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Does colour only exist in our brain? Book argues it is simply a construct of the mind
Daily Mail ^ | May 22, 2015 | Ellie Zolfagharifard

Posted on 05/23/2015 6:28:43 AM PDT by rickmichaels

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1 posted on 05/23/2015 6:28:43 AM PDT by rickmichaels
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To: rickmichaels

the brain interprets the wave spectrum which, yes, really exists.


2 posted on 05/23/2015 6:29:37 AM PDT by 9thLife ("Life is a military endeavor..." -- Francis)
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To: 9thLife

Exactly. Our brain interprets it but color really does exist.

You can really screw with people if you tell them that leaves are every color but green.


3 posted on 05/23/2015 6:33:30 AM PDT by cripplecreek ("For by wise guidance you can wage your war")
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To: rickmichaels

For that matter sound wouldn’t exist either. Neither would any of the senses. Sensations like color, tones and smell are known as sensory qualia. They are similar to atoms of consciousness. In a way, our conscious experience is a virtual reality based on our senses.


4 posted on 05/23/2015 6:35:30 AM PDT by Moonman62 (The US has become a government with a country, rather than a country with a government.)
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To: rickmichaels

EVERYTHING we experience is a “conscript of the mind”. Perception really IS reality. Creation is not just mostly empty space. It really DOES have more in common with “the Matrix” than what people perceive to be the real world.

Physical objects are basically “coagulated energy”. And if God says, “Meh, this bores me.”, it will simply revert to the energy which it is. It will “burn up”.


5 posted on 05/23/2015 6:37:31 AM PDT by cuban leaf (The US will not survive the obama presidency. The world may not either.)
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To: cripplecreek

And when you press your hands together, nothing really touches. It is only the force of the atoms repelling each other that our brain interprets as “touching”. And for all practical purposes, they ARE touching, except they’re not.

Same goes for light, color, gravity, etc. When it is all you’ve known since your mother’s womb, you learn to interpret everything in a way that is productive.

It is said that what you see is actually upside down at the back of your eyeball, but your brain has learned to upright the image with its software. Well, there was a guy that walked around for months with a special viewer that caused him to see everything upside down. Guess what? After a month or two, his software was modified and he saw everything as upright.

And when he removed the glasses for the first time, everything “looked” upside down.

i.e. the book is stating the obvious.


6 posted on 05/23/2015 6:40:54 AM PDT by cuban leaf (The US will not survive the obama presidency. The world may not either.)
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To: 9thLife
the brain interprets the wave spectrum which, yes, really exists.

In my courses I call this a "conscious fiction": it is in our conscious mind (and in some people's dreams), but it is a fiction because while the electromagnetic waves exist, our "narrative" about them (that they are separate colors) does not exist at a physical level.

As a (Lutheran) Christian, I would assert that the experience of light waves as color is a gift from God, on at least two counts: it allows us a more nuanced view of physical existence (we see objects more effectively because of the experience of separate colors) and simultaneously provides aesthetic pleasure--as I type this I am watching a couple of white herons walking through my green back yard, below brown and green trees pointing to a blue sky.

7 posted on 05/23/2015 6:45:50 AM PDT by chajin ("There is no other name under heaven given among people by which we must be saved." Acts 4:12)
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To: cripplecreek

I’ve thrown that at a few over the years. Is color the absence of reflection, or the absence of absorption?


8 posted on 05/23/2015 6:47:21 AM PDT by TheZMan (I am a secessionist.)
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To: rickmichaels

Interesting. I can’t see any difference in the green squares, even after I know which one is supposed to be different.


9 posted on 05/23/2015 6:48:39 AM PDT by JoeDetweiler
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To: rickmichaels

Some folks want to gain notoriety by making claims contrary to accepted norms.

It is the motivation behind “Diversity”.

>http://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/2014/07/diversity-destruction.html<

...Diversity is an anti-religion, and anti-ideology, a nepotism which promotes everything except one’s own family.

Diversity therefore equals the destruction of any and all religions and of all positive ideologies.

Because Diversity can only be destructive: whatever IS is insufficiently or inexactly diverse.
Whatever IS must therefore be destroyed in order to make it MORE Diverse.
And there is no conceivable or measurable end to it. Yesterday’s Diversity is today’s intolerable lack of Diversity.

Diversity is the destruction of Good; and it is the destruction of all types of Good - however defined. All are chewed up and spat out by Diversity.

Diversity is the promotion of chaos by the destruction of Good; and then there-naming of chaos as Good.


10 posted on 05/23/2015 6:52:51 AM PDT by G Larry (Obama Hates America, Israel, Capitalism, Freedom, and Christianity.)
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To: rickmichaels

There are people with normal eyes that don’t see color the same way others do.

We are trained to identify colors in school now that hide this. Games such as what color is this?

There are actually people who see blue as red, but many of them aren’t aware of it.

The spectrum isn’t the problem, the problem is what does the brain tag that spectrum with.


11 posted on 05/23/2015 6:55:22 AM PDT by dila813
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To: rickmichaels

Stupid article about a trivial observation.


12 posted on 05/23/2015 6:56:34 AM PDT by Lonesome in Massachussets (This is known as "bad luck". - Robert A. Heinlein)
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To: rickmichaels
Does colour only exist in our brain?

Only in Britain and Commonwealth countries. Elsewhere, color only exists in our brains.

You may think it's all about you, but there is no u in color...

13 posted on 05/23/2015 6:57:16 AM PDT by chajin ("There is no other name under heaven given among people by which we must be saved." Acts 4:12)
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To: chajin

Reminds me of a Calvin and Hobbs cartoon.

Calvin asked his dad why all old photos were in black and white.

Dad tells him that color hadn’t been invented yet and the whole world was in black and white.

Calvin asks why old paintings are in color and dad explains that most of the great painters were insane.


14 posted on 05/23/2015 7:01:31 AM PDT by cripplecreek ("For by wise guidance you can wage your war")
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To: rickmichaels
The whole argument is silly. I have to guess without reading the article that this was done with a Federal Grant-praise be to Washington. Sound is only vibrations in the air until the brain interprets those vibrations. Color is wave frequency as interpreted by the brain. The author is trying to scientize the old conundrum about a tree falling in the forest. It is definition and nothing more. If color is defined as wavelength of light then color is inherent in nature. If color is defined as the brain's interpretation of the wavelength of received light then color is a construct of the brain.
15 posted on 05/23/2015 7:03:52 AM PDT by arthurus (It's true!)
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To: cripplecreek
Calvin asks why old paintings are in color and dad explains that most of the great painters were insane.

Both are true, it's the connection that (probably) isn't :-)

16 posted on 05/23/2015 7:07:36 AM PDT by chajin ("There is no other name under heaven given among people by which we must be saved." Acts 4:12)
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To: cripplecreek
You can really screw with people if you tell them that leaves are every color but green.

Except in the winter.

17 posted on 05/23/2015 7:10:12 AM PDT by 9thLife ("Life is a military endeavor..." -- Francis)
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To: rickmichaels

Artists work from the position of light and most are well-aware of the notion that light creates color and objects have no inherent color of their own.


18 posted on 05/23/2015 7:11:08 AM PDT by yetidog
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To: arthurus

Great points arthurus.


19 posted on 05/23/2015 7:11:29 AM PDT by Blennos
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To: chajin

Calvin’s dad explains science.

http://www.s-anand.net/blog/calvin-and-hobbes-dad-explains-science/


20 posted on 05/23/2015 7:12:01 AM PDT by cripplecreek ("For by wise guidance you can wage your war")
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