Do you think that everyone sees colors the same way or do you think that my red might be your green?

Damn good question. I always thought that.

If we see the same sequence of colour when looking at light broken down by a prism, then we are seeing the same colours. A prism will not vary in colour frequency.

Barring a brain tumor or alien physiology, yes your red is my red.

@DarkScribe But how do we know that the sequence of colors look the same inside our brains? What if when I see yellow, I say yellow, but inside my mind it looks like purple, but I say yellow, because I’ve been taught that that color is yellow?

No one knows and it doesn’t matter, since we all agree on the names, and color vision is a psychobiological phenomenon, not a physical phenomenon.

The prism splits light by frequency, the colours that are designated as first, second etc, are named, if you see red or blue in the correct sequence, then you are seeing the same red or blue as any other person. The first colour is red, the last blue etc.

We all see the same colors. if not, traffic crashes would block the roads for miles and miles. TRAFFIC SIGNAL LIGHTS.

Varying colors when put together produce different colors.
Green and Blue together make Cyan.

“Your” “green” and “blue” would produce another color. So their Cyan and yours would not match.

The variations of a color wheel would prevent other interpretations of color from happening.

It is not correct that you can draw a connection from the physical spectrum to color vision in humans. There is no empirical way to determine the “appearance” of certain light frequencies to individuals. Logic may seem to dictate that you can, but you cannot.

I think it’s a question of categorical perception. There are categories of colors we have agreed on. Range of red, blue, green etc. But in the fine gradients, we have different thresholds of detection because of our sensory organ differences – if any. But also because of the perception, what you know about a color etc. If your job requires you to know colors well, ex you’re a painter, graphic artist etc – you get a keener eye for gradients.

Another similar thing exists in language. We have categories for syllable sounds, and you can understand a million different accents.

“Yellow moon, you saw me standing alone.”

This question was asked before, but I can’t find it, so here’s how I understand the question and how it was described last time it was asked:

How do we know that our colors are the same? I could be seeing green, and you could be seeing blue, but we would both know to call it red.

The answer that I seemed to understand last time this question was asked was that yes, studies have shown that everybody’s eyes work the same way, and therefore, our colors are the same.

but what about taste?

If you look at a colour chart that is labeled red, green yellow, blue etc., then there can be no confusion as to which colour is named , even if you don’t see it with the same hue or tone as another person. One person’s yellow cannot be another person’s blue. (Unless there is a degree of colour blindness.)

It doesn’t matter how your eyes work. What matters is how your occipital, frontal and temporal lobes interpret how your eyes work. This is the third time I’ve made essentially the same remark on this issue. I challenge anyone to demonstrate empirically that I am wrong.

@Pseudonym You’re right the question could be applied to taste and smell.

I’ve always wondered about this. Like my brother and his fiance are always calling what I call orange, red or yellow. I’m wondering if other people actually see something else other than what I’m seeing.

Or they might say that what I see as the same color, is two different shades of the color.

@dpworkin What you are saying is the reason I asked the question. Color must be a brain interpretation. And, I agree that it doesn’t really matter so long as we agree on the names. This is just something I wonder about.

@jealoustome That’s the first thing I thought when I saw the question for the first time: I’ve never thought about sight, only taste. For instance:

I have always detested the taste of orange juice. I just can’t stand it. And I can’t imagine that other people can. So one day the thought came into my head: What if everybody likes the same taste, but taste it in different things?

I don’t particularly like sour taste, but some people go wild for it. I know that tongues work the same in every person more or less, with a special area devoted to sweet, sour, etc. And so, I am wondering whether my sweet is his/her sour…

I think most people as misinterpreting the question—sure, if you can label colours and all that, but the point is, if someone has, throughout his life, seen the colour green as say blue, and been told that that was the colour green, no one would know a thing. Even at traffic lights there wouldn’t be a problem; that person would see the green traffic light as blue in colour, and still think it was green, and hence followed it accordingly.

I believe this actually branches into the field of philosophy—I recall reading a book a while ago that basically stated that there’s no sure way for anyone to know, and to worry about such matters so much is unnecessarily skeptical; after all, if I see green as blue and refer to it as green, and someone else sees green as yellow and refers it as green, there’s no real issue as long as everyone comprehends each other perfectly, is there?

I don’t think people see colors in the same way,hence my brother-in-law’s mismatched socks.

No sensation exists as a physical phenomenon. Only data are physical, not interpretations. There is no way to determine what another individual smells, tastes, hears, sees or feels.

As @phoebusg said, we are taught to call certain light spectral frequencies by a name. In the transition zones, we often percieve and classify differently. To me aquamarine is green and turquois is blue. These “borderline” differences probably extend into the senses of smell and taste as well. Some spices that I percieve as sweet, others consider hot.

