UWOL #33-Gold, Silver, Bronze by Steve Siegel

Steve Siegel · April 7th, 2015, 12:52 PM

Marj,

You raise an interesting point that I neglected to think about. Namely that all color information we perceive is a brain function. I used to work with a spectrograph, measuring light intensity in the 700 nm range (red). Of course, if I looked at the beam I saw red light. I always assumed that the machines sensor was seeing red light, and interpreting it as red light. Not so. It only interpreted it as electromagnetic energy centered near 700 nm. No color attribution at all.

How about this. Are colors absolute, or not? If you met an alien from another solar system and
showed her a crayon that was the same color as the noon sun (yellow), and asked her to pick a crayon out of the box that she thought was the same color as the sun, would it be the same crayon?

April 7th, 2015, 12:52 PM	#16
Steve Siegel Major Player Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA Posts: 840	Re: UWOL #33-Gold, Silver, Bronze by Steve Siegel Marj, You raise an interesting point that I neglected to think about. Namely that all color information we perceive is a brain function. I used to work with a spectrograph, measuring light intensity in the 700 nm range (red). Of course, if I looked at the beam I saw red light. I always assumed that the machines sensor was seeing red light, and interpreting it as red light. Not so. It only interpreted it as electromagnetic energy centered near 700 nm. No color attribution at all. How about this. Are colors absolute, or not? If you met an alien from another solar system and showed her a crayon that was the same color as the noon sun (yellow), and asked her to pick a crayon out of the box that she thought was the same color as the sun, would it be the same crayon?