h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Mandragora - You got the effect of the sound right, you just haven't determined the pitch! Colours change as notes rise through the scale. Unfortunately this is a perception that has become weaker as others of my perceptions have become stronger, so I'm not optimistic about experimenting with noises! Interestingly, the perception is strongest with imaginary noises! Music (real or remembered) invokes synaesthesia of shapes, but constant tones (real or imaginary) just invoke colours.

Fenny (dodging imaginary rotten tomatos)

Twinkl* - I missed answering your point in post 72 - sorry! Yes, that "subjective colour" thing is exactly what I meant, if your confusing response to my confusing point is what I think it means!...

Thinking about it, it may be easier to explain with subjective heights. Three children stand next to each other, like Monty Python miniatures, and discuss their heights. The smallest says the middle one is tall; the tallest says he's short. Because the child's there, the source of their disagreement is clear.

This argument relies on the children not having a preconception of the meaning of the word "short". If the middle child has never been seen, but the tall and short child agree that he is short, then the next time the short kid sees the middle-sized kid, he will define "short" as three inches taller than himself.

If I learned the definitions of colours based on someone else's perceptions, but my subjective view of the sky coloured it a delicate shade of what you would call "pink", then I would call pink "blue" and live with it as a reality!

I don't doubt, though, that if I had postulated this suggestion when I was sixteen, the argument would still be raging!

x x Fenny

Yep, that's what I was talking about, or at least what I thought you were talking about. Kind of an interesting concept, really.

Whooo... still reeling from Fenchurch's explanation.
Slight diversion, but ne'ermind... the Romans had no specific words for blue, green and grey. Obviously these are different colours, not even similar shades, but they would all have been called by the same name. I wonder how this affected their late-night discussions.

have a couple different times had to go to the emergency room at the hospital to have foriegn objects removed from my eyes,eyedrops are used to open the pupil i think,anyway said eyedrops turn everything a amber tintso maybe it is your individual chemical make up which determines how you see colour.the first time i was fitted for a contact lense was also a little strange,do tinted contacts work like sun glasses?or are they to close to what focus's to focus on

Sounds like the idea of that roman guy. That it was his eyeball liquid that wasn´t translucent.

I've had similar stuff put in my eyes when having contact lens examinations. The stuff fluoresces under UV light so they shine one of those purple UV lights into your eyes and have a look with that as well as an ordinary lamp.
The stuff to dilate your pupils isn't nice. Not when you have to have it on a bright sunny day and have no sunglasses.

Interesting article in Observer magazine today (01.07.01)

I feel that I understand what is going on now better.

PP

Mr P.P. What was in the Observer today? I don't get the Observer, so I don't know what you were impressed by! Is there an on-line reference?

x x Fenny

I´ve heard that some colorblind can be helped by wearing two differently colored contact lenses. But I don´t know how it works.

I want to get some of that stuff that dilates pupils. It must be great for looking at the stars.

The Observer is certainly on-line. If you can't find it under its own name, look under Guardian Unlimited (the Guardian is the name of the daily paper, the Observer of the Sunday.) The article is written by the father of two colour blind sons. I shall recommend it to mine

My ex-boyfriend is completely colourblind - he sees everything in black and white (or what he assumes is black and white). However, he said that he had learned to distinguish the differnt shades of grey, and knew when he walked into a room if it was what I would call red or blue or whatever. He always said that he wouldn't want to be able to see in colour, either: the world's perfectly nice as it is, thank you very much. He gets special dispensation to write in green in exams, too. Humph.

I'm extremely short-sighted, and I've always depended on colour to a great degree to distinguish between different people and articles. I paint portraits, and find that this comes in handy for distinguishing between different qualities of skin tone.

Hmm.. I don't think that I have synthaesia (sp?), despite associating sounds, words and people with certain colours (I've been told that the latter is seeing 'auras', but I'm much more prone to think that it falls into a similar mental state as the others). It's more likely to occur when I'm in a relaxed frame of mind, or when I'm focusing on artistic endeavours, so I think it's just a subconscious imagination thing happening and ideas are being funnelled into visual or creative cortexs accidentally, like a mis-firing of neurons or imbalance in chemistry, etc.

Incidentally, I've always disliked yellow as a colour - right from powder-yolk pale through to sickly buttercup and golden shades. This may be because I have a yellowish base to my skin tone and thus whenever I am near it I look jaundiced, but does anyone else irrationally dislike particular colours for no apparent reason?

I hate orange. Probably because I look awful in it.

People claim that means you can see auras? That sounds just typical.

*laughs* Yeah Xanatic, but these are X-files times in which we live.

*Becoming didactic about aura perception*

Seeing auras doesn't need to be seen as anything but another odd perception - note that I'm not diminishing the fact that you can see colours around people, I'm just attempting to raise its importance in this thread. Xanatic and I have very different viewpoints (hi Xanatic) and I'm prepared to give it some credence.

When I work very hard to focus, I can see light around people, but I don't see colours. Yet this may be what gave rise to the idea that saints have halos - because someone, once, whose perception was given more credence than is common nowadays, could see an aura.

Incidentally, there is a sort of photography which can capture the electro-magnetism that surrounds you and put it on film - if a camera can do it, why not your own eyes?

x x Fenny

Because it lacks the necessary things. Not even a normal camera can see it. Besides if what you see is the EM-field you should be able to describe it and that should fit with what the camera shows. Probably won´t. People who claim to see auras usually can´t even agree on what color they are.

thats becouse different people have different colour auras,i've seen at least one person that could control what colour she was "projecting"

and perhaps the colour of our own aura filters how we can percieve that of others