I don’t think that (other than colorblind) people are likely to confuse red and green, being widely separated on the spectrum.

@h2osprey Bingo! GA.

2nd Answer. concerning traffic signal lights. remember when you were given the color blind test, when you applied for your driver license? if you had not passed this portion of the test, then you would not have been issued a drivers license. the purpose of this test is to make sure that your green is my green color and your red is my red color. that we all see the same colors, in order to obey traffic signal lights at intersections.

@john65pennington We identify the same frequency with the same name. That’s it. Explain to me how you “know” that we all see the “same” colors.

@john65pennington Let’s say I’ve always seen Red as Green and vice versa, and thought Red was called Green, and vice versa.

Say I go for the test, and am shown the real colour Green. I see it as Red, but think it’s called Green, so I say Green. I am shown the real Red, see it as Green, but still think it’s called Red, so I say Red.

I pass with flying colours!

@h2osprey You put it so articulately. Thank you. What book were you referring to?

@jealoustome I believe it was one of those casual popular philosophy books that were all the hype a while ago. It was an amazing read though :) Let’s see if I can find it—

Here it is, The Philosophy Gym

Blueberry is my favorite color As is cherry.

Colors are sophisticated illusions created by brains. Wavelength intervals of 500 nm and 600 nm just gives us different illusions.

Feeling the pain in your toe when a high-heeled lady steps on it is an illusion too. The pain happens in your brain. Actually, imagine a high-heeled lady driving one of her heels into your foot right now and you will feel the inkling of pain. Brains are powerful organs.

We will probably never know how different brains translate 500 nm into different illusions. So the answer to your question is most likely: no.

Thanks for these great responses. I just joined fluther yesterday and think it’s the greatest thing since sliced bread!

@jealoustome Welcome to Fluther!!

@jealoustome welcome!

@jealoustome Does get a little toasty in here from time to time.Welcome aboard.May your days be merry & bright.

I forgot about colorblindness. That definitely applies.
Also, blind people don’t see at all so by technical terminology that might also apply

Some previous discussions on this topic:

http://www.fluther.com/disc/64228/what-if-every-persons-perception-of-color-was-different/
http://www.fluther.com/disc/54540/how-do-you-know-that-we-all-see-colors-the-same/

The first of those contains a lot of scientific information from Harp.

There’s an older thread that I remember as being a very lively one (that one asked if one’s yellow is another’s purple), but our search engine is concealing it from me.

I’ve heard this question many times, but I’ve never quite agreed with it. Here’s my theory on this matter:

Think about it this way. Why does everyone seem to agree that yellow is a “light color”? As far as I know, dark and light are not subjective. It has to do with the amount of light let in the eye. Yet everyone seems to agree that yellow is “light”. When someone writes with a yellow dry erase pen on a white board, almost everyone complains that it’s hard to see. Because yellow and white are both “light”. Likewise, people probably agree that black and purple are dark colors.

Consider also the concept of warm and cool colors. Red, orange, and yellow are always considered the warm colors. Not only are they associated with fire and the sun, they’re also lighter than the colors we call cool colors. Blue, purple, and green are often shown as being darker, especially when in nature. Again, light and dark are not really subjective.

So while some people see different shades of color and there might be a blending of purple and blue or red and orange and other similar-looking colors, I don’t think that anyone sees “red” as “green” or “blue” as “yellow”.

If people did see colors very differently like that, they would have to be consistent among mixing colors. What I mean by that is that blue and yellow make green. That’s something we can all agree on. No one is going to see blue and yellow make orange. You can see hints of blue in green and everyone seems to agree with that. There is no blue in orange. So there are limits to the different ways people could perceive colors. Not just any combination works.

I’m open to people disproving what I said, though. That’s just my theory.

God, I hope not. Otherwise… that red meat I’ve been eating would be pretty damned disgusting stuff.

@DominicX Blue and yellow do not make green. Blue and yellow pigment combine in a certain way to absorb most everything but green.

It’s irrevenant. All that matters is that we apply the same name to whatever it is that our mind-eye system is detecting and interpreting.

@dpworkin

Yes, but the point is that you can describe green as having more yellow in it or more blue in it as in yellow-green (chartreuse) vs. blue-green (teal). What I’m saying is that for someone to see blue and yellow the same but then see green as orange wouldn’t make any sense because you don’t see any hint of blue in orange.

@DominicX I can see your point about seeing light and dark the same. But, I don’t think that translates entirely to colors or warmness and coolness. If you write with any “light” marker on the board it will be difficult to see.

As for color blending. If I am seeing different colors than you to begin with, I am seeing different color blends. The outcomes of the color blends will be different, but how would you know that unless you were inside my head? The blending of the two colors will always result in the same different color.

