Hacker News Reader

Comment by subb | Hacker News Reader

Colors don't exist outside of your brain.

Colours are, in the outside world, fuzzy ranges of electromagnetic frequencies: they do «exist outside of your brain».

(Similarly, "brain" and "mind" are not the same.)

Otherwise, the intended general idea is that found e.g. at the beginning of Arthur Schopenhauer's Welt als Wille und Vorstellung:

> "The world is my representation": this holds true for every living, cognitive being, although only a human being can bring it to abstract, reflective consciousness: and if he actually does so he has become philosophically sound

Some electromagnetic frequencies are colors, but not all colors are electromagnetic frequencies. That’s why parent stated that color is a brain phenomenon.

> not all colors are electromagnetic frequencies

What do you mean? (Outside the detail that "hues" are electromagnetic frequencies, while colours are compositions - there I just simplified.) Which colour is not such?

I would explain it as colors are byproducts of electromagnetic frequencies, but they are qualia generated by your brain. There are many optical illusions that play with this fact. For example, in twilight, the frequencies you would call blue are different than what you call blue during daytime. This is because the brain /eye adjusts to the general light conditions. (As sunlight is generally "redder" at twilight).

Sure, but those colours still «are electromagnetic frequencies». The poster stated that some colours are not.

If the colors were the same thing as the electromagnetic frequencies, then the same electromagnetic frequencies would be the same colors, by definition.

They aren't. For example, put a card of color A in front of a background of color B; now move it in front of a different background of color C. You will experience color A as being a different color (especially if colors A, B, and C are chosen to maximze the effect).

The electromagnetic spectrum returned by card A isn't different, but the color perceived is. Thus, electromagnetic spectrum is "out there", but color is "in here".

> If the colors were the same thing as

Oh, nobody said they overlap.

The original post claimed that «Colors don't exist outside of your brain»: such statement, while true, is false, as its negation is true (we have mentioned paraconsistency in this very page): "colours" do exist outside your brain, as their nature also is, in a way, being electromagnetic phenomena, function of frequencies.

While such ontological property is pretty common, it is just summoned with some force when someone claims "[fuzzy] is [strict]".

> Thus, electromagnetic spectrum is "out there", but color is "in here"

Of course. That just depends on what you want colour to be. If you put it conceptually near "electromagnetic spectrum", then the distinction emerges.

Magenta have not a electromagnetic frecuency.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FSpCAs5KZg

It is the sum of two ranges (magenta is the sum of red and blue lights): it also exists "outside", like the rest.

For that matter, not even "pinkish grey" is defined by simply a frequency (the hue is, the colour is not): the definition for this purpose was meant to be concise, not literal.

Your previous comment had stated that hues are electromagnetic frequency and parent comment showed a counterexample. Color is a complex phenomenon that cannot be reduced to electromagnetic frequencies and their composition. For an example, see impossible colors [0].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impossible_color

> Your previous comment had stated that hues are electromagnetic frequency and parent comment showed a counterexample

That was not the point, and said counterexample is not such (also magenta is, in a way, "electromagnetic frequenc[ies]"). Impossible colours - virtual colours - do go more towards the counterexample, though up to a certain point as they refer to the mental phenomenon of colour and leave the physical nature of colour untouched.

But finally I get what you meant when you stated: «not all colors are electromagnetic frequencies». True ("not all perception is produced by a direct influx of"). But also false, apparently (to the best of my), as objectivized hybrid colours are compositions of electromagnetic ranges; objectivized virtual colours are as well etc.

> Color is a complex phenomenon that cannot be reduced to electromagnetic frequencies and their composition

Yes, and nobody ever stated the opposite - no reduction was never implied, no «overlapping» (as written in the other post): the point was expressed, nearby, at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31217999

The distinction between colors exists outside our brains (different frequencies of em radiation), but the color "red", for example, only exists in your brain. Heck, I have no clue what someone else perceives when I perceive "red". As long as it is stable, it doesn't matter.

Eh, I would say that they do, there are just many, many, many more of them than we can see.

Well, our brains are only wired up to detect a limited spectrum of colors. There are insects and birds that can detect a greater variety of color. So, how can it just exist in our brains?

One way to look at colors is to see them as qualia, which is basically a subjective experience. Electromagnetic waves come in a large range of frequencies, some of which excite the nerve endings in your retina, causing your brain to experience colors. But colors are a bit more complicated than that: for example, there is no such thing as just "yellow": yellow is the subjective term given by humans when there is a certain balance between the excitation of their there-color vision. You can experience the exact same sense of "yellow" from different types of light: there is true monochromatic yellow around 580nm, but you can also experience that same yellow when mixing the right amount of red and green light. There is no wave of 580nm in the second case, but still you see the same color.

Our eyes are wired up to detect a limited spectrum of wavelengths. Although those wavelengths correspond to a color, not all colors correspond to a wavelength. That’s why OP stated that color is a brain phenomenon.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com