# What color is blue **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 4, 2003, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-blue/216947 "2003-12-04T15:04:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![II\_Gyan\_II](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/bbe5ce/32.png) [@II\_Gyan\_II](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/II_Gyan_II)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2003, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-blue/216947/41 "2003-12-06T01:42:01Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by bordelond \* > \*\*… hmmm. We may be talking past each other here. IMO, if visual stimuli could be perceived audibly, it’s no longer sight. It’s hearing – or perhaps a form of “sonar”. > > … if someone can only hear color, then they certainly aren’t seeing color – regardless of where photons are landing. This person’s eyes have become another set of “ears”. You may have lost me here. \*\* The problem as I see it here is that you’re tying up your debate too closely with your personal perceptual experience. When someone hears vision and sees sound, they don’t know that they’re “hearing” color and “seeing” sound because that is how they’ve always experienced it. Those modes of perception become defined in their awareness as the normal modes of perception. And that as long as one’s perceptual apparatus is consistent troughout life with regards to motor memory, there is no problem. If it doesn’t affect motor skills, then it’s not a problem if it changes, as long as all memory of such perceptions change uniformly as well (If my blue changed to red one day, the red sky won’t look different to me if all my memories of the sky get substituted with the new perception as well). ---
**Author:** ![boofy\_bloke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9e8a1a/32.png) [@boofy\_bloke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/boofy_bloke)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2003, 7:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-blue/216947/42 "2003-12-06T07:05:45Z")
I can experience light in a way that is not visual. When I am suffering from a breakthrough episode of Chronic Neuropathic Pain (imagine a 10/10 headache) intense light makes my head “buzz-tingle-fzzzt”. It isn’t like the pain that you get when walking out of a dark room into the bright sunlight. It is a form of synaesthesia (see above). CNP is itself a form of synaesthesia. This does not mean that I can’t feel someone’s hand on my head, so I don’t think that a color-hearer would be blind or deaf, they would get added value from the things at which they look… the way that flowers glow when a bee looks at it because bees see UV light. ---
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2003, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-blue/216947/43 "2003-12-06T16:08:25Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Gyan9 \* > **The problem as I see it here is that you’re tying up your debate too closely with your personal perceptual experience.** … well, I am a human being. I doubt that my perceptual experience is atypical. You may posit that I’d never know if it was. I’d posit back that if I’d never know, it doesn’t matter. See below: > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Gyan9 \* > **When someone hears vision and sees sound, they don’t know that they’re “hearing” color and “seeing” sound because that is how they’ve always experienced it. Those modes of perception become defined in their awareness as the normal modes of perception.** OK … but if someone thinks they are “seeing” but they are really “hearing”, that’s tantamount to actually seeing AFAIC. I’m trying to stick with testable, verifiable phenomena. What goes on neurologically in someone’s brain is not of particular concern to me. I don’t think things get all that convoluted. Just MHO. Can’t prove it, of course. ---
**Author:** ![II\_Gyan\_II](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/bbe5ce/32.png) [@II\_Gyan\_II](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/II_Gyan_II)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2003, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-blue/216947/44 "2003-12-06T16:13:40Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by bordelond \* > \*\* > What goes on neurologically in someone’s brain is not of particular concern to me. > \*\* Then I’m surprised that you participated in this thread. ---
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2003, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-blue/216947/45 "2003-12-06T16:15:46Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by boofy\_bloke \* > \*\*I can experience light in a way that is not visual. > > When I am suffering from a breakthrough episode of Chronic Neuropathic Pain (imagine a 10/10 headache) intense light makes my head “buzz-tingle-fzzzt”. It isn’t like the pain that you get when walking out of a dark room into the bright sunlight. It is a form of synaesthesia (see above). CNP is itself a form of synaesthesia.\*\* If I am following you correctly, you’re synaesthetic reaction to bright light (while in a CNP episode) is based on your ability to _see_ an unusually bright light. Some questions: 1. You’re in a CNP episode, laying silently in a pitch-dark room. A firefly flies in and lights up. You see the firefly. Does the firefly cause pain? 2. You’re in a CNP episode, laying silently in a pitch-dark room with completely opaque walls. Someone in an adjacent room turns on a lamp. Can you feel the lamp’s light? 3. You have an opaque blindfold over your eyes, and an opaque hood over your head. Someone shines a floodlight in your face. Do you feel pain? ---