@jealoustome

What I mean is that there are only certain situations where you can see different colors, if people see colors differently to begin with.

Everyone can agree that green colors can be described as having more or less blue and yellow in them, right? So that means that blue, yellow, and green are related somehow. So no matter what someone sees, they’re going to see blue, yellow, and green as being related and green having blue and yellow in it. (A “yellowy” green vs. a “bluish” green).

So if someone saw blue and yellow the same as I do, it wouldn’t make any sense for them to then see green as red. They would have to see blue and yellow differently, otherwise they wouldn’t be able to say that green can be described in terms of blue and yellow. You can see yellow and blue in green, but you can’t see them in red. So that wouldn’t make any sense for them see blue and yellow the same, but then see green as “red”. Also, everyone agrees that the six colors of the rainbow are all different from each other, so they wouldn’t see any repeats.

Also, any light marker would be hard to see on a white board, but of the colors of the rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple, yellow is really the only one that people say is difficult to see. So that to me means we all see yellow the same or at least around the same.

Hmmm…I’m just wondering if I could be seeing red, blue and purple while you’re seeing yellow, blue and green. I really do get your points. The association of one color with another makes it difficult for it to be possible for us to see them differently. In my example, blue would have to be seen the same in either case. My mind is getting overwhelmed. We’re back to, “does it really matter so long as we call them the same thing?”

I can only say that i hope i never come to an intersection, where i have the green light. someone here is bound to run the red light, simply because they thought it was green. i hope you have good auto insurance.

They should be all the same, because everyone has the same structure receptors in their retina. Metaphysically there is no way of knowing though. .

Interesting twist in your question and in the strict sense of color it would be yes but as far as seeing the same thing, a big no. Some may see a red tomato but I see a vegetable that someone at one time planted a seed in their garden, cultivated, watered and finally picked. Someone else may see a bacon lettuce and tomato sandwich, many people will see an eeeewy gross slimy vegetable when it is actually a fruit and someone else may see a red blurr speeding directly at their face. I color my world much differently than the next guy…what color is your world???

I had to edit this one ;))lol

@lucillelucillelucille Well… we are waiting…I’ll have a tomato while I wait….yum! ;)

@Cruiser -Have the whole crop!You will be waiting awhile ;)

@lucillelucillelucille Hard to believe it’s time to start planting seeds again! ;)

@Cruiser It’s that thyme again! :)

I think some people see in different colors, and some have some colors more altered than others.

http://www.tomahawkeyecare.com/illusion7.htm

I used to wonder that a lot when I was younger but I thought about it more thoroughly last night, and I think I have found a logical reasoning that shows we must be seeing the colors the same way (provided we don’t suffer from color blindness or other disabilities). If there are differences, they can only be slight.

We want to know if you and I see colors the same way, so let’s make an experiment with you being the reference and me being the test subject. This means that when I say blue, I refer to the color you see as blue, when I say red I refer to the color you see as red and so on…

Now let’s suppose we don’t see the colors the same way at all, and let’s say you taught me that the sky is blue, the sun is yellow and that the grass is green. We don’t see the colors the same way, so for all we know I could be seeing the sky as your green (which means your green is my blue), the sun as your red (your red is my yellow) and I could be seeing the grass as your purple but you would tell me that what I’m seeing is green.

The thing is, we know that when we mix blue paint and yellow paint we get green paint. Or at least that’s what you could have taught me. You’re the reference there, so when you mix blue and yellow you will see green. But that’s different for me : in your eyes, mixing blue and yellow is equivalent in my eyes to mixing green and red (which yields brown), because remember that when you see blue I see green and when you see yellow I see red. This means that when you see me mix blue paint and yellow paint you will see green, but I will see some other color. Not brown, brown is what you would see if you were to mix green and red, but remember I don’t see colors like you. Let’s say I’m seeing orange (once again it could be anything for all we know).

Then you could teach me that this color I’m seeing – orange – is green, but you also taught me that the grass I am seeing purple is green! And therein lies the contradiction : if you show me two different colors and tell me both are named the same, then knowing none of us have vision disabilities I would understand there is a parameter we didn’t take into account somewhere, and with some thinking I might eventually realize that we are in fact not seeing the same colours.

Here we only had to mix two colours together to realize that our apprehension of the world was different, so given the countless numbers of situations involving colors and other individuals we participate in in our everyday’s life, we surely would have been faced with such a contradiction if we weren’t seeing colours the same way.

