What is color?

Asexperia

Asexperia

Registered Senior Member
I open this thread for someone to illustrate me about color.

The idea I have of color is the property that manifests in bodies when they are illuminated.
 
The color wheel

Primary%20and%20Secondary%20Colors.png
 
Presumably "color" means the response to visible light, in a human brain? Or more generally in a brain?

In which case you mean the particular vision-system of some animal? Or maybe you could include plants, which also respond to color. . . ?
 
Seems like the "When a tree falls in the forest..." question. What is sound? Is it a vibration in the air? Or is it the mental representation of a vibration in an ear?

Similarly, what is color? Is it a wavelength of EMR? Or is it the mental representation of a wavelength in an eye?
 
I'll ask my cousin. He's got red/green color blindness. He also has weird taste in matching colors...
 
sideshowbob said:
Seems like the "When a tree falls in the forest..." question. What is sound? Is it a vibration in the air? Or is it the mental representation of a vibration in an ear?

Similarly, what is color? Is it a wavelength of EMR? Or is it the mental representation of a wavelength in an eye?
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I think most people say colour is the perceived sensation, rather than the physics of the light frequencies that give rise to it.

Whereas sound is generally regarded as the physical phenomenon.

We speak of sound waves, but not colour waves, for instance.

But I have the feeling this is just the sort of footling issue that can spawn a 20 page thread...........:biggrin:
 
exchemist said:
I think most people say colour is the perceived sensation, rather than the physics of the light frequencies that give rise to it.

Whereas sound is generally regarded as the physical phenomenon.

We speak of sound waves, but not colour waves, for instance.

But I have the feeling this is just the sort of footling issue that can spawn a 20 page thread...........:biggrin:
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That would require Quantum Quack. He doesn't seem to be interested in this subject yet..he he.
 
I can answer any and all of your threads in one post...

Beauty is subjective
Color is subjective (anyone remember ''what color is this dress?")
Intelligence is subjective
Faith is subjective.

There you go. Now, we can all sleep well tonight.
 
exchemist said:
On the other hand Arfa is here. Perhaps there will be a discussion of whether or not colour is energy.:D
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Color is energy as in C=E+1

Can someone explain smell to me? Is smell the same in a capitalistic society as in a socialistic society? Does anyone have a push theory of smell? If not, why not?

My theory is that smell travels faster than the speed of light due to the uncertainty principle and entanglement. Dark energy is really smell in my theory but I don't know how to publish my paper.
 
Seattle said:
Color is energy as in C=E+1

Can someone explain smell to me? Is smell the same in a capitalistic society as in a socialistic society? Does anyone have a push theory of smell? If not, why not?

My theory is that smell travels faster than the speed of light due to the uncertainty principle and entanglement. Dark energy is really smell in my theory but I don't know how to publish my paper.
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My God, a brilliant synthesis of Theorist, Willem, Michael Anteski, Reiku and .....well countless others, really.

I particularly like the push theory of smell. Could this arise from the potential functions of microtubules, acting as a sort of hive mind?
 
exchemist said:
My God, a brilliant synthesis of Theorist, Willem, Michael Anteski, Reiku and .....well countless others, really.

I particularly like the push theory of smell. Could this arise from the potential functions of microtubules, acting as a sort of hive mind?
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I think you've got it.
To wit, the microtubules, contained in a bandar-log environment acting as anti-socials synthesize smell according to the uncertainty principle, if you follow me?
 
Seattle said:
I think you've got it.
To wit, the microtubules, contained in a bandar-log environment acting as anti-socials synthesize smell according to the uncertainty principle, if you follow me?
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Absolutely, especially the statement followed by a question mark, leaving the reader unclear whether it is actually a statement or a question. :biggrin:
 
exchemist said:
On the other hand Arfa is here. Perhaps there will be a discussion of whether or not colour is energy.
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Or perhaps no discussion at all, merely a parade of moronic ideas about one's grasp of reality, or what that word means? Apparently nobody knows, remember?

But back to the topic. What is color has some answer, I suppose. I also suppose that an answer is going to be context-dependent (isn't everything?).
To an electronics engineer, color is something you might place in the context of light-emitting devices, so if you then adopt the special-relativistic version of light (and why wouldn't you), you get the whole communications spectrum to play with, from the radio to the optical region (we don't use x-rays much in communication).

Using distinct colors you can set up a vector space, or a space of color-distribution. It has an inner product, a norm etc. There are several ways to do this, because it's a Euclidean domain (points are distinct).
 
Seattle said:
Color is energy as in C=E+1

Can someone explain smell to me? Is smell the same in a capitalistic society as in a socialistic society? Does anyone have a push theory of smell? If not, why not?

My theory is that smell travels faster than the speed of light due to the uncertainty principle and entanglement. Dark energy is really smell in my theory but I don't know how to publish my paper.
Click to expand...

Absurd and ridiculous.
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From the serious comments I can deduce that color has two components: one objective and one subjective. Something similar happens with beauty.
 
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If an object absorbs a colour, it then holds it, and emits other colours. Hence a plant's leaf absorbs all other colours, and reflects green (hence we see green.)
 
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