why is the color blue, blue?

something I have always wonderd. why is blue, blue.. why can't the color blue be called red? who decided it was blue? and why did people accept his version of it?

blue was decided by the great and wise towel, thus being his color, and people beleived him becuase he could whoop all they arses

Originally posted by marc49
something I have always wonderd. why is blue, blue.. why can't the color blue be called red? who decided it was blue? and why did people accept his version of it?

the same applies to any word,I guess.....even "ghey"!!!

Hurry someone wake him.

marc the Matrix has you.

Why do people say right when something is correct, but not left when something is wrong?

Originally posted by 1989 DX R
Why do people say right when something is correct, but not left when something is wrong? :confused:

How do we know that what i see as "red" other people see as other colors? And in that, how do we know that what i percieve as "red" isnt actually EVERYONE'S favorite color, except that when they see leaves, for example, they look like my "red" but we call it green? and therefore tehy see green as my red, so, green is their favorite color, which is actully my red, but anything that is green to me, such as the afrementioned leaves, are green and not red? so it works like this for everyone?

Originally posted by Steel
How do we know that what i see as "red" other people see as other colors? And in that, how do we know that what i percieve as "red" isnt actually EVERYONE'S favorite color, except that when they see leaves, for example, they look like my "red" but we call it green? and therefore tehy see green as my red, so, green is their favorite color, which is actully my red, but anything that is green to me, such as the afrementioned leaves, are green and not red? so it works like this for everyone?

EXACTLY.. so is there really such a thing as being "color" blind? maybe they just have a different version of colors than the "normal" people do. LOL

:bloated: :bloated: :bloated: :confused: :eek: :eek: :bloated: :bloated:

Language is irreversible, unchangable, and unrelatable.

There is nothing about the "being" of a desk that warranted the name. It simply needed a reference "noise" which eventually became the word "desk". However, if everyone on AF decided that they wanted to call every desk a bloob, then it would be a bloob because it was agreed upon by 2+ people.

The question "Why is blue, blue?" is not a question about language or the origin of the word. The question is about what actually appears inside your little head when you look at something that we call blue. What exactly is the nature of blueness?

Since your parents pointed at something they thought was blue, and said "that's blue" to you - you now call that color blue - in fact, we've all agreed to call that particular wavelength of light "blue". But there is no obvious way to tell if my internal perception of that color is the same as your internal perception of that color. What looks blue inside my head might look red to me if I saw it in YOUR head! But we both still call it blue because that's our external agreement. :D

It's a bit hard to explain. ;) In philosophical circles, it's called the Epistomological Problem of Perception. Basically, it comes down to the awareness that we have absolutely no idea what is going on in anybody's mind but our own.

Here's a long bit about it:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/perception-episprob/

Try looking up the word "solipsism" too. Use it on your friends.
:smoker2:

Exactly!:p :p :p

While it is possible that blue to someone may appear to green to someone else but they call it the same thing because thats what they were tought.

However, blue is a finite wavelength. Like all colors, it has a definative visual spectrum. Since humans are made of basically the same genetic material, the odds are that we all see the same colors the same way.

Originally posted by YogsVR4
While it is possible that blue to someone may appear to green to someone else but they call it the same thing because thats what they were tought.

However, blue is a finite wavelength. Like all colors, it has a definative visual spectrum. Since humans are made of basically the same genetic material, the odds are that we all see the same colors the same way. Valid point. Not proveable, but valid. Although I really doubt my perception is exactly your perception since we actually do have slightly different brain physiology; I would tend to agree that they're probably close, if for no other reason than Occam's razor. But again, we'll never know for sure. ;)

But even if it were absolutely true that everyone's perception of blue was exactly your perception of blue, the major question still remains: Why does blue appear, well, blue? Why don't we all see some other color at the 450 nanometer wavelength of light? What is the nature of blueness?
:smoker2:

Well, all perceptions could be varied the same way we see colors. Sound, touch, taste. I am not sure if your shooting to tell where the word blue originated from or if you're going down the "why do we ask why" reasoning.

Originally posted by YogsVR4
Well, all perceptions could be varied the same way we see colors. Sound, touch, taste. I am not sure if your shooting to tell where the word blue originated from or if you're going down the "why do we ask why" reasoning. Neither. :( This is not a language nor an ontological problem. It's an epistemology problem (and a classic one at that). It's not a simple concept to explain, particularly over the internet. ;)

What I'm trying to ask is why does the color blue appear blue to me? How does the firing of particular set of neurons in the brain somehow translate into what I percieve as "blue". Why not a buzzing or a flashing or another color we can't even imagine - why do I percieve the color blue?

Let me try it this way: There certainly is a 450nm wavelength of light, but that wavelength really has nothing to do with what I percieve as blue (e.g. I can close my eyes and picture blue from memory - no light required). So why does it look blue? What is the fundamental nature of blueness?

Sorry I can't explain better. I'll try to find some external resources.
:smoker2:

This gets pretty deep pretty fast, but it is essentially what I'm trying to talk about if you want to try to wade through it.
http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/philo/courses/consciousness/papers/fmterev.pdf

"Part III: Color" (page 11)
The objection from unity is that redness-qua-common-to-red-things will have to be a disjunction of microphysical surface properties; but disjunctive properties can't be causes; so, given the role of causation in representation, redness is not the property presented in red experience....

