Wierd consequence of Qualia

[Dancing David]

Having thought about but not ready to agree with the whole irreducable argument, because I don't take closed as equating to special. I have stumbled upon a great thought.

Suppose that there is an individual who has opposite color wiring in thier brain for the colors. To make it easier the rods are wired where black is black and white is white. But what if they percieve red as green and yellow as blue. this is a very real thing that could be going on all the time.

Imagine a forest that is all red and when the leaves turn green and then fall. Imagine blue sunshine and a yellow sky. Imagine that the color purple was orange!

This is a real thing! Now I do believe that because of hardwiring most of us do see the green of green and not the red of green, but it could happen. So all the colors that are called cool, they could be reversed with all the colors that are called hot.

But it could happen and due to the nature of perception, we would never know! You might see blue and purple fires. And call that green red!

Second wierdness. You could generate a wierd experiment too. Say that you had googles that reverse colors! They turn the values of red to green and blue to yellow. And then you wore them for about six weeks.

There were these wierd studies done where people wore prisms over thier eyes that reversed the visual field, up for down and left for right. Given the brain's need for order after a period of time the brain reoriented the visual fields of the subjects.

So if someone is presented with a reversed color field would it eventualy reorient to the field that we grew up with? Great experiment,huh?

[Franko]

So long as:

Red + Blue = Purple
Green – Blue = Yellow
Yellow + Red = Orange

Etc., etc.

Then it doesn’t matter what the subjective experience of color is for the individual. The notion of “colors” will remain objective between those individuals.

In fact the existence of individuals who are colorblind pretty much proves that we don’t all see the same thing when we see “red”, “green”, “blue”, etc.

The existence of Relativity is dependent on the existence of individual observers. That’s why Einstein opined that the Goddess doesn’t play dice with the universe!

[lifegazer]

http://www.q.co.za/2002/fashion/06-fashion-colours.html

I did a search and came upon this site, from many. I did suspect that specific colours induce similar effects within us all. So it's difficult to believe that we all see colours differently.

[Mercutio]

Originally posted by Dancing David
There were these wierd studies done where people wore prisms over thier eyes that reversed the visual field, up for down and left for right. Given the brain's need for order after a period of time the brain reoriented the visual fields of the subjects. Not quite. The scene was still reversed and flipped, but it became useful information. A thrown ball appeared to dip down into the sky below and return back up toward the ground you stood inverted upon, but you were able to match your kinesthetic feedback to your visual input and move appropriately to catch the ball.

Of course, when you take the goggles off, it takes a while for your "normal" vision to be useful again.

I have experienced this to a lesser degree, with goggles that throw the whole world 20 degrees to the right.

[Dancing David]

Darn those World Book encyclopedias, you mean that the visual field did not reorient? What a bummer, well thanks for setting me straight.

So the visual field remains reversed but the brain just adapts to it. darn.

Really I could see colors the opposite that every else sees them and we would never know. Ah, the blue of candles is so wonderful.

[Yahzi]

I told you about the synthesiac who was colorblind, but still saw the number 5 in red (a color he could not actually see). He called the colors that he could only see via synthesia "martian" colors, because in his expereince they never related to anything he saw in the real world.

[Yahweh]

While it may be possible for the wiring in the brain to completely screw up the sensation of color a person may experience could be entirely different than the color I see, I wouldnt be sure of what consequences would occur.

I'm not sure if its fair to ask "would you find a green person attractive" if you have never seen people in other colors. I'm not sure how qualities of "attractiveness" are hardwired in a person's genetics. While I'm not sure if others might find green people attractive, I know most find black and white images almost (or equally) as attractive as the color images.

Of course, as Yahzi mentioned, a person could have synthesia. The reason why a colorblind person with synthesia could see colors synthesia is an interesting disorder. The human brain is continually evolving to develope the 5 senses more and more independent from each other, synthesiacs have it a bit different. There senses are wired "into" (for lack of better words) each other. Certain smells may trigger a visual sensation (everything my suddendly take on a yellow hue), vice versa, a specific letter or word may trigger a smell sensation. I've heard of synthesiacs who enjoy the taste of classical music. Or as Yahzi described, seeing words or numbers (visual cognitive processing) may trigger a visual sensation such as color. I dont imagine too many synathesiacs describing the disorder as anything bad or hendering, I'm sure the rainbow of colors they see when they read large documents is very pretty.

(Synethia and colorblindness at the same time... that would be quite rare.)