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 alot of people have found the idea appealing.

mezarashi

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

PIT2

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 ive also read about seeing completely new colors. Here is an example:

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 percieves 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

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 dont 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

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

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

I would agree, and at the same time I can see the counterpoint:
Now I've not thought this through, it only just occured 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

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

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.

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.

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.