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2003, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-blue/216947/46 "2003-12-06T16:21:01Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Gyan9 \* > \*\*Then I’m surprised that you participated in this thread. \*\* No … think about it. What goes on in someone’s brain can be speculated on _ad absurdium_ (sp?). No one can test that, as far as I know. But the ways in which people perceive color visually _can_ be tested by looking at how one person (the subject) communicates color to another (the scientist). If the scientist is testing for the right things (far beyond simple color naming), variations of individual color perception can be rooted out, IMHO. ---
**Author:** ![II\_Gyan\_II](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/bbe5ce/32.png) [@II\_Gyan\_II](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/II_Gyan_II)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2003, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-blue/216947/47 "2003-12-06T16:37:15Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by bordelond \* > \*\* > But the ways in which people perceive color visually _can_ be tested by looking at how one person (the subject) communicates color to another (the scientist). If the scientist is testing for the right things (far beyond simple color naming), variations of individual color perception can be rooted out, IMHO. \*\* How? What would these tests be? ---
**Author:** ![t-keela](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a3d4f5/32.png) [@t-keela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/t-keela)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2003, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-blue/216947/48 "2003-12-06T17:04:47Z")
Does this thread actually belong in GQ? My perception is NOT. 😉 Color identification is learned. Blue is one of the three primary colors (red, yellow, blue) People universally recognize and identify these colors without confusion. When these primary colors are mixed (secondary=green, orange, purple) confusion starts. “Is it blue or green”, “red vs. orange”…etc. Do we see them differently? Sure we do. Color recognition involves our experience with similar colors. A person having never seen complex colors (ie: aquamarine, coral, lavender etc.) might be confused when asked to identify these examples. (I’m gonna post now…my PC is trippin’) ---
**Author:** ![wolf\_meister](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolf_meister/32/15202_2.png) [@wolf\_meister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolf_meister)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2003, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-blue/216947/49 "2003-12-06T17:20:30Z")
Well, some very scholarly, erudite answers there. I’m going to put myself out on a limb and say the answer to the original posting is … it’s **blue**!!! Thank you. ---
**Author:** ![paul\_smars](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3be4f8/32.png) [@paul\_smars](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/paul_smars)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2003, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-blue/216947/50 "2003-12-06T21:45:19Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Gyan9 \* > \*\*How? What would these tests be? \*\* Ditto wolf\_meister Finally, a clear consice answer that I understand. Thank you. ---
**Author:** ![paul\_smars](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3be4f8/32.png) [@paul\_smars](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/paul_smars)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2003, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-blue/216947/51 "2003-12-06T21:48:04Z")
BTW, I feel complete now. This is my first post that has received such a large following. I have arrived. \ ---
**Author:** ![wolf\_meister](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolf_meister/32/15202_2.png) [@wolf\_meister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolf_meister)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2003, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-blue/216947/52 "2003-12-06T22:09:14Z")
LOL **paul’smars** Yes I’m an honors PhD Graduate from the School of Stating the Blatantly Obvious. Seriously, I think it is a sign of SDMB recognition when you start a message thread that gets a huge response. (Hey … 2 pages !!!) ---
**Author:** ![boofy\_bloke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9e8a1a/32.png) [@boofy\_bloke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/boofy_bloke)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2003, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-blue/216947/53 "2003-12-07T01:17:05Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by bordelond \* > \*\*If I am following you correctly, you’re synaesthetic reaction to bright light (while in a CNP episode) is based on your ability to _see_ an unusually bright light. Some questions: > > 1. You’re in a CNP episode, laying silently in a pitch-dark room. A firefly flies in and lights up. You see the firefly. Does the firefly cause pain? > > 2. You’re in a CNP episode, laying silently in a pitch-dark room with completely opaque walls. Someone in an adjacent room turns on a lamp. Can you feel the lamp’s light? > > 3. You have an opaque blindfold over your eyes, and an opaque hood over your head. Someone shines a floodlight in your face. Do you feel pain? \*\* 1. We don’t have fireflies in Sydney but I don’t think it would. It’s the intensity of the light more than the contrast with the surroundings. 