Is it possible to see new colors?

[PIT2]

Suppose u have a healthy human being that can see and has seen all the colors in the visible spectrum.

Is it somehow* possible for this person to see new colors** that he had not seen before?

*For instance through:
- hypnotism
- meditation
- taking drugs
- near death experiences
- a seizure
- etc.

**either being ultraviolet/infrared, or a complete figment of his imagination

 

[zoobyshoe]

I'm trying to think if I've ever heard anyone claim they saw completely new colors in any kind of experience, and I don't think I've run across it.

This subject came up in a thread a few months ago. I guess a lot of people have found the idea appealing.

 

[mezarashi]

How would you describe a new color? (o'.')

 

[PIT2]

I'm trying to think if I've ever heard anyone claim they saw completely new colors in any kind of experience, and I don't think I've run across it.
This subject came up in a thread a few months ago. I guess a lot of people have found the idea appealing.

I read it in Near Death Experiences a few times and it wasnt a blind persons NDE. Often the colors are described as especially bright or vivid or however u put it, but I've also read about seeing completely new colors. Here is an example:

stood there in this gorgeous meadow and I remember that the light there was different from the light here on earth. Though it was not that brilliant white light in which I was involved, it was a more beautiful light. There was a goldenness to this light. I remember the sky was very blue. I don't recall seeing the sun. The colors were extraordinary. The green of the meadow was fantastic. The flowers were blooming all around and they had colors that I had never seen before. I was very aware that I had never seen these colors before and I was very excited about it.

I thought I had seen all colors. I was thrilled to death of the beauty that was incredible. In addition to the beautiful colors, I could see a soft light glowing within every living thing. It was not a light that was reflected from the outside from a source, but it was coming from the center of this flower. Just this beautiful, soft light. I think I was seeing the life inside of everything.
http://www.near-death.com/smith.html

 

[cotarded]

I've read several accounts of mescaline inducing this phenomenon. I'm pretty sure at least one of them came from PiKHAL (Phenethylamines I Have Known and Loved), by Alexander Shulgin. I'm out the door right now, but I'll try and come back with a full quote.

It makes sense to me that it should be theoretically possible to apprehend unprecedented colors during some sort of disrupted (e.g. seizure, psychotropics) or unnaturally stimulated state (e.g. TMS, or with less confidence, meditation). The eyes are passing data on to the brain containing either somewhat preprocessed color information, or they're leaving it up to some region back there to figure colors from the raw data. Either way, I'm sure whichever part of the brain actually perceives the color is more flexible than the system which provides it input. So it would follow that chemically stimulating it would offer at least a chance of causing some of those possibilities to be unearthed.

I, personally, tend to see a very alien sort of purple, not quite like any purple I've ever seen naturally, whenever I've been stoned. But I don't qualify that as one of these experiences.

lates,
cotarded.

 

[DocToxyn]

Either way, I'm sure whichever part of the brain actually perceives the color is more flexible than the system which provides it input. So it would follow that chemically stimulating it would offer at least a chance of causing some of those possibilities to be unearthed.

Yes, I would agree with cotarded, that it will most likely be impossible to change the physiological structures and processes that the eyes/nervous system uses to detect color. You are more likely to achieve this via changing how the brain interprets the signals. Of course you are going to struggle with any way to accurately quantify this, simple subjective observations like "wow, I've never seen that green before", won't cut it in the scientific realm (especially in an uncontrolled, pharmacologically-induced state )

 

[Ki Man]

does the color of barney the purple dinosaur count as one of these strange colors?

it makes sense that you would sense these "undetectable" colors of the spectrum in any state of mind with a lower... brainwave frequency? (there was a word for this frequency i read in a book a while ago, i don't recall the exact word) caused in deep meditation, near death experience, etc. your mind is in a different state of thought, perception, and awareness, so detection of colors that are totally new to the human eye doesn't seem too strange an idea

 

[jhe1984]

Ok but if the manipulation occurs in the data translation area, are we still actually talking about new colors or instead unique "internal" manipulations?

Isn't the visible light spectrum (and my man Roy G Biv) pretty solidified by now?

Would things like infrared sight count as new colors or new senses? To that end, biologically speaking, where do the senses begin and end within the brain?

 

[zoobyshoe]

Ok but if the manipulation occurs in the data translation area, are we still actually talking about new colors or instead unique "internal" manipulations?

Colors as we know them are already "internal" manipulations. Strictly speaking, there is nothing inherent in the light we percieve that should cause anything but different shades of grey. Instead, our brains take the different wavelengths collected by the eyes and produce the fantastic fiction we know as "color". The diferences in wavelength are real, but "colors" are totally created in the brain.

 

[RedScout]

In the aspect of seeing new colors, a appropriate way to describe our prespective is that of a blind person trying to describe a normal color such as blue, green, etc. Except we can assume that the color(s) have the same qualities as the ones we see.

It's quite mind boggling in my opinion to think that more colors exist than what we are use to.

 

[Dmstifik8ion]

Creativity begins by imagining something never observed in reality but manifesting products of the imagination into reality may not always be possible although they can sometimes be represented in artistic expressions. Perhaps it is in the realm of creative imagination we produce these super-natural colors.
I wouldn't say that no colors exist in reality by virtue or our means of perceiving them. Even our imagination needs something to work with.

