We all see colours. Red Blue Green and the like. How do I know that colour I see is the same as you see?

Question

Could it be the shade of the colour? There are many shades of green red pink blue orange and the rest. I'm intrigued.

Answer 1

You can never know.

Answer 2

You can never know. Although its technically the same coloured light passing into all of our yes, one persons mind may interpret it in a different way.

What we do know, is that the way we see colours differs between the sexes. Females see colours lighter than males do, so that image your seeing now, a women would be seeing the colours lighter than you are (or vice versa if you're a women), but it makes no difference generally.

As people can be colourblind, and see some colours as other colours etc (for instance, I know someone who sees green as orange, so green writing on an orange background (or vice versa) is almost illegible for him), I'd definitely say its possible the everyones mind interprets it differently.

Answer 3

i think this is what you might be getting at...

Wittgenstein’s Beetle
In his Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein uses an analogy in an attempt to clarify some of the problems involved in thinking of the mind as something over and above behaviour. Imagine, he says, that everyone has a small box in which they keep a beetle. However, no one is allowed to look in anyone else’s box, only in their own. Over time, people talk about what is in their boxes and the word “beetle” comes to stand for what is in everyone’s box.

Through this curious analogy, Wittgenstein is trying to point out that the beetle is very much like like an individual’s mind. No one can know exactly what it is like to be another person or experience things from another’s perspective (look in someone else’s box), but it is generally assumed that the mental workings of other people’s mind are very similar to our own (everyone has a beetle which is more or less similar to everyone else’s). However, it does not really matter – he argues – what is in the box, or whether everyone has a beetle, since there is no way of checking or comparing. In a sense, the word “beetle” – if it is to have any sense or meaning – simply means “what is in the box”. From this point of view, the mind is simply “what is in the box” – or rather “what is in your head”.

Wittgenstein aruges that although we cannot know what it is like to be someone else, to say there must be special mental entity called a mind that makes our experiences private is wrong. Part of the reason he thinks this way is because he considers language to have meaning through public usage. In other words, when we talk of having a mind (or a beetle), we are using a term that we have learnt through conversation and public discourse. Furthermore, the word we have learnt can only ever mean “whatever is in your box” – i.e. your mind – and should not therefore be used to refer to some entity or special mental substance since no one can know that such a thing exists (we cannot see into other people’s boxes).

Answer 4

Unless you are colourblind or visually impared then most peoples eyes reflect the light to see what colours they are so if two people with good eyesight looked at a sky blue chair they would see exactly the same colour, that is why.

Answer 5

If you go get an eye exam they sometimes show you peices of paper with a bunch of red, yellow, orange dots and you can see it makes out a number so if we all saw different colours it wouldnt work

Answer 6

Say were both looking at a red object
If the colour which i see is the colour that you would describe as blue and colour that you are seeing would be described as green by me...
oh what gives?
we would both describe the object as red, because we are taught by our parents and pre-school teachers that the colour we're seeing is red

Answer 7

I doubt your view on the colour that I see will be the same as the colour you see, even my husband says a colour is different to what I see.

Answer 8

we can only assume that due to our brains and eyes having the same structure that we do see colours the same.

however in the end colour is simply a signal to our brains of the wavelenth and intensity of the light we see.

in conclusion we see the same wavelength and intensity (the accuratcy depending on how good your sight is) but how our brains interpret the signal i belive is unique to the person (similar to the way ppl think is unique)

Answer 9

i dont think we will ever really know!!! i have thought about this many a time- i always see blue when most see green in some particular shades

Answer 10

I have thought the exact same thing several times. They have the color blind tests that they do at the eye doctor, do they know we all see the same because of that? I think we must. Be interesting to hear from an optometrist though.

Answer 11

Different person sees differently.
There is no two equipment or animal exactly behaves similarly. So two different people's eyes do not see the same.