Today in class, I kind of opened up a can of worms, by asking about comparisons for two people's subjective time. The conversation went on quite a bit, and then Professor Johnson said something about colors and how we only know blue is blue because that is what we have been told since we were young.
This is one of those things that I think about quite often. There is no proof that we are both seeing blue. I mean, what I think blue looks like might be what you think yellow looks like. It is all based on perception. We perceive it as blue because that is what we are told. I really wonder and I wish that there was a way for us to find out.
I used to have this crazy theory that we all actually have the same favorite color. My favorite is what I perceive to be purple. What I mean is, what if your favorite color is green and what you perceive to be green is the same as what I perceive to be purple?
4 comments:
The 'same favorite color' theory is very interesting. I'm not sure if pointing to an object and saying to another "that is my favorite color". Depending on a "Mine too" or "Not mine" would mean anything?
As for a way to find out...colors are light waves. Each color has a certain frequency, so the frequency which hits our eyes must be the same. But then who is to say are perceptions do not differ from our basic sensations.
If we are both receive a shot, same place,same needle(it was cleaned though)We both are receiving equal stimulation. Our sensation may even be exactly the same, but our perceptions of the action will be different.
As for subjective time, consider my example of two people looking at each other, I don't think it is as far-fetched as it sounds.
But then, the relation of time can be between only those two people. The more I think about, the more impossible mass synchronization seems.
Our subjective perception of color, as Nicholas suggests, is a product both of the light reflected from objects and our individual capacity to perceive that light -- and since the latter can vary, the possibility of subjectively different perceptions of the "same color" arises.
I also found this topic very interesting! I actually had this same conversation with a friend about a week ago. I have always wondered if the color blue I see is the same pigment that someone else sees. Or as Professor Johnson has suggested in class, perhaps we are trained to call a certain pigment blue.
As infants we learn color x ostensively, that is, as adults point to objects and say "color x." Whatever we perceive in such instances (and it may be roughly the same or radically different) secures our future understanding of colors.
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