Something fun to think about...

[Detection]

So I was thinking about something the other day and see what you think... its not easy to explain so bear with me :)

We all (most) can see in colour, you know what the colour red looks like right? Blood is red, certain apples are red, a red colouring pen is red right ?

What is to say that the colour red that I see and call red, is not actually the same colour you see, but also call red ?

What is not to say that growing up, what your parents and friends all called red and told you was red, in your eyes looks what we all call blue, but because you see blue and were told it is called red, that colour blue to us, is red to you.

There is no way to determine if the colour we see is the same colour you see because we all call it the same name, and associate certain objects with it.

If you cut your finger and see blue blood coming out, except to you, you were told that blood is red so you call it red, how can we ever know if you are seeing the same red as us ?

If you are given a red apple to eat, but you see that apple as the colour blue, only you call our blue red, how can we know ?

:huh:

[Lingwo]

Lay off the drugs dude :laugh:

[Nick H. Supervisor]

Welcome to Theory of Knowledge. ;)

We used to debate questions like this all the time ("If I walk outside of the room, do you still exist?"). Just remember the final answer that I used continually to get through the course: Ultimately we know nothing for certain. All we can do is interpret what our senses provide us as "information." Something like that, anyway. :laugh:

EDIT: And actually, here is a real-world example of your question. My brother grew up, learned to drive and then decided that he wanted to join the Air Force. He got turned away because they established that he was partially colour blind. I think he can't see red and green. But because he had grown up being told "this is red" and "that is green" he is able to tell the colour of a traffic light, or the colour of a red ball. He's taken what he sees to be a certain shade of grey (which we would interpret as red) and calls it red.

[Tekkerson]

Pretty sure this is a myth unless you're colorblind...

[Nick H. Supervisor]

Pretty sure this is a myth unless you're colorblind...

It's not a myth. There's a possibility that it might be false, but it's not a myth. It's impossible to give a definitive answer on the question.

[firey]

I've discussed this with people before, exact same concept. But about other things too, like using other words to describe something. Instead of sour call it spicy, etc. I actually used the color analogy with some Mormon guy that came to my house. He was trying to do the god exists and is watching you spiel. I asked him how he knew about god. He told me that he was taught the ways. I then said what if you were taught that the pen I was holiding was green instead of blue, you would live your life where blue to me is green to you and vice-versa. Basically getting to you can't trust what you have been taught without proving without a shadow of a doubt the validity.

[MarkusDarkus]

Well. It's all relative. Red is just a name to describe and identify something you see. If what I see as red is blue to you it does not matter, because what my photoreceptor cells do with that specific wavelength of light and how my brain interprets it compared to yours does not affect the actual properties of the light reflected off the 'red' object.

[Phouchg]

Most other animals see colors differently from humans. For example, birds can see a bit into ultraviolet. Interestingly enough, if they'd talk, how would they describe what they see and humans don't because humans simply can't.

As said above, some humans see colors differently from other humans. Color-blindness is just one end of this, the limiting one. There's an opposite - tetrachromacy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrachromacy). These people have fourth type of cone cells between red and green ones and therefore see various shades of these colors where we see none.

[Draconian Guppy]

This was addressed in three movies:

1. Matrix

2. Matrix Reloaded

3. Matrix Revolutions.

[Hum]

If 10 people are in the room, with one apparent apple, they will all see a different apple. ;)

[+Xinok Subscriber²]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia#The_inverted_spectrum_argument