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

That's more in the realms of philosophy that question.

I doubt we can ever know.

Moonhogg



Possibly do some research into colour blindness. There are tests which tell whether people are or aren't colour blind.

Or do an experiment.

Get some yellow nd blue paint and a few people.

Get one person to mix some paint to make green.

Get the others to mix yellow and blue until they get the same colour as the first person.

If we all see different 'greens' then all the greens would be different. If we see the same green then all the greens should be the same(given a certain level of inaccuracy based on colour matching skills.)

Hence, the scientific method possibly can answer it.

What I mean is that if I look at the colour I call red with my eyes, I see it as red. If I could borrow someone elses optic nerves, would it still look the same, or would it look like the colour I call blue?

Very intelligent question for a 7 year old by the way

Not bad for a 9 year old either

<
What I mean is that if I look at the colour I call red with my eyes, I see it as red. If I could borrow someone elses optic nerves, would it still look the same, or would it look like the colour I call blue?>

THat is what my experiment suggestion would show.

Someone mixes a colour and states what it is. Firstly you can say yes ir no that's not blue. And then by matching another mixed colour you can also see whether its the same blue. You can match the colour to a spectrum. There are devices for blind people that when placed on something will tell them what colour it is. Very useful for clothes shopping.

The mixing of the colours should sort out the using some elses optic nerve.

And as someone with the faulty gene that renders traffic lights two varieties of yellow and one white, I can confirm that for some of us, " I see a red light, and know that it is red, because I have been told that that colour is called red." just ain't so.

If you want to know anything about colourblindess as a launched for colour vision, how it works and how it malfunctions, I'll be happy to help, I've some good resources too.

Clive the flying ostrich

But how do you know you see: two varieties of yellow and one white???

Isn't that part of the answer to the question that Moonhog's daughter asked? Also, the understanding of colour-blindness will also answer these things.

The answer probably is: yes, science can answer that question...but it's not that simple.

>>"If I could borrow someone elses optic nerves, would it still look the same, or would it look like the colour I call blue?"

I think that as far as we're aware, *if* you could have a perfect eye transplant, with everything wired up correctly, you'd see things in pretty much the same colours.
The *experience* of colour is something which happens effectively as a result of processing in the brain, with the eye not doing massively more than providing relatively unprocessed video data.

This is something that I'd wondered about. Glad I know.

There´s a condition where people have an extra colour receptor in their eyes, I imagine such people see different colours than most.

That's called tetrachromacy, and it is rare, it's a trait they share with turtles and fish, oddly.

Trichromacy is an unusual preserve for some mammals, but the majority are dichromats (dogs famously)

I'm an Anamalous Dichromat, being a mammal with the genes for trichromacy but through a copy fault error on my X-chromosome I lack the opsins for red in my retina rendering me colour-vision deficient.

But I'm a relatively rare Protanope, meaning an absence of red sensitivity, not just protoanomolous (red-weak), so red to me appears as grey or black, and what I think of as red is probably closer to brown or green and easily confused as such.

sounds like your a bit of an evolutionary cul-de-sac there mate

A little yes.

People who have had their corneas replaced with artificial ones can apparently see into the infrared. Our eyes can detect it, but it is filtered out by the cornea usually.

i thought it was UV and it was the lens?????

people with plastic lens replacements can see in UV????

I don´t remember the different names of the eye parts that well. Yes the lens, though I did get the impression it was infrared.

UV can't pass through plastic - although I can't comment on *every* type of plastic - in UV spectroscopic measurements in our labs if you want to measure at visible wavelengths, your sample can quite happily go in cheap plastic cuvettes but if you need to use UV wavelengths then you need to use much more expensive quartz cuvettes as the plastic absorbs the UV.

So my money would be on IR too

i'm only going off something i remeber from some old thread a while back

its not gospel

Even Gospel isn't gospel.

Which is kinda funny when you think about it.

Just can't get the scribes these days.