 

[zoobyshoe]

I wouldn't say that no colors exist in reality by virtue or our means of perceiving them. Even our imagination needs something to work with.

You ought to read up on the eye's three color sensors and how the brain takes that imput and creates the experience we know as "color". The differences in frequency are real and objective, but what our brains make of those frequencies is completely fictional. This happens at a basic neurological level, and isn't caused by "imagination" the way you might imagine a dog with six legs or a pig with wings.

It took me a long time to realize that all our senses are like that. The exact experience we have isn't objective, it's merely extremely useful. When you touch something, the way that feels is actually arbitrary. Had we evolved differently, touch would have a whole different quality. When you taste something, you are really, authentically, sensing something external to you, but the specific quality of the experience is arbitrary. The specific way coffee tastes is a product of the brain, not a quality inherent in the coffee.

 

[Dmstifik8ion]

Creativity begins by imagining something never observed in reality but manifesting products of the imagination into reality may not always be possible although they can sometimes be represented in artistic expressions. Perhaps it is in the realm of creative imagination we produce these super-natural colors.
I wouldn't say that no colors exist in reality by virtue or our means of perceiving them. Even our imagination needs something to work with.

You ought to read up on the eye's three color sensors and how the brain takes that imput and creates the experience we know as "color". The differences in frequency are real and objective, but what our brains make of those frequencies is completely fictional. This happens at a basic neurological level, and isn't caused by "imagination" the way you might imagine a dog with six legs or a pig with wings.

By “imagination”, I was referring to those ‘other’ imaginary (actually fictional) colors.

When I use the term “color” I am referring to the stimuli received from the object, (an attribute of the object in certain lighting conditions), not the process of perception. The important thing is that when we see a traffic light is red (as a ripe tomato), as opposed to amber or green most of us can agree that it is a good idea to stop, at least until no one gets hurt. Fortunately most of us agree on color ostensively without the need to demonstrate scientifically how we arrive at this determination.

It took me a long time to realize that all our senses are like that. The exact experience we have isn't objective, it's merely extremely useful. When you touch something, the way that feels is actually arbitrary. Had we evolved differently, touch would have a whole different quality. When you taste something, you are really, authentically, sensing something external to you, but the specific quality of the experience is arbitrary. The specific way coffee tastes is a product of the brain, not a quality inherent in the coffee.

If one finds pleasure in placing ones hand on a hot stove, that is an aberration, not an arbitrary experience. The fact that we evolved the way we did is, for better or worse, a fact. Only a confirmed coffee hound would insist that coffee taste sweet, not bitter.

That we perceive reality through a specific means does not alter the reality that it is reality that we perceive. Objectivity is a choice, to base our knowledge on our perception of reality. This is the only window we have to access the external world. Any knowledge we deduce from that point on must rigorously follow the rules of logic or we soon end up in an intellectually incomprehensible mess. Declaring that the color red (or green or blue) does not exist in reality is irresponsible and potentially dangerous. When objectivity is reduced to the arbitrary, the fictional, we have ceased to be objective.

 

[Q_Goest]

Zoobyshoe said: It took me a long time to realize that all our senses are like that. The exact experience we have isn't objective, it's merely extremely useful.

I would agree, and at the same time I can see the counterpoint:

Dmstif' said: Declaring that the color red (or green or blue) does not exist in reality is irresponsible and potentially dangerous. When objectivity is reduced to the arbitrary, the fictional, we have ceased to be objective.

Now I've not thought this through, it only just occurred to me so I beg you not to hold me responsible <grin> But...

What we measure in regards to color is a wavelenth. What we measure in regards to heat is a temperature. By analogy, how we measure a photon will determine whether it exists as a particle or a wave. Is there any reason to suggest that color and heat exist in a similar way? The difference here in the analogy seems quite apparant, we don't have any tools to measure the red-ness of a color except for our eyes, or the heat of a high temperature except for our nervous system. Nevertheless, could it be that there is a physical way of measuring something that results in what we percieve as color or heat?

 

[Dmstifik8ion]

I would agree, and at the same time I can see the counterpoint:
Now I've not thought this through, it only just occurred to me so I beg you not to hold me responsible <grin> But...
What we measure in regards to color is a wavelenth. What we measure in regards to heat is a temperature. By analogy, how we measure a photon will determine whether it exists as a particle or a wave. Is there any reason to suggest that color and heat exist in a similar way? The difference here in the analogy seems quite apparant, we don't have any tools to measure the red-ness of a color except for our eyes, or the heat of a high temperature except for our nervous system. Nevertheless, could it be that there is a physical way of measuring something that results in what we percieve as color or heat?

The wavelength/frequency of light (electromagnetic) waves range over a continuum including radio, visual, x-ray and gamma rays. We can assign a specific wavelength of light to the color red so that for the purpose of information exchange (communication) we can use the term red as a type of shorthand for that particular wavelength value upon which we agree. This can be measured to a high degree of precision when/if necessary. I believe color is associated with the energy level of a photon but I will leave this for a photo-physicist to explain. How precisely our eyes measure each color in terms of wavelength I do not know.

As for temperature (heat); it is commonly advised to use a thermometer to measure water temperature where safety may be a concern. I have noticed a startling relationship between pain and actual tissue damage in regards to temperature.

