Funny you bring this up, I've had the same discussion with people on several occasions. dumb people often sit there not grasping what we're talking about and say "Um, it's blue and we all think it's blue, so I don't get what you're talking about."

I think it's a pretty crazy concept, and one that would be very very difficult to prove.

Here's another one, how would you describe Left vs Right to someone who had no idea which was which? All we could figure was to tell them to hold up their hands and the one with the L shape is the left. So lets say describe it to someone without hands.

Or another one: is it possible to invent a totally new color? One that isn't just a shade or blend of existing colors? I don't think so, cause all colors we know of are just combinations or variations of existing. We can't even conceptualize what a new color would look like, though I suspect it would look something like Blue Steel in Zoolander with the lights and trippy-ness.

 

 

haha I've always wondered this.


How about this. What does a 100% blind person see? He can't see just constant white because white is all colors combined, he can't see black because black is the absence of light. He sees "nothing"

We once had a blind person come into our school as a motivational speaker (kind of). Anyway he was asked what do you see. "nothing" was his response, "its something you'll never understand unless you become blind yourself and at that point there is no way to describe it."

So what is nothing?

 

THat would be impossible. Light is a finite thing and broken into one spectrum and observed in wavelengths. THe only way to change it would be to change perception of an already percieved wavelength or expand our band of percievable wavelength. That being said maybe some of us can perceive more wavelength at the ends than others and those people are the ones that are artists or art experts or whatever or have a use for that that helps them. Some animals see ultraviolet or infrared which we don't, but they'd be new colors if we could see them.

 

ya know, there are just too many freggin smart people...ha-ha

 

Scientists call this "the hellawhack shiznit that goes on in your brizzle."

group.

 

[QUOTE=s2000raj,Jul 22 2008, 01:00 PM] THat would be impossible.

 

Yes, but there is still nothing to invent. It's certainly possible for someone to be the first human in existence to view a particular wavelength, and therefore, a never before seen color.. but nothing was invented. It was there all along, and will be a shade or blend of a color or colors that have already been viewed. We're not going to see a new color called shmorgaborg which bears no resemblance to any color previously viewed. I think that was what's his face's point.

 

was only discussing finite.....

agre that you can't make a new color... just saying if color is related to the wavelenth.. then there are infinite colors to be percieved... and if its infinite.. there is a chance you could run into a new one... BUT... we'd agree that its "red" cause.. anyting falling between the perceptive range of "1 and 2" will be called red... even if its not something we've explicitly experienced before....

so in reality.. we are right back to.. "lets agree to call strawberries red"

 

semantics. I think different variations in the visual specturm besides the primary and secondary colors are simply different shades, not new colors.

Primary colors yellow, blue, red
Secondary colors green, purple, orange.

Really all our colors are then shades of those colors.