If I could not see colors could you help me perceive them?

[Ganoncrotch]

dsgrue3 said:

haxxiy said:

dsgrue3 said:

Signalstar said:
It would be futile. You can't prove that we all see colors the same way to begin with.

My red could be your purple and we'd never know.

This entire post is false. We have empirically defined the entire color spectrum. 

How so, by placing it on the spectrum and claiming red is 620-750nm wide? Maybe by studying brain functions when someone contemplates a color?  How much does that tell you what red actually is? Or do you understand the feeling of thrill by studying a molecule of adrenaline and how it physiologically alters the body upon being released into the bloodstream? Nope, you cannot... you need to empirically experience it otherwise you are missing the point here. This kind of information that can only originate from our senses - quale - are one of the strongest arguments for empirism as opposed to rationalism. You can see why this would bother a lot of people and the reason sometimes just cast it aside or dismiss it.

That's why it was so hard to discover daltonism; where people usually perceive the entire spectrum as being shades of yellow and blue. How could you possibly now something was wrong when that's all you ever knew? In fact the only thing those tests do is try to trick people into not seeing a clear pattern of two different colors - to us - among what they perceive as different colors but are actually different tonalities of the same color. It must have taken Dalton a hell of a philosophical effort to realize his rainbow was "different shades of yellow and blue" as himself put it.

If you open a crayon box and it says Red, are you suggesting that the majority of people don't see the same Red?

your brain and eyes are not to be trusted when it comes to color... or much else, a lot of what you "see" is just your brain filling in the blanks of what it thinks it should be seeing

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/60/Grey_square_optical_illusion.PNG in this picture the squares marked A+B are the exact same colour... there is no difference. Don't believe your eyes? or don't believe me, here is a gif of it :) no trickery, just your eyes thinking it is darker because it is in a shadow! http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/93/Optical_illusion_greysquares.gif

Colours and shades are not too far from each other, http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/27/ColourIllusion2.jpg the second card as in the pink one he is holding in both these pictures is the exact same shade, most peoples eyes will have a hard time seeing them the same because the surroundings are so different that your eyes just guess the last colour.

Think about it like this, you're in a club or a cinema which has dark or really colourful lights around you, you know for a fact that everything in the room is being coloured by the lights around you.... you take the white ticket from your pocket which you got outside to take a look at it... you see it as white, in a room where there is no chance that the paper should appear white to you, but your brain knows it's white.