There is a relationship between color and temperature of a flame (red flame not as hot as blue flame) but I believe other factors (the type of fuel) need to be take into consideration. I hope this information is suitably accurate and somewhat pertinent to your question.

 

[Q_Goest]

Hi Dmstif' … Thanks, I'm familiar with all that you're saying. That really doesn't help much unfortunately.

I don't like to talk for others, so I'll only suggest that what Zoobyshoe is suggesting and what I hear you replying in return seem to conflict. Hence my response.

You said: I believe color is associated with the energy level of a photon but I will leave this for a photo-physicist to explain. How precisely our eyes measure each color in terms of wavelength I do not know.

That starts to get to the point I think. Our eyes have an interaction with the light of wavelength "red" and that interaction then progresses through the nerves in the eye to some place inside the brain. Our neurons don't transmit that wavelength, they transmit a signal in a very different form altogether, just as a movie camera transmits a signal that doesn't have the actual wavelength of light in it anywhere. Nevertheless, somehow our mind then perceives a color. But does that color actually exist in the sense that it really is red, or is it merely an interpretation our mind puts to the wavelength of light received? If we evolved differently, would our brains perceive red as blue instead? or green? Why does our brain interpret that particular wavelength as "red"? Why should it interpret it as a color at all? Why not a tone of grey - after all, the range of visible wavelengths is continuous over a small range of the em spectrum, so why wouldn't the brain perceive that as a grey scale?

I believe the philosophical answer to this, and the one most of science recognizes is that our brains interpret the light as red because that is how we evolved, not because there is anything inherent about the particular interpretation our brain makes of that wavelength.

Regarding my previous post, if the color red was actually some inherent feature of that particular wavelength then that would predict that all animals that can see color that evolved from some different and previously color blind animal, would all perceive red as the same color. I suspect there would be numerous predictions such a suggestion would have, though I tend to doubt there is anything 'red' about that particular wavelength of light and just thought it was an interesting idea to kick around.

 

[selfAdjoint]

Hi Dmstif' … Thanks, I'm familiar with all that you're saying. That really doesn't help much unfortunately.
I don't like to talk for others, so I'll only suggest that what Zoobyshoe is suggesting and what I hear you replying in return seem to conflict. Hence my response.
You said: I believe color is associated with the energy level of a photon but I will leave this for a photo-physicist to explain. How precisely our eyes measure each color in terms of wavelength I do not know.

Briefly, in the retinas of our eyes are molecules that will warp when they absorb a photon. Different ones will warp from different energy bands of photons. These bands are rather broad and overlap; we can see four or five of them (men mostly four, some women can get five.

The warping molecules send a nerve signal to the brain. The visual cortex then does a subtraction, so it is the difference of the intensities of the bands which is sent on for higher processing. Eventually - it hasn't been completely unravelled - this issues in our perception of the colored scene we are looking at. The whole business of naming colors is a social thing. Different peoples have different ways of splitting up the colors, although tests have shown we all (color-blind people apart) see the dame frequency/energy bands.

That starts to get to the point I think. Our eyes have an interaction with the light of wavelength "red" and that interaction then progresses through the nerves in the eye to some place inside the brain. Our neurons don't transmit that wavelength, they transmit a signal in a very different form altogether, just as a movie camera transmits a signal that doesn't have the actual wavelength of light in it anywhere. Nevertheless, somehow our mind then perceives a color. But does that color actually exist in the sense that it really is red, or is it merely an interpretation our mind puts to the wavelength of light received?

See what I said above. What we call, say, red-orange would be still classified as "hot-bright-color" by some tribespeople. The core color we call red (fire-engine red) is perceived pretty universally as a central core color. Blue and green are a lot more variable.

If we evolved differently, would our brains perceive red as blue instead? or green? Why does our brain interpret that particular wavelength as "red"? Why should it interpret it as a color at all? Why not a tone of grey - after all, the range of visible wavelengths is continuous over a small range of the em spectrum, so why wouldn't the brain perceive that as a grey scale?

Acually our retinas have two separate sets of visual bodies; the "cones" with the warping molecules and the "rods" with a simpler system that comes into play when the light is bad - not enough photons to do the color processing from. The rods do see in a grayscale, as you can find out for yourself by looking at colored objects at night in dim light.

 

[zoobyshoe]

That we perceive reality through a specific means does not alter the reality that it is reality that we perceive.

Somehow you mistook me to be saying something I definitely wasn't. Reality is real, yes.

Objectivity is a choice, to base our knowledge on our perception of reality. This is the only window we have to access the external world. Any knowledge we deduce from that point on must rigorously follow the rules of logic or we soon end up in an intellectually incomprehensible mess.

I don't disagree with this at all.

Declaring that the color red (or green or blue) does not exist in reality is irresponsible and potentially dangerous.

It's neither irresponsible nor dangerous. It's simply true.

When objectivity is reduced to the arbitrary, the fictional, we have ceased to be objective.

The arbitrariness of our experience of color is the objective reality of the phenomenon. That is: what is objectively real about our perception of color is that the details of the experience is created in the brain.
Consider an analogy to sound: if a sound increases in frequency smoothly we percieve an increase in pitch only. With light, the increase in frequency results in arbitrary changes in quality that aren't a smooth continuum. It is as if a sound changed from sounding like a cello within a certain range to sounding like a flute in the next higher frequency range, and then like a harmonica in the next range up. The different frequencies are real, but the subjective qualities they seem to have are created in the brain.

