How do you know that the color you see is the same color someone else sees?

Question

People are taught colors at a young age - "this is blue, this is green", etc. But how do you know that what I see as green is not what you see as blue? No one would ever be able to tell, because you only recognize the color through learning and it is not like an object that you can draw and show someone else to repeat.

Answer 1

Because of science...we know that light reflected is color based on the wave length...of course there are things that change how we interpret that but we learned about that through science too...EG we know why some are colorblind.

Answer 2

As long as 2 (or more people's) optic receptors that detect color(s) are functioning, those 2 people will detect the color(s) in question. There is no scientific doubt. One of the people may have more receptors which makes color(s) more 'vibrant' which is expressed as 'tone' but both people will sense color of a specific wavelength, which in turn is interpreted by the brain as being a recognizable color that was given an arbitrary name during one's schooling years.

How each person's brain interprets the colors they see is going to be somewhat different. Each person has different neural pathways, differing amounts of light receptors, slightly different brain chemistry.... so when 2 people see an object that they both associate as 'Green', it will look slightly different to each other. But science can say that since people's eyes and brains are mostly similar, we are probably seeing the world's colors in mostly the same way.

However, your question is actually subjective and qualitative in nature which means that Person A's interpretation of the color Green may look and be different when Person B looks at the same object. It's a difference between the definition of the color 'Green' which is a definition taught in schools with the quality 'Greenness' which is an ideal.

Ultimately there isn't a way to definitively say that when 2 people see the same object if they are seeing it in the exact same color as everyone else. We assume that everyone sees the world in the same way we do, but beyond sharing the name of the color in common, we have no guarantee of that.

Answer 3

That's a great question - even if you know the rods and cones work the same way in everyone's eye (being humans) there is no way to proove the brain sees the color the same as someone else. (wavelegnth stimulates the cones and rods, not the brain) I suppose you could try to study what part of the brain goes active for different colors. But my guess is the part of the brain detecting color is so small you could only detect activity and not which color was being stimulated.

Makes you think, right? Your red could be my green.

But I would think everyone sees black and white the same, as black is no color and white is all the colors... (for light anyway)

Answer 4

wavelengths of the light dictate the approximate colors we see so you won't usually see green when someone else sees blue. however, it is the rods and cones in the back of a person's eye that transfer the information about those colors to our brain. i would assume there is some sort of standardization within our species like there is with hearing. (we know people hear similar things because when they learn to speak they mimic what they've heard.)
it is possible that there are variations in color caused by mild or serious visual impairments. i can tell you this for a fact because, even though you can't tell the difference from person to person due to a matter of opinions, i have color differences between my right and left eye. i'm not colorblind but my eyes each interpret yellow/brown/red tones differently than the other. you are correct about the dilemma of learned colors though; i don't technically know which eye sees more correctly because i don't know what to compare to. my guess would be that the eye that needs less vision correction sees correct colors.
i think if there wasn't some sort of norm for the species, we would know because more people would have differences from right to left like mine.

Answer 5

I was just reading an article about how different people have different percentages of red, green and blue sensors in their eyes. This would make for different sensitivity to various colors. The 3 basic colors are probably perceived the same. When you get to shades and combinations though their may be some interesting differences.

Answer 6

Because we agree by consensus on what to call a certain color.

If I see a color and say it is what I have learned to be "blue", but you see it and say it is what you have learned to be "green", then either your brain is seeing a different color (there are "color-blind" people who do not see colors the way most of us do) or you were taught a different name for the color we are both seeing.

So then it becomes a question of what is the more likely explanation?

Answer 7

People may percieve colors differently but the colors themselves are defined by their wavlengths. So there is a an actual scientific standard for what is red, blue, etc. People who are color blind and work in a scientific laboratory will often use something called a colorimeter, which will determine the wavelengths of light something reflects.

Answer 8

They won't be exactly the same, but a measure exists of the various wavelengths of light which we consider to be corresponding to certain visual colors. Our cones (color receptors in our eyes) don't really respond to color, but they respond to certain wavelengths of light, and so for the most part we can all agree on the colors we are seeing or at least that exist outside of our brains... but we'd only not agree if our color receptors (cones) were damaged or different than someone elses... or if parts of our visual cortex or cerebral cortex responsible for processing that information coming from the cone cells were damaged or different, then we might see something other than what a "healthy" individual would see.

Answer 9

Well thats the thing, no one really knows. This is an ethical question. But remember the color you see if really a ray of that color being reflected away from that object. So if you are seeing red lets say on a shirt. Then that shirt is absorbing every color but red, so its reflecting it and you are seeing it.

Answer 10

Good question. Obviously, each color is unique because of its wavelength - but I think what you are asking is if our brains interperate these colors in the same way. I can't think of any way to ever know - if I ask you what colors match the nortorious Window's locked-up blue screen, it really doesn't tell me anything if you say the sky or your mate's eyes because you could be comparing things that I see as orange - and you will be consistant in picking the same color because that is how you perceive it.