Now you may be thinking, what if the grass looked orange to me? Well this would have been a singular case, and even if we were seeing colours differently we wouldn’t have realized it at this point. But eventually we would have, as I stated above our existence is prone to that.
You may also be wondering how it’s possible that while you are seeing green the whole time, I see the grass purple and the mix of the 2 paints orange. Even though it’s counterintuitive, you should convince yourself there is no magic in that. The most logical thing to say here is it’s impossible, because our hypothesis stating “we don’t see colors the same way at all” was wrong.

If you want something more intuitive, you could say it has to do with how colours are naturally ordered on the visible spectrum of light ( http://an.hitchcock.org/repairfaq/sam/spctrm2.jpg ). Looking at it you realize how it all flows together, every next colour being the continuation of the previous one, and you may very well convince yourself why everyone sees colours the same way simply by looking at it : if we saw colours differently it would feel like colours are put randomly on the spectrum for each one of us, with green being next to purple and red next to blue for example, and without getting into details you know that wouldn’t feel right.

All of this shows that we can’t be seeing colours completly differently, as long as we don’t have vision-related disabilities. The explanation above works provided I perceive a completly different spectrum than yours : constitued of the same colors, but randomly ordered. But what if my spectrum was the same than yours, but shifted on the “right” (towards infrared) or on the “left” (towards ultraviolet) ? We know for a fact that humans can’t see infrared or ultraviolet lights, so if my spectrum is shifted it can only be slightly so. But if I had a slightly shifted spectrum (or even not slightly for that matter), the experiment above wouldn’t work. Not because I wouldn’t notice the difference between the color of the grass and the color I see from mixing blue paint and yellow paint, but because there would be no difference! And it is crucial to understand that point, the color would be the same. Because my spectrum is shifted it wouldn’t be the same green as you, my green might be more bluish or more yellowish depending on which direction it’s shifted, but the green I see would remain the same.

If you have a hard time getting what I’m saying look again at the visible spectrum : http://an.hitchcock.org/repairfaq/sam/spctrm2.jpg . In your case when you mix blue and yellow you get the color equally distant to both, that’s to say green. Now try to imagine the same spectrum but slightly shifted, on the left for example (the spectrum I perceive). This means I won’t be seeing grass the same green as you : it would look more blueish to me. This also means that I wouldn’t see the sky blue like you : mine would look more dark blue, and same goes with the sun that I would be seeing more greenish. Now, when I mix your blue paint and yellow paint, to my eyes it will seem like I’m mixing dark blue and yellow-green. And what am I seeing this time? That’s right, bluish green, the same color I see the grass. It works this time because my spectrum is ordered like yours, while earlier it was completly random and I could be getting anything (you can try to imagine a messy spectrum and see what happens when you’re mixing two colours).

And what this means is that, in theory (or at least considering what I’ve just said), it’s perfectly possible that we all perceive the same spectrum but that some of us perceive it more or less shifted, one way or the other. And this would explain why sometimes people disagree between yellow and orange, orange and red, green and blue..Sometimes you feel like something look more blue than green, while someone else will feel it looks more green than blue. I can’t prove to you that the reason behind this is we don’t perceive the visible spectrum on exactly the same frequencies, but I believe this sounds somewhat coherent.

There is one last thing I haven’t spoken of : what if my spectrum is the same than yours, but it’s all reversed? (meaning I see the world in negative colors). It might sound completly different but it’s not that different actually, in the sense that there would be no randomness in the way I perceive colours : there would still be the progression in color you see on the usual visible spectrum, except it’s the other way around. And this implies that the method I used to discard the possibility that we don’t see colors the same way at all, doesn’t allow to rule out the possibility that I’m seeing in negative colors (try to imagine a reversed spectrum this time, you will see that the colour I get from mixing your blue and your yellow will be the same than the colour I see the grass).
We are not getting a contradiction there, but while the fact we are perceiving slightly shifted spectrums sounded plausible, this sounds much more unlikely.

Wow, @eole. Just wow.

Now I’m wondering if we all read the same way…

@eole I’m not sure that proves anything. If you saw greens as purples, either through defects in the retina or the visual cortex, it would follow that all greens would be rendered as purples regardless of how it came about (mixing colours, choosing a point on the spectrum, seeing an example in nature). If people did see colours differently, it wouldn’t be random rendering, it would be a different process acting on the same inputs, i.e. variations in the frequency of the EM radiation.
As far as the spectrum goes, a person who rendered colours differently would still see a logical progression from one colour to the next. Our spectrum isn’t the only logical one. A person with a different spectrum would see that, for example, when you mix blue and purple you get yellow every time. Therefore the progression from blue to yellow to purple would be as logical for them as red to orange to yellow is for us.

I think what he means is this: what if your yellow, was my purple, as in, what if you saw purple, but learned it as yellow, so you automatically thought“hey that’s yellow” but if I were to see it exactly the same way as you, I would think” hey that’s purple”