How would you explain the concept of Color..

[Arcadio]

Explaining color to a blind person? Try explaining what it means to "see" something first. They don't understand what it means to "see something" because they've never done it.

 

[Sea Moose]

i thought about it and well. what do blind people see? I mean is it a dark place or is it all white? I suppose that you could say that color is different shades of that light or dark.???

 

[dabuddha]

First you want pics, then you want to turn her in to a terminator. WTF dude!

:biggrin:

Ohhh pics of the terminator wife!

 

[rudder]

Relate colors to other senses.

 

[Crono]

Metaphorically, as with anything completely unexperienced to someone.

Description is never the same thing as experience, though, and describing colors in terms of the other senses or emotions doesn't work that well. I can describe what I feel about colors or how they are used in literature (like red representing passion or violence, depending on context, blue representing sadness or coldness), but that still doesn't communicate the actual visual experience at all.

The best I or anyone could do is express thoughts and feelings. We can never fully express our minds to others, anyway, so it's not a uniquely disheartening experience to try and explain what colors are like to someone who is blind.

 

[meltdown75]

Different frequencies of light.

Any more brain busters?

you da man

 

[sourceninja]

No different than explaining the multiple dimensions. Can you see the 6th dimension? M theory?

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

Ohhh pics of the terminator wife!

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

The OP's question has interesting implications on A.I. hypotheses, actually.

If even a complete functional description of the human biological reaction to seeing color is insufficient to demonstrate what it is like to see color, then it should follow that no amount of formalism would ever be enough to actually model human intelligence. That's a pretty simplified summary, of course, and this probably isn't the thread to debate it, but there it is.

 

[WhipperSnapper]

You cannot explain it. It is what is called an "ostensive concept". It is part of the basis of your other higher-level abstractions. You could explain it to a blind man in terms of photons and wavelengths and he might be able to understand it scientifically but he'd never be able to understand color the way you can understand it.

 

[hanoverphist]

The OP's question has interesting implications on A.I. hypotheses, actually.

If even a complete functional description of the human biological reaction to seeing color is insufficient to demonstrate what it is like to see color, then it should follow that no amount of formalism would ever be enough to actually model human intelligence. That's a pretty simplified summary, of course, and this probably isn't the thread to debate it, but there it is.

unless that computer has optical input capability, in which you could show it a color and say "this is red". same concept of how you were taught colors as a child.

 

[SunSamurai]

Here, I don't agree. It seems you're equating a rock to a blind person, but I assume you're talking about their respective sensory abilities? Even so your average human has more of a chance of understanding 11-dimensional space or warping of space time than your average rock, even though neither of us can sense it.

Again, with understanding a concept like 11 dimensions we have the huge advantage of visual aids. I think they are even more important than a oral description of such a thing. My point I didnt make very well is that even though something is totally forien, it still exists (like the tree and the sound), and all else is kind of a battle of definitions.

 

[SunSamurai]

Different frequencies of light.

Any more brain busters?

Blind Person: Light?

 

[SunSamurai]

No different than explaining the multiple dimensions. Can you see the 6th dimension? M theory?

Its very different. As I explained above, we have visual aids that help us grasp such concepts. We also have a lifetime of experiences existing and seeing the world around us to apply to it.

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

unless that computer has optical input capability, in which you could show it a color and say "this is red". same concept of how you were taught colors as a child.

It isn't really that simple. Of course you can program a computer to identify certain ranges of wavelengths with the names of colors, but you haven't captured the "what it is like" to see red. You haven't programmed the computer to undrstand the experience. The term is "qualia," if you want to do some googling on it yourself.

 

[nerp]

How would you define texture?

 

[DangerAardvark]

Blind Person: Light?

Visible light is only a tiny sliver of electromagentic spectrum. Outside of that range we're as blind as the blind. I suppose it would be possible to express colors in terms of other senses. It would be no more arbitrary than expressing IR images in shades of black and white.

 

[jjzelinski]

I would describe color by the emotions they arouse and what I associate most with each color. I would describe green as the color of nature, growth, peace, associated with the sound of wind blowing through trees or the smell of wet grass. I would describe yellow as warmth from the sun, or blue as feeling of water or the sound of waves rolling in the surf. I would try to describe how green, and everything it arouses in my mind, can be found both mixed together with other colors and the emotions they illicit both fluidly like conversations in a crowd or discretely like the slow drip of a faucet. How we experience the world is not through our senses, much less one sense, but how our senses make us think and feel when they combine together.

 

[destrekor]

I can swear that I have but I can't think of an example. I know I have felt other things in dreams like itching, heat, cold etc... so I see no reason why one couldn't feel textures.

yeah, well... I see sound and taste light in my dreams.

 

[skace]

That sounds good jjzelinski. I'd also add that if a blind person sees black, I'd work from there. Explain black as complete darkness and white as complete light. Then work in the colors as how they are separate shades. While not completely true, I think that would help visualize it.

 

[Crono]

That sounds good jjzelinski. I'd also add that if a blind person sees black, I'd work from there. Explain black as complete darkness and white as complete light. Then work in the colors as how they are separate shades. While not completely true, I think that would help visualize it.

I'm not sure someone blind from birth can imagine that.

 

[destrekor]

Blind Person: Light?

It's that thing you don't see.

 

[skace]

I'm not sure someone blind from birth can imagine that.

What I mean is, the complete opposite of what they see. It just assumes they actually see black when blind, which I don't know. But you are right, maybe that is too much of a leap.

 

[gsellis]

More easily than you think. Like a box vs a concrete wall vs a person, color is like sound. A sound when heard directly has all of the components in it. But if you hear the sound reflect off of a box or a wall or a person, it changes and you hear only parts of it and they change. Light can have all of the 'sound' in it, but when it comes off a surface, it may only have parts come back and can be changed. The change is sound is similar to what color is to light off an object.

 

[Crono]

More easily than you think. Like a box vs a concrete wall vs a person, color is like sound. A sound when heard directly has all of the components in it. But if you hear the sound reflect off of a box or a wall or a person, it changes and you hear only parts of it and they change. Light can have all of the 'sound' in it, but when it comes off a surface, it may only have parts come back and can be changed. The change is sound is similar to what color is to light off an object.

That's pretty much a definition of "sense". Detecting changes in the external environment is what the senses allow us to do.