Phylosophical Question:?

Question

One day I was sitting on grass and enjoying the beautiful view of the mountains. I started recognizing and distinguishing each colour in my sorounding. I stoped for a second and thought "How am I sure that the colours that I see are the same colours that another human sees?" ... From the moment I was born I was told the colour I see is called red, or green, or yellow...but no-one ever told me how they see those colours! Isn't that possible that what each person seas in the world is diffrent from another person's point of view? Is it possible that the reality to each person has something to do with what they see? Can anyone see what is actually real? What is reality to you?

Who knows maybe I spelled things not as another person would do on purpose... doesn't that relate to my question?

Cameron B, I believe you may have misunderstood my question. I'm asking what if the colour we both call red is diffrent in our eyes ... how would you know that the colour I call red is the same colour that you call red? Just because we both call it red, it doesn't mean what we see is the same colour... it's basically because we were told it is red from our childhood.

Answer 1

Well if we do we will probably never know that we do, but yeah I've wondered about that myself.
Perception is reality, and everyone has a different view.

Answer 2

I am red/green colour blind. I never accepted this as a true fact until one day, helping a friend put down a path in the forest for a cub pack (Scouts Canada), I realized I couldn't see the orange/red marker after I got 50m away from it. It just disappeared into a sea of green. It was plain as day to him standing next to me. Even when we exchanged positions I couldn't see it, but accepted his strong belief that it was indeed there.

We all have cones (or rods... can't remember which is for colour), but they vary in number and capacity from person to person. How they transmit to the brain is never going to be perfect either. Neither is how the brain processes these images.
These all filter the incoming light.

Additionally, when you stand next to me looking at the same object, your perspective is different. The photons of light hitting my eyes are similar but not exactly the same as the photons hitting your eyes. Unless you step into my exact space in my exact time, you are not perceiving the exact same light (colour).

So, your reality and my reality will always be a slight shade different. We can agree on the essential reality (the mountains, the sky) but the particulars may be different and depending on how strongly I present my view of the world, I may influence your reality.

Peace

Answer 3

I answered this question kinda in my answer to 'Is there anything that is not possible?'

No one sees the exact same colors you do. (Colours if you're speaking the Queen's English.)

When I was a professional photo printer my trainer and manager told me to watch my caffine intake. Why? Because it affects the colors you see. You eyes process information differently based on what you eat. It's too little for most people to notice. Photo printers deal with colors everyday and if I printed something one day and went back the next I'd have to run a test to see if my eyes matched.

No one 'see's what is actually real. Our eyes convert light to a electrochemical signal that is routed to a processing center in our brain. There it's reconstructed, from two images that overlap.
So, that being the best we can do, it's how we interpret sight. Everyone's body interprets things differently. I couldn't see much at all without glasses, for example. (faulty equiptment) But the physical interpretation is a electrochemical process and it's definitely a little different for everyone.

People who are color blind do not have the proper equiptment to decode certain light ranges bouncing off objects. (Which is what sight is, light bouncing of objects. We interpret the light waves as color- but we aren't seeing the object we are 'seeing' the light that bounced off.)

SO, no we 'cannot see what is actually real'

As for reality, check my other post that I mentioned at the top.

Answer 4

well with colours its definately not possible. if you had you colors different from mine, and i handed you primary colors only and told you to make orange. and lets say you think orange is green. so you mix together the blue and the yellow and make green. i look at you like you are retarted and we get it all settled. then it is just considered a mistake on your part and that you didnt take the same kindergarten that i did to learn the colors. lol. and as far as what is actually real, and what is not depends on what you believe not what you see. for example, if you believe in god, then nothing on this earth is actually real... just a subworld created to test people almost like software for a computer. if you dont believe in an omnipotent being. then reality is you just happen to be here and you can guarantee on having rest one day. either way reality may depend on perception, but it is not the perception of what they see but what they feel. there inlies your reality.

Answer 5

Good point but if I understood right you want to demonstrate a point but look,

Colors are the example of the concept of "facts" between us. When some one tries to say that "this is Green", he can just say that this is "his Green". He can convince many many that is his green their green, when we have a consent, then "Green is a fact and children learn it in school that the Green the first man said it was green is their green..

So as long as all agree that their green is yours we all agree, but the one who disagrees is either "Color blind" or simply a "Fool" so you can only miss with a "Fact" if you have a proof that makes many agree with you..

But No one can say that facts can't be broken, I think Galileo showed that, so until someone says that Green is not Green you can happily accept it :)

So my friend I can tell you,

People are different in what they like or what they feel about something yet they are the same in what they see as facts...

Answer 6

the light that hits our eyes does not vary from person to person if looking at a given scene, but the way our brains choose to percieve this light and display it to us can surely vary from person to person. my brain might have ended up using what i see as green to percieve the input of the colour green, but yours could equally well decide to use what i see as blue to percieve the colour green.

we can never really know, but if it is genetic then there must be some agreement between people, just as our brains, bodies and organs are all built in much the same way. this seems plausible, as if it is not the build of our brains which determines what we see then what does? course, we are all lsightly different and so what we percieve must surely vary a small amount. but in the end, everything must work to some form of law unless we look beyond law altogether.

just to point out, we could never really know because whatever out brain chooses to percieve the colours as, we will learn for each of these that say blue and yellow makes green (in art terms), regardless of what we percieve blue, yellow and green as looking like. perhaps we bot hassociate pink with girly things.. but our perception of pink need not be the same to make this association, as associations like this are all learnt as we grow up.

Answer 7

Now your on the right path.Welcome to enlightenment.Alot of what we call reality is actually agreement.And symantics.
Green becomes green when two or more people agree thats what it is.
Scientists have formulated tests that prove alot of what we observe is illusion.
Theres a great movie/documentary on this subject called "what the bleep do we know"
Watch it,you'll be blown away.

Answer 8

Yes, reality is not only what we see but also how we see and respond to what we see. I like your question because I have thought the same. Another interesting thing about color is the amount of light...light changes the color of things. So any color we see in a dimly lit environment will change with the light shining on it...great metaphore for how we see things...light (widom & knowledge) changes what we see (perspective).

Answer 9

The unstoppable rigidity the two flows around, strikes around, or in any different case ignores the immovable merchandise. Unstoppable does not denote the shortcoming to alter direction, it purely can't cease, you will possibly desire to very almost think of of water as an unstoppable rigidity (in a flow, because of the fact that water is continually flowing) and a rock as something the water can't flow, the unstoppable rigidity maintains being unstoppable, the rock maintains being immovable. Philosophically, it is an opinion helping "choose for the bypass" as you will exhaust countless capability attacking issues that that is pointless to attack in any different case.

Answer 10

I know what you mean. I've thought of things like that before, but I've come to the conclusion that unless someone is colorblind, such as confusing green and blue, I believe we really do see the same colors as each other. But how can we ever be sure?