Drugs

[Orruar]

Originally Posted by pharmakos [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

you know whats trippy? for the most part the spectrum makes sense in order. combine red and yellow and you get orange, the color right between red and yellow. combine yellow and blue and you get green, the color right between yellow and blue.

but to get purple you combine red and blue, and purple is way the fuck at the opposite end of the spectrum from red.

the fuck?

would almost make sense if it were cyclical, but its not -- higher frequencies than purple do not look red. (at least not to humans)

i suppose color itself is a qualia, though, and not actually a property of matter itself.

Color is a property of light. Qualia are the way we perceive the color. No matter what qualia you or I ascribe to particular colors of light, combining paint with the color at ~700nm (red) with paint with the color at ~580nm (yellow) will produce paint with color at ~600nm (orange). That is an actual physical property and perception doesn't change that fact. Everyone who isn't colorblind sees the same red + yellow = orange, irrespective of the qualia they perceive when looking at these colors.

Also note that combining colors of light is different than combining paint of a certain color. If you combine red and yellow light, you get white light.

[pharmakos]

^ color is not a property of light, it is a property of our eyes/brains

and not everyone sees color the same way -- see: Tetrachromacy

[pharmakos]

also, there are colors that humans can see that don't exist on the normal spectrum -- i.e. Pink.

[Orruar]

Originally Posted by pharmakos [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

^ color is not a property of light, it is a property of our eyes/brains

and not everyone sees color the same way -- see: Tetrachromacy

Ok, granted, not everyone sees color the same way and yes, color is created in the brain. But the wavelengths of light that produce a certain color is a physical property of the light. That's why everyone who isn't color blind can say "red and blue make purple". If our perception of mixed colors are purely a function of our mind and had no physical basis, the color wheel wouldn't make sense to everyone the same way. One person would see red and blue mixed together to make green while another would see it make purple. So the mixing of colors does have objective physical properties, which are then translated into color (qualia) later. So your nihilism regarding understanding how colors mix is misplaced.

[pharmakos]

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[pharmakos]

and also, i think you misunderstood my original point

Originally Posted by Orruar [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

combining paint with the color at ~700nm (red) with paint with the color at ~580nm (yellow) will produce paint with color at ~600nm (orange)

that's all fine and dandy, and i understand how mixing two colors will give you a color roughly in between those two on the spectrum

but why then when you mix red (long wavelength) with blue (short wavelength) do you get purple (even shorter wavelength)?

[pharmakos]

also, back on topic:

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[Orruar]

Originally Posted by pharmakos [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

and also, i think you misunderstood my original point

that's all fine and dandy, and i understand how mixing two colors will give you a color roughly in between those two on the spectrum

but why then when you mix red (long wavelength) with blue (short wavelength) do you get purple (even shorter wavelength)?

I wasn't addressing that part of your post. I was addressing your final conclusion:
"i suppose color itself is a qualia, though, and not actually a property of matter itself."

This to me sounded as if you thought there wasn't an answer to this question since color was just a qualia and therefore could not be scientifically described. I don't agree with that. I believe there is an answer and you can probably find it somewhere on this grand thing we call the internet.

[pharmakos]

hm, color is one of the prime examples of what a qualia is, though.

[mtb tripper]

Originally Posted by Ahldagor [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

one thing i've pondered on is love and possession. odd link with them.

Love and possession do not go together in my opinion