2. I only experience the light as touch if I see it. 3. I can’t put things on my head because it induces pain - I couldn’t perform this experiment. ---
**Author:** ![Topologist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/topologist/32/3208_2.png) [@Topologist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Topologist)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2003, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-blue/216947/54 "2003-12-07T04:32:13Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by paul’smars \* > \*\*ok. I have never gotton anyone to understand me on this. Am I just weird? > > We both agree that this object is blue, but how do I know that what u see as blue looks like what I see as blue. Indeed, what u see could actually be what I see when I look at something green. We just both call it by the same name, since we were tought that since birth. Understand?? \*\* If you’re weird then so are a lot of philosophers. (Well, OK, that’s not unlikely.) I first ran across this sort of discussion when I took a philosophy of mind course with [Ned Block](http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/philo/faculty/block/) a little over 20 years ago. This is the problem of [qualia](http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qualia/) (that link may or may not be the best or most understandable, but I happened to run across it), roughly the qualities that define “what-it’s-like” to have an experience. How do we compare your experience and my experience of seeing what we both call blue? Do they have to be at all the same? Does a difference matter in any way? If not, is it really a difference? Etc. Any theory of the mind has to explain qualia somehow; qualia are also used sometimes to argue against the possibility of true artificial intelligence. I was bold enough to disagree with Block back then about qualia in papers I wrote for his course, but I haven’t followed the arguments or even thought about it much in 20 years. He’s the philosopher; I’m just a mathematician. ---
**Author:** ![ekow2kn3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ecc23a/32.png) [@ekow2kn3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ekow2kn3)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2003, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-blue/216947/55 "2003-12-07T04:50:02Z")
The background of this post is blue, the border of the post is blue, my scroll bar is blue, the profile search and buddy buttons are blue, the banner that says Straight Dope is blue with yellow writing, here is your blue! ---
**Author:** ![ekow2kn3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ecc23a/32.png) [@ekow2kn3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ekow2kn3)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2003, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-blue/216947/56 "2003-12-07T04:52:56Z")
although, someone’s monitor might have different colors represented, making these not actually blue, and what happens when you put on sepia sunglasses? is the ball still blue? what i’m asking now is: Is the object actually blue, or is what we perceive blue, because if i put on different colors of shades, objects change color, and while it is still a ball, it is no longer blue to me, although to my friend without sunglasses, the ball is still blue ---
**Author:** ![aerodave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f08c70/32.png) [@aerodave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aerodave)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2003, 5:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-blue/216947/57 "2003-12-07T05:27:40Z")
In response to **Topologist** ’s post, I can’t see for myself how the questinable nature of qualia prohibits the creation of artificial intelligence. Just as if it were another person, how does it matter how the machine experiences the color blue? We have machines that can recognize color, and, as far as I can tell, that’s all that matters. If I have a machine to which I can show a color, and say “what color is this?” and get a correct answer, then it has met any requirements I could think of. That’s all you can expect from a real intelligence. Substitute any sensation for color in the above example, and the point is the same. ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2003, 11:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-blue/216947/58 "2003-12-07T11:18:37Z")
Synaesthesia certainly seems to give a vague clue about the realities of different people’s qualia; it seems that there is little correlation between the sensations felt by people when experiencing this crosscircuiting of the senses; one person associates blue with the feel of sandpaper, another with the smell of roses; this tends to suggest that we are all wired up differently inside. Set this against the hundreds of common qualities shared by humans and human behaviour the world over; there is evidently a long list of behaviours preprogrammed into humans which pre-empt enculturation. In short we have a very similar internal architecture, and the encryption of our qualia does not (in my opinion) run very deep. * * * SF worldbuilding at [http://www.orionsarm.com/main.html](http://www.orionsarm.com/main.html) ---
**Author:** ![t-keela](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a3d4f5/32.png) [@t-keela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/t-keela)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2003, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-blue/216947/59 "2003-12-07T14:59:29Z")
\*\* BLUE \*\* There ya go…that’s blue for ya. :eek: Does everybody agree? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-blue/216947.md?page=2)