I shall blow your mind!!!

I can only imagine the elaborate zombie survival plans being dreamed up by you military guys

 

actually..... light is only a wave. a wave that carries photons, therefore it is assigned a wavelength. Only because our eyes are capable of seeing an EXTREMELY narrow range of wavelengths "colors". Now I want to make it clear that what the receptors in our eyes perceive as light is only a fraction of the actual light that is there. Even in what we see as darkness, there is still light; just in a form we cannot perceive with our eyes.

And to your original question: We see "colors" because as specific wavelengths enter our photoreceptors, carotenoids are excited from the energy in the photons. This is then translated into an electrical signal and is sent to the occipital complex of your brain. At this time, the signal is split and sent on a dorsal and ventrical pathways. The ventral pathway will send the signal to the inferotemporel complex of your brain (areas V1 and V2) and this is where you determine what an object is and assign colors to it. A "conscious" process of identifying objects if you will.
What you should take from this is that the biological processes that tell you body that a certain "color" is present will always be the same for everyone... however, the perception (strictly in areas V1 and V2 of the brain) can differ amongst individuals. So no, everyone sees the same color but it is possible to perceive the colors differently.

Also, check out these disorders where the pathways in your brain become criss crossed; Synesthestic people can "see" tastes or they will "see" sounds.
Synesthesia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Thanks! did you study science?

 

The video that was posted above is VERY interesting.

 

Lol it's all good!

 

Yes, I will have a degree in neuroscience when i graduate in two days

 

That's awesome!!! Congrats!

 

Like what was stated above everything has a certain color regardless of how the person perceives it. The perception is where things can get screwy on a person by person basis. An example would be someone who is colorblind. Some people may not realize they are color blind until they are told they are color blind by viewing those tests. Color blindness isn't exactly what we are talking about I know but it is an example of people seeing color differently.

Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk

 

Now we are getting into the whole, "If a tree falls in the forest does it make a sound." If it's pitch black outside do things still have color?


Just like everything else in life we perceive red as red because that's what is passed down to us from generations. Your mother probably corrected you and helped you understand your colors. When you said a wrong color they corrected you until you got it right. Red is red because someone told you it was red. Just like a ball is a ball because someone told you it was a ball and not a stick. It's just language. Studies have shown that infants are able to make the sounds of numerous languages, but they only use the sounds their parents are making to try and mimic the patterns. The ball is red because society tells you its red. Thats why most people agree on fire engine red, but when you get into the mixed shades of colors their background knowledge of the color and what someone told them differs from your background knowledge and what someone told you.

pulled from another answer:
Even more bizarre is something called "synesthesia." There are people who have "crossed circuits," as it were, in the part of their brains that processes sensory input. They "hear" colors or "smell" sounds.

You may not realize it, but you sight is connected to your ears. The labyrinthine complex is the part of your inner ear that gives you a sense of balance. Your brain gives much more "weight" to this sensory input than your vision. So much so that when you get dizzy, say from spinning around, the room looks like it's still spinning even though your eyes tell you that it's not. At some point in time our sense of balance must have been more important than our sight.

You may want to read "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat" by Oliver Sacks, to get some mind-blowing case studies on how strange the world can be for some people with sensory and/or perceptual disorders.

 

I actually wrote a paper on this topic for some class in high school. I think I blew my teachers mind with it. I may not be that old but I did not have access to the Internet while doing it, if I did I may have gotten a better grade , being able to cite sources and such.