Is there colors that we can't see?

[TheLastOne36]

I was thinking, there are animals who can see colors, some that can't, some that can't see a certein color, and others that can.

So i was wondering, what if there was a color that we can't see? Than i started thinking if there was, how would it look like? Than i realized it would be impossible to know cause if i knew how it looked like, it'd be a combination of RGB, which wouldn't be a new color.

Got me thinking, and was wondering what the people of CFC think of this?

 

[Yared]

The visible colors (Blue, Purple, Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Brown, etc) are just a small part of the electromagnetic spectrum. So yes, there are different kinds of lights (Radio, Microwaves, X-Rays) that we just aren't able to see - just as there are sounds we aren't able to see or sounds we aren't able to hear.

 

[Mise]

Yeah, we can't see the colour Plue.

 

[mdwh]

Even within the wavelengths we can see, there are conceivably (infinitely) more colours. What we perceive as a colour isn't simply a single wavelength, but a combination of red, green and blue (as you note). So animals that could detect more than three wavelengths of light would be able to detect more colours. With four colour detectors, there's a four dimensional colour space.

In fact, there are animals, and perhaps some humans, that can do this - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrachromacy .

 

[Aramazd]

The visible colors (Blue, Purple, Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Brown, etc) are just a small part of the electromagnetic spectrum. So yes, there are different kinds of lights (Radio, Microwaves, X-Rays) that we just aren't able to see - just as there are sounds we aren't able to see or sounds we aren't able to hear.

This.

Many animals, mostly insects see in ultraviolet.

 

[uppi]

Antigreen and other quark colors

Seriously, the answer to the question depends on the definition of color. Usually color only refers to the visible spectrum, so with that in mind we can see all colors by definition. However there is no reason why one cannot assign new colors to the infrared or ultraviolet or any other part of the electromagnetic spectrum, which we would not be able to see.

 

[TheLastOne36]

Oh cool guys, this got me really interesting, i'm reading lots of pages on wikipedia now!

 

[El_Machinae]

With additional color receptors, you'd perceive more colours and more nuance between the colours (and that would be awfully cool).

I am colourblind, but I still perceive a mental version of 'colour', I just cannot discriminate all the colours that you can. If my eyes were repaired (2018, here I come!), I should add colours to my perception.

 

[TheLastOne36]

I wonder how these colors would look like... It'd be an amazing thing to see. It would have to look like something we never seen before.

 

[Moggy]

Are you thinking of octarine?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octarine#Octarine

 

[Earthling]

Here's what I thought:

"It lit up with every colour of the rainbow, plus some new ones that were so beautiful I fell to my knees and cried."

I'm not the most equipped to debate the perception of color as a qualia but I'd say that definitely, yes, other organisms may easily perceive "colors" that we humans do not, the visible spectrum is only a small range of wavelengths. How a person might handle the concept there are "colors" he/she can't see I don't know, the best sense I can relate it too though is taste, as all throughout life one can still find something new that they have not tasted before and it's a new sensation to experience.

 

[Aramazd]

With additional color receptors, you'd perceive more colours and more nuance between the colours (and that would be awfully cool).

I am colourblind, but I still perceive a mental version of 'colour', I just cannot discriminate all the colours that you can. If my eyes were repaired (2018, here I come!), I should add colours to my perception.

I didn't know anyone was working on that. I'd love to read about it if you could give me a link. I'm also colorblind, it's pretty annoying sometimes.

 

[Bluemofia]

With additional color receptors, you'd perceive more colours and more nuance between the colours (and that would be awfully cool).

I am colourblind, but I still perceive a mental version of 'colour', I just cannot discriminate all the colours that you can. If my eyes were repaired (2018, here I come!), I should add colours to my perception.

One of my mentors told me a story about a friend of his who worked in a lab with a really powerful green laser. He is colorblind for red/green, so was properly accommodated. But when he was doing stuff with said laser, and a stray beam briefly bounced off a piece of metal into his eye, it was so intense it triggered what little green photo receptors he had.

He described it as a religious experience, for the first time in his life being able to see green as a color of its own.

 

[Yared]

One of my mentors told me a story about a friend of his who worked in a lab with a really powerful green laser. He is colorblind for red/green, so was properly accommodated. But when he was doing stuff with said laser, and a stray beam briefly bounced off a piece of metal into his eye, it was so intense it triggered what little green photo receptors he had.

He described it as a religious experience, for the first time in his life being able to see green as a color of its own.

Damn dude that's deep. My friend is colorblind and he has trouble seeing a difference between Brown and Green.

The next time we play tag I'm gonna strip naked and lie on a patch of grass.

 

[Souron]

Even within the wavelengths we can see, there are conceivably (infinitely) more colours. What we perceive as a colour isn't simply a single wavelength, but a combination of red, green and blue (as you note). So animals that could detect more than three wavelengths of light would be able to detect more colours. With four colour detectors, there's a four dimensional colour space.

In fact, there are animals, and perhaps some humans, that can do this - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrachromacy .

Adding a fourth color receptor would effectively double the number of colors perceived. Cause you would have every color we see now, plus all those colors with the new receptor.

 

[uppi]

Adding a fourth color receptor would effectively double the number of colors perceived. Cause you would have every color we see now, plus all those colors with the new receptor.

No. Like all other receptors, the new one would be able to differentiate between different shades of that color. If you take the original colors and add a light, medium and dark shade of the new color, you'd already have quadrupled the original colors.

If the new color wouldn't overlap with the original colors, it would add a whole new dimension to the color space.

 

[civ_king]

damn dude that's deep. My friend is colorblind and he has trouble seeing a difference between brown and green.

The next time we play tag i'm gonna strip naked and lie on a patch of grass.

epic win!

 

[Souron]

No. Like all other receptors, the new one would be able to differentiate between different shades of that color. If you take the original colors and add a light, medium and dark shade of the new color, you'd already have quadrupled the original colors.

If the new color wouldn't overlap with the original colors, it would add a whole new dimension to the color space.

I disagree.

What you say only applies for differentiating a single frequency light source.

But we can detect light made up of multiple frequencies. The color we perceive is dependent on which reseptors get stimulated. Different colors are the result of different combinations of stimuli. A combination of red and green makes yellow. A combination of blue and green makes teal. A combination of red and blue makes magenta. And a combination of all three makes white. If we add a receptor, we double the number of combinations.

Not over lapping would increase the visible frequency range, but not the number of distinct colors a person perceives. In fact it would not be able detect variations in it's frequency range.

EDIT: I guess you are adding a new dimension in the sense that each intensity level of the new contributes another layer of new colors. However, this has nothing to do with overlapping the original colors. Also, this is a different definition of color than I am using.

EDIT2: Unless of course the new receptor has exactly the same sensitivity curve shape and mean as one of the current ones. Then there would be no new colors. But then you would not be adding a ne receptor, so much as changing the sensitivity of existing ones.

 

[uppi]

So according to you, orange isn't a color?

 

[Souron]

Sure it is, its a mix of red stimuli an green stimuli dominated by red, with little to no blue stimuli. I think it looks so different from yellow because that's where red cones start to dominate. But I'm not a color scientist so don't take my word for it.

Having finer distinctions then those I highlighted is possible, and happens with some colors. However, with 3 cones, you need at least 8 colors, for each option outlined above (including black, which I don't mention).