What is the colour "red"?

Question

Describe the colour red. Would it make any difference to your answer if I was blind or colour blind?

Answer 1

Red is not necessarily the same to each person. I can never fully describe my experience of the colour red to someone else. There is no way of knowing whether we are experiencing anything like the same thing when we both look at the same colour.

I can't even be sure that what I look at today and call red is the same thing that I called red yesterday.

On top of that, when does red become orange..is there a part of the spectrum where we can draw a line or is it completely subjective?

What does it feel like to sense red? I can only say I feel redness, which isn't any help to you whatsoever.

We are isolated sensory beings at the end of the day.

Answer 2

Apparently (and you may get a scientific reply that explains this better) the colour red (or any other colour) is the colour of the spectrum not absorbed by the object it is said to be the colour of - which is mildly interesting but of little use to you if you are blind.

I cannot describe the colour red. It is a primary colour and so cannot be made up of any of the other colours (for instance I could describe green as a mixture of blue and yellow). It is something you can perceive by sight or else not really fully comprehend.

If you were blind I could possibly convey my sense of the colour which might help you to form an idea of it. Red is fiery, passionate, an active warm colour, it is used to attract the attention (as in signs and advertizing), to denote warning or danger, it is said to be the colour of shame, embarrassment, and anger.

But it is also insubstantial, like a shadow, it cannot be felt as part of an object just like a shadow it only has two dimensions.

Answer 3

Red means different things to different people. Some say red makes you feel hungry. Others associate red with anger, passion, or heat. To a blind person, I would describe it as an extremely bright and vivid colour quite the opposite of calm. Blood is red so it could also be the colour of life.

Answer 4

If u were blind I couldn't describe it , how could I? But if u were colour blind I could make u believe that blue or any other colour is red, how could u say it's not true? It's very difficult to explain when u cannot make any comparison or u have never seen it!

Answer 5

If you were blind you would not see it.
If you were colour blind it would appear as one of the greys with a tint of a cold colour.
To describe the colour if you could not see it it must be in terms of what senses you have to think about it.
Since touch is the most likely I would describe it as very warm.

Answer 6

Blind or not, try this experiment...

Get hold of two pieces of coloured paper or card; One blue and one red.

Close your eyes, and without knowing which is which, hold your hands flat over each piece in turn, relax your mind, and see if you can "feel" the different colours. What do you feel?

Articles I've read suggest that red feels hot / warm to most people, but see if you get any results yourself.

HTH

Answer 7

Red is the color that results when white light is filtered or reflects only the red portion of it's composite wave. It does make a difference whether you're colorblind if youre a subjectivist and believe that the only things that exist are from your own perspective. If you're an objectivist, you'd think that red is red whether or not an individual is color blind. I'm an individualist, so I think that each perspective is equally valid, depending on which camp you accept.

Answer 8

Lots of ways to answer this question. Red is a word, a name. The colour red is the light in a particular part of the spectrum whose wave length reaches us in that colour. The name is not important it could be called anything but we have got used to the word red and all its attendant meanings and attributes.

Answer 9

red is the colour of your blood even if your colour blind you will no what that is. Sorry i got no way to describe it if your blind.

Answer 10

Red makes a dog bark because they do not comprehend what it is coming at them. It is truly as if they were blinded since they cannot understand.Red occupies space and stands out in a crowd. red and sky blue together cause you to unfocus and be confused. Maybe someone can answer that?Red and yellow kill a fellow but the hiss of a snake can save someone!