 

[Q_Goest]

Hi SelfAdjoint, thanks for the info. I'm not all that familiar with how exactly light is picked up by our eyes, and I do appreciate the explanation. However, I guess since both D' and yourself seem to be missing the fundamental point that I've tried to make must mean I'm not explaining things very well. Perhaps Zoobyshoe's example where he starts out "Consider an analogy to sound:" might help. I'll see if I can elaborate on that again, but I guess it's difficult to understand because what we see as color is considered real to a layman, but it's not. It is an interpretation the brain makes of a given wavelength.

From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_spectroscopy

The sun, which has a temperature around 6000 K, emits most strongly in the visible light.

In other words, most of the em radiation emited by the sun is in what we call the "visible spectrum". It's visible because the sun emits most strongly in this spectrum and our eyes evolved in order to pick up this particular set of light wavelengths. If our eyes picked up ultraviolet or infrared light instead, our eyes would have to be MUCH more sensitive to such light because there is so little light being emitted at those wavelengths.

Consider this possibility. What if humans had evolved near a much cooler star where most of the light came off in the infrared spectrum instead of the "visible"? Then we probably would have evolved eyes that could take advantage of the larger amount of light the Infrared star (Itar) gave off. If the Itar gave off infrared light instead of 'visible' light, our eyes would have had to evolve so we could see infrared light instead.

What would it be like to be a person living on a planet near the Itar? Would we see colors? If our eyes worked in the infrared region instead of the visible region, would we no longer see red, blue or green? Would we see different colors such as ired, iblue and igreen? Or would we not see any colors at all? Would everything have a red/grey color to it, like a monochromatic light that has a red tinge?

There's no reason to believe any given wavelength has a specific 'color' which is inherently bound to it. The wavelength of http://www.cem.msu.edu/~reusch/VirtualText/Spectrpy/UV-Vis/spectrum.htm" to humans because we've evolved like that. Our brains interpret this particular wavelength as red because our eyes evolved to take advantage of the spectrum of light given off by the sun. Had we evolved near the Itar, we might have evolved eyes and brains that had a much lower frequency corresponding to red.

 

[Q_Goest]

Question for Zoobyshoe/others: Can we prove that light does NOT have some inherent color associated with certain wavelengths? I don't know that we can.

Color blind people can't be used as an example of how specific light wavelengths don't correspond because their eyes are found to miss some important part, ie: the eye is defective in some way. So a defective eye can't disprove this.

One prediction that could be made (that light has some inherent color) is that different animals that evolved from different color blind predecessors would have evolved the same qualia to specific wavelengths. For example, if we found dogs evolved the ability to see color, and if dogs evolved from color blind wolves, and assuming man evolved from some color blind ape, and assuming dogs and humans evolved to see the same "red" which corresponded to a given wavelength of light, then there is some evidence that there might be some inherent feature of light that corresponds to color.

We might figure out that we see the same "red" as such a dog because the eyes evolved the same exact properties for example. The eyes had the same exact receptors.

I don't know if this is provable or disprovable but I would be interested in exploring the possibility.

 

[hypnagogue]

Question for Zoobyshoe/others: Can we prove that light does NOT have some inherent color associated with certain wavelengths? I don't know that we can.

It depends on how you strictly you mean to use the word 'prove'-- but really, for all interesting and practical purposes, we can strongly assert that subjectively experienced color is simply a property of the brain rather than of light.

The 'proof' is simple and has already been invoked in some form or another in this thread. It should be completely uncontentious that what we experience as color depends on information processing done in the brain (as evidenced by lesion studies, electrical brain stimulation, brain imaging, etc.), as is true for the other sense experiences as well. Now it is a small and almost trivial step to observe that there is nothing particularly privileged about how evolution has happened to wire up the brain such that one type of physical stimulus is transduced and sent to one sensory processing region, and another type of stimulus to another type of sensory processing region. In theory, for instance, a clever neuroscientist could simply cross up someone's wires so that visual information is fed into the temporal lobes, and auditory information into the occipital lobes; in that case, if anything, visual information (light impinging on retinas) would elicit auditory experience, whereas auditory information (sound waves impinging on the ear drum) would elicit visual experience.

Considerations such as these very strongly suggest that the specific subjective qualities that we experience are not inherent properties of the objective world itself, but rather the elements of a representational model of that objective world. The details of how that model is implemented are in some sense arbitrary; for instance, there is no reason to believe that subjectively 'seeing' light and 'hearing' sounds, qua experiential representations, is any truer to the nature of the world than would be 'hearing' light and 'seeing' sound.

 

[zoobyshoe]

And nature acts in the role of that "clever neuroscientist" in the phenomenon of synaethesia. Having seen that imput to one sense can be manifested as imput to a different sense, and at the same time remain useful to the synesthete, it becomes clear that what's considered the "authentic" sensory experience isn't as inevitable and "objective" as we assume. The exact sensation you experience when touching, say, an orange could have evolved as a very different experience, and still be just as valid and useful to us.

