; women's capacity for experiencing 'vibration' goes beyond that of man. This renders women more susceptible to the vibration rate present in fluorescent lights - to women they appear to flicker, frequently leading to 'exposure headaches'; men do not perceive this vibration, thus are not negatively affected.
[the fact that men are usually responsible for designing the lights, manufacturing them, and specifying their use in buildings, leads to their being quite 'universal', and the fact that men cannot 'see' the vibrations lead them to ignore the very real abrasion to women exposed to them]
the 'point' here, is that there is a demonstrable difference, subtle though it is, that is now medically, and physiologically being documented; this variation between the sexes is probably a 'window' to variations, in general.
secondly, jumping senses to auditory (without reference to 'trees' this time), lets consider 'music'. A commonly appreciated phenomenon is 'tone deafness'. This is, of course, an extreme case, but represents the end of a 'Bell" curve of auditory response which sees hugely different emotional response to various types of music, by various subjects; to some, the sounds of many of the 'classics' bring tears to their eyes, whereas the same music is now frequently 'piped' into malls to persuade 'teen gangs' who it seems find the sounds offensive, not to gather there.
We are looking, i think, at the combination of social 'conditioning', and variations, perhaps partially environmentally 'learned', in the perception of sound.
Good points, BoGoWo. I find the point about classical music in malls fascinating. How clever of the mall managers. Just as gangstas would not like an environment of classical music, aesthetes would not tolerate an environment of rap. It shows the social dimension of perception. Some people experience aesthetic rapture while hearing a Bach violin or cello sonata; others experience indifference. Conditioning is a clear factor.
But I repeat. The issue at hand, as I understand it, is the impossibility of knowing with certainty the subjective experience others have of color (in this case red). As such, I find the extended discussion of the physiology of sensation, irrelevant--but interesting nevertheless.
Very interesting. I never knew that thing about the lights.
jlN; you have just fallen on a hugely astute observation.
irrelevance is, in itself, a source of great fascination!
If I cannot have your headache, then you can't see my red.
I tend to vote with twyvel,
With all due respects to Albert (the E=Mc squared guy) we have no way of determining the color perceived by another without another frame of reference. There does not seem to be one in this case
My mother told me that the car was red, and the trees were green. I accepted her definitions but I can think of no way to know that she sees green as I see green.
I believed that she did but thats a bit different from "knowing".
Even Einstein could not figure out any way to tell if you or I were moving except relative to a third party. Since we have no way to tell if the third party is moving without invoking a fourth party--- ad infinitum, I think it presumptious of me to assume that we all see red as the same sensation. Except that the response to the sensation of color is "learned".
Damned good question.
The only way I have personally resolved it is by admitting that everything is relative and going on from there.
With visions of sugarplums, good evening
honestly what are you all discussing still, i already proved it...
Well, a daltonic person would completely disagree with your "proof" stuh505.....As an optics person who has read a lot about preception and brain imaging I can attest that there is no such thing as identical perception for two people. It really has nothing to do with the colours being primary or not. Our brains and optical systems (eyes, optical nerves etc) are created in such a way that we all see each wavelength as approximately the same colour (unless you suffer from conditions like daltonism). However, it is very easy to see that even the individual perception of a colour changes from eye to eye. There are numerous experiments that demonstrate the fact that depending on the stimulation that the eye receives it will later perceive the colours in a different way. These changes in perception can stay active for days. The bottom line is anyway that there are slight discrepancies on the perception of all stimulations from the environment not only from person to person but from second to second on the same person.
Stuh,
I am indeed sorry but your evidence than all colors are percieved the same does not constitute a "proof.
If
you could think of some way to describe a color as perceived by another human without an "a priori" education then we may be able to call it a "proof".
I'd love for you to be able to do it
It may help
For instance I once asked; does the word "blue" mean the same thing to a resident of Sudan as it does to a resident of England or the temperate Americas.
