We can not describe the color red...?

Question

...or any other color, to someone who has never seen it before and expect that they will be able to form the same image of red in their mind that we see. I do not know if my red looks the same as your red. Are colors real?

Answer 1

Rent "Mask" starring Cher. At one point in the movie, Rocky Dennis teaches his blind girlfriend about different colors and descriptions. You should find some great tips there, and also, you'll really like the movie. :)

Answer 2

Colors are rays of light absorbed or reflected by the object they hit. Like you can see a rainbow, when a ray of light hits a prisma...

You can define colors by numbers, like for instance in Photoshop, but only in LAB, because that is the only real colorspace to define colors.

But this doesn't mean that you and I will see the same color. You could see a red color, I could see a red-brown color, and someone else brown-orange...
This is because our eyes are different... and built with different elements. some have more cones of one type than the other, so it's possible that one sees more colors than another. This explains also why some people are colorblind (their eyes are missing some of the buildingstones of a normal human eye)
It's scientifically proven that women normally can see more gradations of colors than men, but this doesn't mean there aren't any exceptions... Our eyes are also limited to see a certain amount of colors...

So I would say (for me) colors are real, but what you see isn't necessarily the real color... so if you would want to describe a color you can do so, by comparing it to a feeling you have when you see the color (like USMCstingray said), but you will never know if your description & feeling equals mine...

That's why color is amazing: it is, you can feel it, you can define it by numbers, but your eyes are limited to see all the different colors that exist.

for the real explanation check out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color

Answer 3

Colors are real, a product of wave length, viewed the same by folks with normal sight, but if you're referring to a blind person there's no way they could really understand or mentally visualize a color.
Years ago I read of someone who went blind very early in life.
When she become an adult she had an operation that restored quite a bit of sight to her. She went on to say that when she was able to see a mountain for the very first time it WAS NOTHING LIKE the descriptions she was given while still blind. She was overwhelmed at the real thing.

Answer 4

I believe colors are real but I would describe red or any color the way I see it and then any thing that I describe would be interpreted the way that you see it. That's what is so cool about art and music, everyone sees it and hears it differently. It's what makes the world go around.

Answer 5

Exactly. Colors are, like many other things in our "reality" created objects based on our perception and experiences.

We go through school, the teacher points at a color, and says "this is red." But - what if what I see as red, you see as blue? It doesn't matter, because we both looked at the same color, and learned the same name for it.

Reality only exists in perception, and perception changes from person to person.

Answer 6

Is anything real? Scientifically we can prove red is red. But is science a reliable indicator. Most people believe in science. So, logic would probably error in favor of red is real. But I think life is an illusion and red is a small part of life. This is a fun question.

Answer 7

OMG! i was thinking about that the other day, if a blind man walked up to you off the street and asked you what the sky looked like, your first reaction would be to tell him that it was blue with white clouds.the man could form something in his head, but htat would only be what he has imagined to fit the word blue or white. we have no way of knowing that what we see is the same as what any one else sees, and we have no way of knowing if what we see is real, its our imagination that creates the world around us. and i believe colours are relative to the way we percieve life, or the way our emotions determine the situation, i think we develop this at an early age. and maybe man kind is attracted to one colour, we just name the colours to how our mind interprets them, and everyones favorite colour is actually the same. but if there is no way of knowing, and no way of proving, then we can only assume that every one see's the same thing and that everything we see is true.

Answer 8

You can define 'red' in terms of wavelength etc in which case it is real. The way red looks is real to you. But it's true there is no way of describing it.

Maybe you are thinking about this thought experiment by Frank Jackson -> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary's_room - if you are not familiar with it already, look it up.

Answer 9

get a rock and put it in a pot of boiling watter.... Take it out and let it cool just a little bit. Then give that to the person....they will understand what Red is.
Get another rock and put it into the freezer.. that is blue.
Cotton balls are white....and billowy like clouds
Pull a rock out of the river that has moss over it and show them green
get the picture?
Hope that helps

Answer 10

Have that person touch a hot cup of coffee or a tea kettle, that feels like red looks