 

[Q_Goest]

Thanks H' and Zoo' for chiming in. I agree with everything you're saying, but I think testing the theory a bit would be fun. Someone's got to play devil's advocate! lol

I'd agree the evidence is very strong, but I don't know we have any real proof. Suggesting that crossing wires in the brain, stimulating specific nerves that send a signal to the brain, or any 'defect' which creates an interpretation by the brain which is 'not real', is not proof. These things only show that a defect, whether intentional or accidental, can result in an 'incorrect' interpretation. I honestly can't think of any way to prove or disprove it right now, though it would be interesting to know if color sensors in eyes evolved differently for different species. That information still wouldn't 'prove' anything, but it would be interesting to know.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Question for Zoobyshoe/others: Can we prove that light does NOT have some inherent color associated with certain wavelengths?

No, and we also can't prove that light does NOT have inherent magical properties associated with certain wavelengths. Give me a while and I can think up several more things it isn't possible to prove about different wavelengths of light.

The point is that the evidence doesn't lead us to suspect redness is inherent to that range of frequencies. Redness is created in the interaction of a specific kind of observer (human) with an observed frequency of EM radiation. Without that observer, there's only the frequency, no redness.

 

[Q_Goest]

No, and we also can't prove that light does NOT have inherent magical properties associated with certain wavelengths.

I'm not suggesting magic, Zoo'. Sorry if you think I was, I'll be absolutely clear on that. No magic, no supernatural.

Without that observer, there's only the frequency, no redness.

The fact is, we are only measuring frequency, analogous to measuring a particle or wavelength for a photon. How does one measure 'redness'? Without a tool, we simply can't measure it. But in a sense, the human brain IS measuring it.

I guess what bothers me can be put this way: We all have different brains, different neuron configurations, etc. Let's look at the two possibilities:
1. Let us suggest that all of our brains 'calculate' the color red in response to a given wavelength, and it is this 'calculation' that we percieve as red. These calculations are our mental state or series of mental states, and it is these mental states that gives rise to what we know as color. So for different people, we each have different mental states that correspond to red. If we also assume that we each interpret this wavelength and end up with the same color, then it seems there's something special about the interpretation that is more than the sum of the mental states. *
2. The alternative, if we still assume we all interpret the same color red from the same wavelength, is that we all have the SAME neuron configurations, the SAME calculations and the SAME mental states and this is how we each end up with the same interpretation.

Option #2 seems even more far-fetched and easily disproved, so let's go with option #1. In this case, if humans are looked at as the tool used to measure "red" from a given wavelength, and if all these tools interpret the same result, . . .

- Note also that another alternative is to suggest we all have DIFFERENT results when we look at a given "red" wavelength which we interpret differently. For example, when I look at red, I see what you see as green. The interpretation is different, but I don't believe this is true. Nevertheless it could be considered.

I'm not trying provoke an argument. I'd like to see if this simply leads to any interesting conclusions that might be worthy of discussion. I think it does.


*Note the analogy here is to any varied group of instruments found in a lab and used to measure wavelength. Each tool can measure in a slightly different way, but each gives us the same result which is the wavelength of light.

 

[hypnagogue]

(2) is not so far-fetched. We need not assume that individuals' visual processing streams are identical, just that they are similar enough that there are no differences in structure and function that make a difference to how we experience color. Obviously though, we would need to know more about color NCCs, and would probably need to have better brain imaging technology, before we could proceed very sure-footedly with that sort of investigation.

As for (1), I think you misstep when you say "If we also assume that we each interpret this wavelength and end up with the same color, then it seems there's something special about the interpretation that is more than the sum of the mental states." For one thing, such an assumption would more or less be question begging to the extent that it assumes what we want to prove. For another, if individuals' color processing systems really did differ in ways that we had reason to believe make a difference to how they should experience color, then obviously the assumption that they do experience the same color anyway is erroneous. What would be conserved across individuals in this case is not the subjective color experience induced by ~650nm light, but rather socially learned labels (this is what I call "red") and perhaps attitudes ("red is supposed to mean stop, or anger, or whatever") associated with the indiosyncratic color experience.

 

[zoobyshoe]

I'm not suggesting magic, Zoo'. Sorry if you think I was, I'll be absolutely clear on that. No magic, no supernatural.

No, I know you weren't suggesting magic. My point was this: that just because we can't prove an idea, peculiar or not peculiar, is true or untrue, doesn't mean it's worth our time. The reason I think it's not worth the effort to try and disprove there's anything inherently RED about a certain wavelength is that, given all we know nothing suggests there is. Everything strongly points to that subjective experience being a creation of our brains. Doubt about that was raised in error by the guy who thinks I'm saying you don't have to stop at red lights because there's nothing inherently real about the redness of that light. Which is a gross misconstruction of what I said.

As for the rest of your post, those are questions that Hypnagogue can address much, much more fluently than I can.

Edit: And I see he already has!

 

[Q_Goest]

Good feedback H, thanks.

Here are two propositions.
1. Our qualia are identical.
2. There is nothing inherent about light or it's affect on our brains that gives us the qualia.

(I don't want to get wordy here so I'll define these in more detail below.)

You mention "function" and suggest the parts of our brain that give rise to the qualia red are similar enough to give rise to identical qualia, yet there is nothing inherent about light that gives us this qualia. Here is my function problem.

