• Question: Is the red that I see, the same as the red that you see?

    Asked by wizzyg12 to Claire, Kate, Matt, Rob, Sam on 21 Jun 2013.
    • Photo: Kate Husband

      Kate Husband answered on 21 Jun 2013:

      The red light you see is the same wavelength as the red light I see, because our eyes and optical nerves are essentially the same. Whether this red light is interpreted differently in your brain I don’t know, but I doubt it.

    • Photo: Sam Geen

      Sam Geen answered on 21 Jun 2013:

      Some people are red-green colourblind – this means that they see red and green as the same colour. Some people are completely colourblind, which means they can’t see colour at all. My dad is red-green colourblind, and used to draw brown buses at school because he couldn’t tell the difference! So while the colour red is the same for all people, like Kate says different people sometimes see colours differently.

    • Photo: Claire Lee

      Claire Lee answered on 26 Jun 2013:

      Well, we define “red” as light of a particular wavelength. But I think it is more complicated when you get to how your brain interprets the colour.

      For example, I think of turquoise as a kind of greeny-blue (meaning that I think of it more on the blue end). But my dad will look at the same turquoise object and say it is more green 🙂 Not sure why this is though! Maybe we have a different number of green-type and blue-type of cells in our eyes? (for eg, I could have more blue ones?) Maybe it’s just the way our brains process the image differently.

    • Photo: Matthew Pankhurst

      Matthew Pankhurst answered on 26 Jun 2013:

      That’s a really philosophical question! I don’t think we can really tell – even though the light, and the mechanics of our eyes are the same – because it’s also how your brain processes that light that’s also important. Who is to say that we experience different colours the same as anyone else? We both call it red – because we where taught to call what we see as red, red. But that doesn’t mean that what we experience is the same, just that we’ve been taught the same thing…..!!!
      Googling “philosophy of mind” might be an interesting thing for you to do! Have fun!

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