Got into a good debate today, and made an interesting point(BRAINTEASER)...

As the title says, I got into a good debate with a professor(Also a Dr. of Neuroscience), and rather than bore you with the Ins and Outs, below is the abstract of what I found most interesting:


Where is color?


You have to view this question scientifically(of course), and keep in mind that color is not an attribute of any object. I'll post the scientific answer later on if nobody produces it beforehand.

Discuss.



-DC

 

Color is the "American" version of colour.

 

Where is it? Its everywhere. Color is the perception we get from seeing different wavelengths of light, 400nm to 700nm or some such right? Thus color really only exists somewhere between our eyes and our brains where the electrical impluses along our nerves are translated into an image with color. This is also why we do not see real-time, but lag slightly.

But then, I think you are after a different answer.

 

This is news to me.

 

You're on the right track. I'm not after any pansy liberal-arts philosophy question, but hard-core biology/neurology



-DC

 

In that case, the occitpital lobe of the cerebral cortex. So actualy the part of the brain that handles sight is the part furtherest from the eyes. Intersting.

 

Mike, wow. lol, you'd best get back to "hustling"

Eos, You're correct, we don't see real-time, there is lag. Let me expand, not only is there lag, but did you know that it isn't even "streaming"? It's something like an image every 1/7000th of a second or so(compare this to photography shutter speeds).

 

I would tend to agree with this.

Color is the decription we give to describe to others how our brains interpret various wavelengths of the visible (to us) spectrum.

A difficult question is, Do each of us see the same color when presented with the same wavelength? I can't think of a way now to objectively answer that, although I suspect we do, coming from the same ancestors. We all agree that if we perceive a certain wavelength, we will refer to it as a certain color "word," but that per se doesn't mean we have the same image in our minds.

Do other animals with color vision see the same thing? I would imagine that as we become more separate on the phylogenetic tree, that we would see the world more differently. Consider some insects, for instance, "see" UV light. I wonder what "green" appears like to a bee.

steve

 

I never expanded it that far, but that makes sense. If light is a wave/particle (biggest cop-out in science history to even make a pre-tense that light is a wave/particle <--- means we have no damned idea what light is) err, If light is a wave/particle then our vision would only be updated every time a photon hits our eye and then gets registered through the brain.

But why is it only 1/7000th of a second though? I would of thought it would be more often than that.

 

Who knows, we know that not all human's see the same colors, after all some people are "color-blind."

 

We're not talking photons, per se, but for simplicities sake, regular electrical impulses. 1/7000th of a second is quite quick, I would think, considering that it's back to back. Think computer monitors and video games/Television. They say the human eye can't detect a difference in anything played above 24.7 frames per second.

Back to the question, you're right, color lies between the eyes and the brain. But, what's interesting, is that during the processing of an image, the color is seperated out, and passed onto chemicals to retain the data until later when it is re-assembled with the black and white image that was processed.

sms makes a good point(although slighly off topic). What if what I call "blue" is really "red"? Or, you see a red ball, but if I were to look at the image you saw, the "red" ball would appear "blue" to me(I would still call it "red" though, unknowingly).



-DC

 

I'd say that the bottom-line to this is that, the best we can do is have a common "agreed" scheme of colors where one human can point to the sun and say "yellow or "orange".


-DC

 

Interesting..... Being partially color-blind, I've often wondered how certain shades/colors appear to others, and is 'orange' for example, the same color to someone else. I didn't even realize this was the case until I received a vision test for my latest job.

Can I borrow your eyes for a few minutes please?

 

Color is in our brain. It is how our brain processes the image our sense of sight sends to it through our eyes. A human color scheme is different than that of other animals. Humans share the same color scheme because at a certain level we are all genetically alike.

Sorry, I do not have a very scientific / technical answer.

 

This is so complicated. I know one color. Green. Means "floor it". LOL

I guess colour is the remaining of the light spectrum, what the surface it has bounced on has not kept in. If that makes sense. No surface = no light (like in space) = no color. So yeah, I guess that's my answer. It's in the surface that light reflects on.

edit - should learn to read the questions better ...

 

Eos and EspritSE, I agree that the issue of color-blindness is an excellent argument that, at least in some situations, we probably do not always see the same thing.

Another case is in certain types of occipital blindness, for instance, where the person states he sees nothing, but the pupils still react to light appropriately.

steve

 

Color is in pigment. Color effects are in surface structures. Perception of color lies within the individual.

 

Well I can tell you each of my eyes sees color slightly different. One of my eyes sees about 10 points more magenta, or 10 points less green depending on how you look at it.

 

Hexidecimal

#000000
#FFFFFF

That's black and white. Nuff said.

 

HEXADECIMAL.



-DC

 

You guys bring up something about perception that i have wanted to try to measure.

I have two friends who suffer from partial color blindness, and we have had myriad discussions trying to explain to one another (obviously unsuccessfully) what it is they see. I think that in blindness they take on shades of grey where I might see colors.

So there must be a way to "establish" certain colors as a combination of frequency/wavelength. Given that, you can then set parameters as to what is considered what, and then measure how far "off" you might be (or not be).

Another test I've wanted to try (but admittedly won't), would be to raise a child, only telling him the color spectrum inverse. Give him the full range, but reverse it. So what I see as red, he calls blue, and what I see as blue, he calls red. And then see if his life is affected by this.

Have there been neurological studies to this effect?

--Dan

 

I bet the child's life would be a bit confusing until he re-learned our naming conventions. Others would really question his perceptions.

Ultimately, colors come down to our agreements about how to label our detection of electromagnetic radiation of visible wavelengths. Scientifically, it is better to say "700nm wavelength" than "red" to be as precise and objective as possible. It also lets us describe wavelengths our eyes can't see at all.

There is no window to others minds, yet, to allow us to see directly what others see. I wonder if people with different visual issues, ie, color blindness, have been studied by imaging modalities such as PET that might reveal some of us process color information in different areas of the brain.

Does anyone know if these metabolic imaging studies exist?

It reminds me of the movie "Mom and Dad Save the World." In one scene, the alien race has a device to let them read Dad's mind in real time and it comes out nonsense.

Tom Kite also wanted something similar, when he said he wanted to get into Fred Couple's mind to see if golf really was that easy to play.

steve

 

This little known method can be used to get out of a speeding ticket. When pulled over, explain to the cop that the red light, when accelerated toward at the precise speed will appear to be green. He will be amazed by this and let you go!

The fact is...given a 1/4 mile distance to the red light, if you were to be travelling at the right speed (the speed required to travel around the world 3 times in the same time interval as doing 35MPH to the limit line) the light would appear green.

See how THAT one works on John Q. Law!!

DL

 

Dan, So your kid's name will be Vib G.Yor? Real nice. While you're at it...teach him F*ck You really means hello!!

DL

 

I'm not sure how you could explain a color to someone who cannot perceive it (other than, you can't tell?).

I heard once that if you get trauma on your occipital lobe (or visual cortex or whatever) that it could actually take all of your brain's visual capacity out, including the ability to make mental visual images.