My thought was is the "blue sky" bringing the promise of fair weather and pretty days or is it harbinger of one more day without the essential rain.
"Blue" in the english language (temperate regions) is a pretty word. Soft and pleasing to the ear.
Does it sound the same in Swahili or Urdu? Sorry, thats another question.
But IMO if blue was a pleasant sound in the aforementioned languages it still wouldn't pass muster as a proof. Damn, don't you just hate to lose an arguement with your self
I just did
Quote:It really has nothing to do with the colours being primary or not
want to explain why not?
lets assume that my vision causes everything to appear slightly more reddish than yours.
then my blue would be a little purple, and my yellow would be a little orange, and my green would be a little brown. i would then notice that muddy brown, purple, and orange cant be used to mix every color in the spectrum.
since the majority of people accept that the primary colors appear to work, we know that for all those people they see them the same!
Stuh, I am amazed that you really believe you settled the matter. You have, it appears, no appreciation at all for the philosophical epistemological nature of this problem. Is that because you do not want to even consider other presuppositions? I'm not trying to offend you. I just think you do need a bit of jolt. You're smart but exceedingly rigid.
JL, some folks just ain't inta metaphysics. Its quite possible numerous philosophical epistemological presuppositions and permutations thereoff have been considered, but found wanting. There are folks given to suppositions, pre and otherwise, and folks who prefer deductive reasoning based on discovery and analysis of confirmable, reproducible data. Its a broad gulf that separates the two, but there's really no reason an artist and a mechanic can't find a way to get along :wink:
Granted, Timber. It's just that the "metaphysical" problem posed was not something that I thought could ever be resolved one way or another, which is why I argued earlier that the problem has no real practical signifiance at all. It is an interesting opportunity for us to realize our limitations and those of our "presuppositions." So for someone to come along and pretend to "solve" the problem without acknowleding its philosophical implications is a bit disappointing. But I know. Stuh has just as much right to frame the issue as I do. Sorry Stuh.
Ya know, JL ... you touched on somethin' there that I've been thinkin' about pretty much since I stumbled into this discussion. Individual perceptions. Someone might start a topic and pose a question, knowing what the question meant to the questioner, expecting not so much answers but conjecture, theorization, and contempletive offerings, perhaps a personal anecdote here or there, and the odd run of digression popping up from time to time, having a notion of how the thread would roll out. of course, but anticipating some thought-provoking exchanges. Then, likely to the initiator's suprise and consternation, other sensibilities inject themselves, skewing the path originally anticipated. I can understand how that could be irritating as hell; I hate it when it happens to me
But hey ... its always open mike here. Ya never know what's gonna happen on the stage, and that's exactly why most of us are in the audience as often as we can arrange, and why the mike gets passed around non-stop.. Some folks will see a question as something to explore, others as a point from which to take flight, and others are gonna do their damndest to answer the flippin' question, solve the issue, and move on (after gloating a bit for having solved it ... at least to their own, if to no one else's, satisfaction.
That's my own philosophical epistemological presupposition, anyway
JLN, I assure you that I am not close minded here...I have reviewed the evidence and made my decision, but given more evidence my opinion can change and this goes for any subject of discussion.
I am not sure what yuo mean by considering the philosophical implications...it seems to me that philosophy is just science without the proof, so when we can move a topic out of philosophy and into science we have completed the objective.
With regards to this specific topic, i would like to know how you disagree with my attempted proof because you keep disagreeing and then not pointing out any flaws. disagreeing is fine, but come on, if you're going to disagree show some respect and point out the specific reason why you disagree.
If you shift the primary colors, they no longer are the basis for mixing all other colors...so like i said, anyone can look at the primary colors and notice if they work as primary colors, and if they do work as primary colors, then we know for a fact that those colors (and all other colors, since i have proven earlier that if any color is seen the same then all colors must be seen the same unless there is a vision disability) are seen identically to everyone else who sees the primary colors as working. where is the dilemma?
