Color Theory

[coasterdude5]

My friends and I have been discussing this in class lately. It's a never-ending debate.

 

Over the summer on a long road trip, I thought to myself, "What if we all see different colors?" Before you turn away, think about it. Ever since you were little, you've been taught that a banana is "yellow". But "yellow" is only a word. What I see as being "yellow" might really be your "blue". Some kids at school said "well what about a street light?". Alright, you've always been taught that "red" means "stop". It doesn't matter what color you see the light as, you know that THAT color means stop. Everybody knows that "red" means stop, we all just see the color differently. I know there is something someone could come up with that would debunk it but then what about colorblind people?

 

I know this is a whacked out idea. I'd like to say that I'm not on drugs and I do have a life. This is just something that's stuck with me for a while. It's fun to see what people think about it.

[monkeyoverlord71]

Great, i'm not going to stop thinking about this now.

[Angry_Gumball]

You know, I have actually thought about this before. I wondered that if the red on "Theme Park Review" is really the same red that Robb saw when he made the logo, or if it could have been what I would call "Blue." I thought about this when learning/mastering the idea behind color correcting photos. For all I know, the person sitting next to me could see everything in 'negative' form in which could be perfectly normal for them..and a negative for them would be a positive for me.

 

Ok...this is getting a bit weird. I perfectly understand though...the offseason's started, allowing us to come up with weird random thoughts.

[Wes]

It's impossible. Take this site as an example. There is a gray background with yellow text. It is legible because there is a contrast of the two colors.

If everyone saw things different, there would be instances of the two colors that did not contrast well against each other, making this site illegible for those who perceive those two colors. If everyone saw color differently, there would be a certain percentage of people who could not see the site at all because the colors they perceive as yellow and dark grey would have very little contrast to them.

[paintballer]

^ My brain just poped

[thrillgeek]

Haha this is very interesting. I too have thought about this before but tend to drop the topic before I get a headache

[thrillerman1]

How funny...I too have thought of this idea. Also, do you think there are any other colors that exist which we cannot see with human eyes?

[Guest]

This is a basic argument of philosophy that’s been debated for thousands of years [yay for being Greek].

 

The common sense realist would believe that everyone sees the same color just as it appears. This argument is ignorant because science has proven what we see are mental representations of things. I personally take critical realist position on the issue of color. The only things that exist as certain are primary qualities of a thing (such as size, shape) because these are necessary in order for a very thing to exist. You can perceive a thing to exist without color, therefore it is directly dependant upon our perception. Science shows that what we see are images of reality that go to our brain (and our brain turns upside down). Another reason is a person who’s eye is physically different from yours will not see the same colors. Therefore color, being a secondary quality of the mind are ontologically dependant on our perception and should not be viewed as “real.”

[kamikazewatermelon]

I've always thought of this before. It just hurts my head so much. but Wes has shown us the light.

[dandaman]

Somehow this reminds me of that one discussion in The Matrix regarding perceptions of what tastes like chicken...

[hyyyper]

There is sense in this,

 

what our eyes actually see are the frequencies of light-rays that objects emit or reflect.

So and frequency of ### Hz we call red, but colors are very subjective,

but since colors only have 1 variable, the frequency, you can't compare or scale it to anything else but itself.

[SLUSHIE]

The visible spectrum is the same for everyone and every living thing.

 

Eyes can only fail to pick up certain frequencies of light (color blindness or B&W vision), not manipulate them and generate different colors.

[ebl]

I've wondered about this, too. But then I realized it doesn't matter, so who cares?

 

Eric

[Jds03]

I used to think about this allot when i was younger, but now i have more important things to worry about.

 

well.... not really

[Kennyweird]

Given the high amount of genetic similarity within our species, I'd have to say that, for the most part, we all see the same colors.

[Kennyweird]

Sorry for bringing this back up, I just want to point out a flaw with Wes' theory.

What the color theory assumes is that although each person sees using a different color arrangement, the amount of contrast between two colors is the same regardless of the individual. For example, I took a screenshot of Wes' post and inverted the colors. Although it uses a different color arrangement, the amount of contrast is still the same as the non-inverted one. What Wes described was color blindness, not color theory.

 

Like I stated in my last post, I personally don't believe we see in different color arrangements, I just wanted to point out a flaw with Wes' idea.

See what I mean? Different color arrangement, same contrast.

[Carnage]

If everyone saw color differently, there would be a certain percentage of people who could not see the site at all because the colors they perceive as yellow and dark grey would have very little contrast to them.

 

Well, that does happen to people who are color blind.

 

That's why certain color combination's for websites are taboo, as it would produce situations where color blind people would just see a single color.

 

For instance red on black, and green on black are taboo, as someone who is red/green color blind would see those colors as black, and would end up just seeing a blank screen.

 

There's color blind tests you can look at on the internet, where a number or something will be written using colored dots. If you can see the number, you're not color blind. But if you were color blind, you'd just see a big blob of dots, with no number visible.

[coasterdude5]

Here's a link to some color blind tests: http://www.toledo-bend.com/colorblind/Ishihara.asp

[sixflagsmagicmountain]

Oh man! I've thought about this for years! I've tried to explain my idea to my mom, and she always just tells me I'm crazy. I didn't think many other people had ever though about it.