Function problem: Function does not preclude differences. My voice serves the same function as yours but if your best friend stood behind a curtain s/he'd quickly recognize your voice over mine. Similarly, my nose, eyes and mouth serve the same function too, but they are easily identifiable. My muscles serve the same function as yours, as do my finger prints and every part of my body (er... assuming we're both men <lol>). None of these functions preclude differences, in fact they are ALL different, none of them are identical. So although our brains may serve a function and provide us with qualia, simply suggesting function does not prove #1 above. In fact, it would seem more logical to suggest our qualia is similarly different, but functionally the same - it might seem more logical to suggest our qualia vary slightly.

If we maintain that #1 is true however, it suggests there is something inherent about the function that gives us this qualia. Because despite the fact the action of the neurons within the brain is not the same, and only similar, the result is identical (ie: identical qualia). If there is nothing inherent about the light, then perhaps it is the brain's interpretation which is inherently special in some way. I don't think we could rule this out, but if this is true, if our qualia are identical despite the neuron action being less than identical, there must be something unique about all that neuron action that results in an identical outcome. I find this even more bizarre than our qualia being different, and if true it would seem to indicate a possible avenue of philisophical and scientific inquiry.

***

1. Our qualia are identical: Means that our experience of some qualia is identical. For example, if we were both observing a pure red canvas, and if we could actually look into each other's minds, we would see that our view of the red canvas was identical to the other person's. We would find our version of the red was identical in shade, color, grayscale, etc...
2. There is nothing inherent about light or it's affect on our brains that gives us the qualia: I'm expanding the original thought that supposed there might be something inherent about light to include the concept that there is possibly something inherent about the way we interpret a given wavelength or other qualia. So if #2 is true, then either there is something inherent about the qualia red OR there is something inherent about how our brain interprets this wavelength. At first glance, suggesting there is something inherent about how our brain interprets wavelength seems innoculous, but because of the function problem outlined above, I believe we must resolve *why* our brains might create identical interpretations from neuron actions that are merely similar.

 

[hypnagogue]

Well, I doubt that qualia are identical across individuals, holding sensory stimulation constant. We might come up with clever ways to try to make indirect conclusions about what I experience compared to what you experience, but in all likelihood we will never be able to compare them directly, so I don't think much is really at stake when asking if qualia are identical for different people in every possible respect. If we're just talking about qualia being similar in most respects, we're on much surer footing.

As for "function"-- it's an ambiguous word, and you seem to be taking a very coarse-grained view of what it might refer to. I leave the word ambiguous somewhat intentionally, but in theory it could be something as fine-grained as specifying a particular kind of neural algorithm instantiated by particular kinds of neurons in particular kinds of arrangements. Using your analogy, to say that my voice is functionally similar to another person's might mean something as broad as "we both use vocalizations to communicate information," or it might mean something as specific as "the spatial dimensions and physiological constitutions of our throats, vocal chords, and nasal passages are highly similar, and as a result our voices sound almost identical." The specific nature of the neural structures and functions that are directly related to experienced qualities like redness is an open question, of course, and at this point it would not be wise to assume that the relevant structures and functions reside at one particular level of analysis rather than another. It is very much an open question that needs to be chipped away at empirically first and foremost.

I also am not comfortable with using the term "the brain's interpretations," as its intended meaning is ambiguous and a possible source of confusion. I would rather talk about the manner in which the brain transduces sensory stimulation to neural events, and how that transduced information goes on to be processed by further neural systems in the brain.

 

[Dmstifik8ion]

Zoobyshoe, Offence not intended, I find it intolerable when the suggestion is made that reality is not available for our inspection; in such cases I may over-react. I don’t mean to imply that this was your intention.

I wonder if the strong response to the color red might be due to the color of hot burning embers and its association with burning heat, a sort of reinforcement from two different sensory perceptions; evolutionarily speaking.

I still hold that fundamentally, as a concept, red refers to the perception of (something real) a narrow band of electromagnetic energy (in the lower range of the visual spectrum) rather than the means by which we observe it. I can comprehend how this particular range of color may vary somewhat in its delimitation from individual to individual and might even be refined by a particular individual if they find they require a stricter definition for the term red. But red objectively refers to a particular aspect or attribute of something out there rather than how we choose to interpret it or how it makes us feel. Philosophically such distinctions are important but for now perhaps knowing that I believe they are will help to explain my outrage.

At the risk of departing slightly from topic for a moment might I speculate how we might learn to see red. Before we learn to speak the sensory mechanism is in place to perceive the color red. After some experience with this perception we might take cognitive note that this color is observed when focusing on certain objects; certain apples, ripe tomatoes, fire engines, etc. We note a similarity in the appearance of these types of objects. Eventually we learn to speak and describe to each other this attribute of these certain things. Later on we may become physicists and learn that this attribute is attributable to a certain area of the visual spectrum and we might want to know how the physiology of the human body and mind perceives and distinguishes this color.

The point of this is that we perceive it first than maybe someday learn how. But for now we can still understand each other (if we so choose) when we say, “hey, look at the red thingy!" Red is a word we use to describe red things.

To borrow a quote from Ayn Rand “Redness is in the object as perceived by the rational mind.” (italics my edit)

It may be getting a little warm around here; perhaps it might help to talk more about green things or blue things for a while.