The question now is: why think that redness (qua common to red things) is much less natural than it's microphysical disjuncts? One reason would be that they are physical, and it is not physical....

Originally posted by marc49
something I have always wonderd. why is blue, blue.. why can't the color blue be called red? who decided it was blue? and why did people accept his version of it?


Why not?

This thread is funny! :lol2: :silly2:



Heres a question for ya Fritz, take a totally deterministic, and physicalist approach to the epistemological problem of perception of colour.

i.e. certain wave length of light hits certain cellular structures which are sensitive to the certain wave lengths of light, and respond by emitting electrical signals at a certain wave length, etc etc etc etc.

What we see is not the abstract concept of the colour blue, but our physiologically limited perception of a certain wavelength of light. Since we all use the same physiological sense organs to interpret these waves of light in the same way, we should be seeing the same colour.
The colour blue, will always be the colour blue, and as long as the cells in our eyes are sensitive that certain wave length of light, then we will always be able to see the colour blue. And it will always be the same for each of us.
This is of course a very pure and simple formulation of the human mind, and makes us out to be nothing less than well programmed computers.

Add in levels of consciencness and theories that state that we have free will, self awareness separate from our environment, as well as the possibility of differences in how each mind works, and it becomes possible, that although the physical process involved in "seeing" a colour are the same, the mental process involved in perceiving a colour may be different.
So that although we all see the same wave length of light as being blue, how that is presented to our conscious mind maybe quite different across individuals.

i.e. we all see the same thing, but how we percieve it depends on who we are.

this makes me think of in the revenge of the nerds when they were smokin dope one of them said. what if cat really meant dog and dog really meant cat. i know its not the same approach but it just makes me think about that.

needless to say i do believe that internal visualization can alter from subject to subject but is united through external association and agreement.

Moppie - right on! :D

But you still haven't approached the fundamental question -- Why is the nature of blueness?

Regardless of anyone else's perception, why is mine the way it is? What mechanism of conciousness created the concept of blueness?

:cool:

Well before you answer the question of what is blueness, you need to answer the question of what created the concept of blueness.

Is it something inheriant in nature, i.e. Do all creatures capable of seeing that particular wave length of light percieve it in the same way.

Or, is it something particular to the observer. i.e. after its been processed from a wave length of light into a concious awarness of colour does how its percieved depend on what ever it is that the observers conciousness is made of.

As soon as you can asnwer that fundemental question, and explain the human mind, then the answer to what is the concept of blueness is suddenly exposed.

In the development of language, the ability to communicate was given by identifying common things with a similar sound or representative symbol. So blue has whatever connotation you personally give it, but you still have to call it blue for society to understand what the hell you're talking about. Know what I mean? It's simply the least common denominator of having to have a common name for everything in order to communicate.

Originally posted by Moppie
Well before you answer the question of what is blueness, you need to answer the question of what created the concept of blueness. That seems like a fair starting point.
Is it something inheriant in nature, i.e. Do all creatures capable of seeing that particular wave length of light percieve it in the same way.

Or, is it something particular to the observer. i.e. after its been processed from a wave length of light into a concious awarness of colour does how its percieved depend on what ever it is that the observers conciousness is made of.
This is an unanswerable question. Solipsism. But even if it could be known, I don't see how it would help us answer our earlier question. I don't care about it's commonality, I only care about the mechanism in my own mind.
... and explain the human mind, then the answer to what is the concept of blueness is suddenly exposed.
Do I have to explain the entire human mind with infinite precision? That seems excessive. What section of the mind do I have to describe, and how accurately do I have to do it to understand the nature of blue?
:cool:

Originally posted by fritz_269

Do I have to explain the entire human mind with infinite precision? That seems excessive. What section of the mind do I have to describe, and how accurately do I have to do it to understand the nature of blue?
:cool:


Well depends if a section of the mind is used, or the whole mind.
And your thinking in very phsicalist terms here, what if our mind is made up of some non-physical stuff, and so has no part to it that we can discribe.

Besides if you can describe the exact workings of even 1% of the human mind I will be impressed. (I know how the brian works, but the two are not nessacrly the same)

Originally posted by Moppie
Well before you answer the question of what is blueness, you need to answer the question of what created the concept of blueness.



Well, as I see it, the reason we named it blue is unknown. But things that are blue are things that when light hits them, only the blue wavelength of light is reflected. The name is universal across the board because, on some level, all humans are the same and this particular wavelength triggered the same responce in our brains. But perhaps different cultures called it different things and we simply translated their words for it to mean blue... Who knows?

How do we know that what i see as "red" other people see as other colors?

I used to wonder this for a while until I figured it out one day. But then I soon forgot it. I should write these down sometimes.

Well I remeber that I figured part of it it out while looking at a Magic Eye picture. (Its those pictures that you stare at for a while then see figures and images.) Well I figured that the only way that everyone could see it was if everyone saw the same colors that I saw exactly how I saw them.

Also remember those color blind tests that you probibly took at the eye doctors when you were young? The only way that you could pass them was if you could see the colors the same as everyone else.

Hopefully this helped somehow somewhere.

NeoFreek