Can you define/explain what a colour is?

[LongGe123]

I got the idea for this thread from the person who wrote about explaining what sight is to blind people. IF you knew a blind person who was blind from birth and therefore had never seen colours before in their entire life, could there ever be a possible way to explain what a colour looks like - I say no there isn't. What does everyone else think?

I mean, take red for instance. We know red because we've seen it, and then someone has told us that it is red, so therefore whenever we see the same we know that the thing is "red". However, if you've never seen any colours before....you couldn't possibly imagine what it would look like, and there is no way anyone could explain it to you. Shapes are different of course. A blind person could feel things and recognise what they are and could perhaps even form some picture in their minds of what the things looked like, but colours have no shape or form, the just...are.

It's a real noodle-basher though right? Sometimes I like these kinds of questions but other times they just drive me insane. :bonk:

 

[michel]

I got the idea for this thread from the person who wrote about explaining what sight is to blind people. IF you knew a blind person who was blind from birth and therefore had never seen colours before in their entire life, could there ever be a possible way to explain what a colour looks like - I say no there isn't. What does everyone else think?

I mean, take red for instance. We know red because we've seen it, and then someone has told us that it is red, so therefore whenever we see the same we know that the thing is "red". However, if you've never seen any colours before....you couldn't possibly imagine what it would look like, and there is no way anyone could explain it to you. Shapes are different of course. A blind person could feel things and recognise what they are and could perhaps even form some picture in their minds of what the things looked like, but colours have no shape or form, the just...are.

It's a real noodle-basher though right? Sometimes I like these kinds of questions but other times they just drive me insane. :bonk:

Well, for one, I am blue/green colour blind, so I guess I am the last one to ask; but you reminded me of one of my mother's friends, who was blind.

This chap she knew, when she was young, was an accomplished pianist; he had been born blind.

The extraordinary thing was that he had composed several pieces, each named after a colour - and my Mum said that she could 'understand' the connections.......

 

[Jaymes]

I'd explain that light reflects off objects, and which shade of light reflects off the object determines how it looks. I'd compare it to sound waves bouncing off different surfaces; you play the same drum in two different places, but it will sound differently based on what surface it bounces off of.

 

[Zephyr]

I can describe 'red', but only to some people. Red is just the sound of an the musical notes A, C, and F played at the same time.

 

[Aqualung]

No, I can't explain colour. Another interesting about colour, though, is that when I see the colour blue, for example, it might look completely different than when you see it, and there's absolutely no way of knowing.

 

[Solon]

Though electromagnetic waves exist in a vast range of wavelengths, our eyes are sensitive to only a very narrow band. Since this narrow band of wavelengths is the means by which humans see, we refer to it as the visible light spectrum. Normally when we use the term "light," we are referring to a type of electromagnetic wave which stimulates the retina of our eyes. In this sense, we are referring to visible light, a small spectrum of the range of frequencies of electromagnetic radiation. This visible light region consists of a spectrum of wavelengths, which range from approximately 700 nanometers (abbreviated nm) to approximately 400 nm; that would be 7 x 10-7 m to 4 x 10-7 m. This narrow band of visible light is affectionately known as ROYGBIV.

Each individual wavelength within the spectrum of visible light wavelengths is representative of a particular color. That is, when light of that particular wavelength strikes the retina of our eye, we perceive that specific color sensation

 

[Katzpur]

I think the only way I would even attempt to explain colors to a blind person (and I don't think it would be very effective) would be to describe something that typifies the color. If I were to describe yellow, I'd say it's the warmth of the sun on a beautiful late spring day. I'd say red is the color of fire. It's hot and bright and piercing. Pink would be a fragrant rose. Green would be the color of a walk through the woods. Blue would be a pool of cool water on a hot day. White would be a handful of cold snow. That's what colors are to me, but I don't think those explanations would mean a thing to a blind person.

 

[Mr Spinkles]

IF you knew a blind person who was blind from birth and therefore had never seen colours before in their entire life, could there ever be a possible way to explain what a colour looks like - I say no there isn't. What does everyone else think?

I don't think so, any more than you could explain to a person what a dolphin's sense of echo location "looks like" or what a shark's sense of electric pulses in the water "looks like". What you could do is provide convincing evidence to a blind person that colors exist and how they are sensed by people with sight.