 

[Q_Goest]

Sorry for the long delay in responding, I've not had a chance to get back to this and respond intellegently.

I guess the contention that our qualia are identical (per #1, post 28 above) bothers me. It seems to suggest #2 is also true which seems like a rather radical suggestion. I could accept that they are very similar, just as our brains are similar but not identical in ability or configuration.

H said: As for "function"-- it's an ambiguous word, and you seem to be taking a very coarse-grained view of what it might refer to. I leave the word ambiguous somewhat intentionally, but in theory it could be something as fine-grained as specifying a particular kind of neural algorithm instantiated by particular kinds of neurons in particular kinds of arrangements.

I'd agree the concept of functionalism is ambiguous, I'd disagree my analogy was 'course-grained'. If I'd suggested a car or a bus serves the same function when traveling from NY to LA - then tried to suggest sensory function that resulted in qualia can similarly be different, then yes, that would be "course-grained".

People on the other hand are unique so I would think our brains would be structured differently also which would result in very different 'algorithms' used to decipher sensory inputs. Looking at a range of IQ exams, differences in interests and abilities between individuals, etc… surely suggests that our brains are NOT wired the same. Thus the "mental states" which correspond to "red" are likely to be equally varied and if those mental states correspond to qualia then from a functionalist's perspective one would have to conclude the resulting qualia was as different as the individual's "algorithms". Ok, so the "function problem" might be refined, I'd agree it isn't refined and besides, we seem to agree that qualia such as "red" can be less than identical.

***

I found a variety of interesting info regarding eyes and interpretation. As I'm sure many of you already know, humans have 3 different light sensing cones in our eyes, hence we are called "trichromats".

Humans with normal color vision are called trichromats. Their color vision is based on cones with three different visual pigments, each responding to a different part of the spectrum.
Why three? Why not four?

As it happens, three photopigments may be a popular design, but there are others. Let's consider some animals.

1. monochromats
Dogs - probably

2. dichromats
most mammals - In addition to rods, they have only middle and short wavelength cones.
Cats
New World Monkeys
Squirrels
Rabbits
Tree Shrews
some Fishes

3. trichromats
Birds
Fish
Old World Monkeys
Humans - usually

4. tetrachromats
Turtles - cones: red, green, blue, yellow, UV; plus rods
Chickens - cones: violet, blue, green, red; plus rods
Goldfish
Japanese Dace
pentachromats
Pigeons
Ducks
Papilio Butterfly - has at least five different photoreceptors, many of them in long wavelengths

Interesting notes:
The Mantis Shrimp has ten types of photoreceptors.
In at least three species of New World Monkey (squirrel monkey, spider monkey, marmoset) most are dichromats, but a sex-linked color vision factor makes about one-third of the individuals trichromats.
In addition to different colors, the photoreceptors of bees are sensitive to polarized light.

Ref: http://wolfstone.halloweenhost.com/TechBase/litadv_AdvancedLightingConcept.html
My conclusion from that is there is no reason to believe in identical qualia across the animal kingdom.

One study seems to indicate women see color differently or more vividly than men.

Because females can have two different versions of this gene, but men can have only one, females may be able to perceive a broader spectrum of colors in the red/orange range. "Men and women may be literally seeing the world differently," Tishkoff said.

Ref: http://www.psycport.com/stories/ascribe_2004_07_14_eng-ascribe_eng-ascribe_014026_988726893508805748.xml.html

While another study found that although there is a large difference in the number of cones in the eye, there is no significant difference in how we percieve color.

Researchers at the University of Rochester have found that the number of color-sensitive cones in the human retina differs dramatically among people—by up to 40 times—yet people appear to perceive colors the same way.

…

Each subject was asked to tune the color of a disk of light to produce a pure yellow light that was neither reddish yellow nor greenish yellow. Everyone selected nearly the same wavelength of yellow, showing an obvious consensus over what color they perceived yellow to be. Once Williams looked into their eyes, however, he was surprised to see that the number of long- and middle-wavelength cones—the cones that detect red, green, and yellow—were sometimes profusely scattered throughout the retina, and sometimes barely evident. The discrepancy was more than a 40:1 ratio, yet all the volunteers were apparently seeing the same color yellow.
"Those early experiments showed that everyone we tested has the same color experience despite this really profound difference in the front-end of their visual system," says Hofer. "That points to some kind of normalization or auto-calibration mechanism—some kind of circuit in the brain that balances the colors for you no matter what the hardware is."

Ref: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/10/051026082313.htm
I'd have to argue the volunteers didn't necessarily percieve color the same way. The number of different photoreceptors varied by as much as a factor of 40! So what could the volunteers be doing to identify the color? They all were asked to identify "yellow" and they did, but that doesn't mean their qualia were identical, only that they were able to percieve what was asked of them. The article further points out that people's perception of a given color can change without their knowing further supporting IMHO that we don't necessarily have identical qualia experiences regarding color.

In a related experiment, Williams and a postdoctoral fellow Yasuki Yamauchi, working with other collaborators from the Medical College of Wisconsin, gave several people colored contacts to wear for four hours a day. While wearing the contacts, people tended to eventually feel as if they were not wearing the contacts, just as people who wear colored sunglasses tend to see colors "correctly" after a few minutes with the sunglasses. The volunteers' normal color vision, however, began to shift after several weeks of contact use. Even when not wearing the contacts, they all began to select a pure yellow that was a different wavelength than they had before wearing the contacts.
"Over time, we were able to shift their natural perception of yellow in one direction, and then the other," says Williams.

Another article pointed out that people with a form of color blindness called "deuteranomalous" were able to distinguish differences at certain wavelengths that "normal" people couldn't.

Indeed, the researchers found that some color pairs were only seen to be different by deuteranomalous individuals. The finding suggests that although these individuals may be blind to some colors accessible by color-normal individuals, they also have a sensitivity to a "color dimension" that is inaccessible to those with normal color vision. In their paper, the researchers remark that "[f]or a color-normal experimenter, it was striking to watch a deuteranamolous subject giving large difference ratings to apparently identical stimuli, and doing so without hesitation."

Ref: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=34581

From reading all this, I'd say it isn't likely we all percieve exactly the same color. Our qualia may be very similar but I tend to doubt it is identical. Qualia may be dependant on our eyes but it must also be dependant on the 'processing' our brain does with that stimulus. This processing isn't something that can presently be guaged in any way. I rather like this conclusion better than suggesting we have identical qualia experience (as I defined in post #28) which leads to a rather nasty second conclusion I think. Not sure if we can avoid the second conclusion if we make the first.

 

[zoobyshoe]

On the issue of the number of cones, the number shouldn't have any effect on the hue people percieve. The mechanism whereby we are sensitive to a hue is the specific chemical in the cone. Various forms of color blindness involve the wrong chemicals being in the wrong cones, and the chemicals in some cones being shifted in their peak sensitivity to a frequency range. Having many more green cones than someone else shouldn't result in a hue difference. The difference arises from a difference in the chemicals in the cones.

Take a moment to think about the complexity of color, brightness, and texture that you see constantly. Obviously there is more to vision than I have described, but most of it takes place behind the eyes. At the retina, sensation is limited to a small number of things: a range of wavelengths (only three, for red, green, and blue light), and intensity. The more light that strikes a cone cell, the more often it fires its neuron--up to a point, because the replenishment of electrons takes time and in bright light, a cone cell can run low on pigment molecules which can still give up that extra electron. The retina also does a certain amount of aggregation, both additive (to increase signal strength) and subtractive (which provides initial input for contrast detection).

With only three types of photosensitive pigments (erythrolabe for red, chlorolabe for green, and cyanolabe for blue), it might seem to make no sense that we can see so many colors. And yet we do. Each pigment is sensitive over a range of wavelengths, with a bell-shaped sensitivity curve that peeks at a specific wavelength. CIE, the International Commission on Lighting, has established three wavelengths that correspond to primary colors (700 nm for red, 546 nm for green, and 436 nm for blue); these are used for color matching. The sensitivity curves for the cones are centered around wavelengths of approximately 425, 525, and 625 nm, respectively, but these sensitivity curves spread out and overlap. Understanding the overlap is crucial.
Graph of normal cone response curves

The effect of the sensitivity curves is complex. Each cone type responds to a broad range of wavelengths. At any given wavelength, the cone has a range of responsiveness that corresponds to the height of the curve at that point. At many wavelengths, more than one cone type may respond to the same stimulus.

http://www.firelily.com/opinions/color.html

 

[Q_Goest]

Hi Zoo,

On the issue of the number of cones, the number shouldn't have any effect on the hue people percieve. The mechanism whereby we are sensitive to a hue is the specific chemical in the cone.

It seems to me, the brain must receive stimuli from any of the three color cones and must also process that information. Simply receiving that information is not enough to provide us with the unified sensation we experience. For people with very few 'red' cones for example, the brain process must 'turn up the volume', so to speak (ie: make the information from the red cones more important) in some way. The qualia we experience must be a function not only of the number of cones, but what the brain does with that information such as increasing or decreasing it's importance in relationship to the number of cones. My conclusion is that I readily agree, and I think it's fairly safe to say, that the mechanism whereby we are sensitive to some hue or color is that a chemical in the cones provide the brain with stimuli. I think what is not so clear is why we should expect the actual qualia that occurs to be identical since the information must be processed in different ways depending on the individual.

The info on the photosensitive pigments is very interesting. I read a bit about that as I searched for stuff on this. The function of the eye is pretty fascinating.

 

[zoobyshoe]

For people with very few 'red' cones for example, the brain process must 'turn up the volume', so to speak (ie: make the information from the red cones more important) in some way.

Yes, I am in error. I misread the quote you posted to be saying that some people have more cones overall than others. Now I see what you mean: They found the proportion of blue to red and green cones is very unbalanced in some people. Therefore, you proceed, their brains must have to perform a different calculation with the given imput to arrive at agreement on what is pure yellow.

 

[DeuteriumDude]

Yes, there is a way. Create a gene for a opsin protein sensitive to electromagnetic radiation outside the visible spectrum. Inject the gene into the retina with a viral vector. After a few months, you might perceive entirely new colors. This is totally possible with current technology, ethics are the only thing stopping anyone. Monkeys have already been injected with a gene for an opsin sensitive to light they can't naturally see. Behavioral studies show the monkeys can now distinguish new colors.

It's possible ... who here wants to be first in line? :D