Colour you've never seen

[Flurgenspurg]

If a person was prevented from seeing or knowing about a certain colour until they were an adult and then that colour was revealed to them, what do you think would happen? Do you think they would go insane? How would your mind cope with that?

[iNow]

I see new colors all of the time. I may be somewhat insane, but I'm pretty sure it has nothing to do with seeing a new color.

 

Can you expand a bit on where this idea is coming from? I'm not following at all how learning of a new color would cause any negative effects.

[Psycho]

I see new colors all of the time. I may be somewhat insane, but I'm pretty sure it has nothing to do with seeing a new color.

 

Can you expand a bit on where this idea is coming from? I'm not following at all how learning of a new color would cause any negative effects.

 

I think what they meant is would the brain be able to comprehend the information or would it have removed the area they would translate that colour for efficiencies sake as the colour was never present.

 

It is an interesting question, I don't know the answer but I presume there would be no effect as what colour would you remove considering most colours are a mix of others.

[iNow]

Why would it be any different than a developing child seeing a color for the first time? It's like suggesting that an infant who is placed before a blue wall has to make room for "blue" by removing some other color they saw prior to blue.

 

It sounds to me like the question is, "when you read a new book, which other book do you forget to make room for the new information." Nonsense. When new information is learned, the neural structure accomodates both.

[zule]

There are people who are born blind, so they have never seen any colour. Some of them have their view recuperated and they get to differentiate the colours, but they don’t go crazy for that.

 

In fact, when we are born, we have never seen any colour previously and we don’t get crazy when we start to see them (at least that you consider that all humans are insane, which would be a good theory).

[Psycho]

Why would it be any different than a developing child seeing a color for the first time? It's like suggesting that an infant who is placed before a blue wall has to make room for "blue" by removing some other color they saw prior to blue.

 

It sounds to me like the question is, "when you read a new book, which other book do you forget to make room for the new information." Nonsense. When new information is learned, the neural structure accomodates both.

That isn't entirely true it is well known that infants specialise their brains during the first few months and years.

 

For instance before 18 months experiments have been to show that when a baby looks at a TV screen with a monkey on it and then the same tv with a different monkey that looks very similar they will be interested as it is different, however after this age their brains have specialised to recognise differences between humans so when the 2 different monkey's are show the infant becomes uninterested for the second one as they think they have already seen it.

 

The brain removes unnecessary functions, so in this case maybe it would remove that function or just greatly reduce perception for that colour.

[iNow]

I agree, but learning is not the same thing as complete transplantation of previous knowledge with new knowledge. New information is continually added to existing structure, and existing structure is pruned.

 

I think ultimately we agree, but I may not be choosing my words properly.

 

Either way, I still want the OP to clarify exactly what they mean, because as presented here it seems to make little sense.

[thedarkshade]

I see new colors all of the time.

Probably we all do, but they're not really pure new colors, just different nuances!

[Flurgenspurg]

I meant we obviously get used to colours after we are born but i meant what would the mental impact be? Because a baby doesn't understand things in that sense i wondered what would happen if this was done to an adult. Technically it is impossible for us to imagine a new colour, probably new colours we imagine will just be mixtures of the colours we know, so i wondered what would happen.

[Mr Skeptic]

What might be interesting if someone wore a filter that matched the absorption spectra of one of the r/g/b cone cells, or even disabled that color cone with with some medicine. Then after a while take off the filter or let the cells function, and see what color things look. It would be effectively like someone who is colorblind seeing in full color.

[Flurgenspurg]

But that wouldn't be the same, because they would remember that colours, and be able to imagine it

[insane_alien]

i imagine it would be somewhat similar to seeing a new shape. interesting, but nothing to go insane over.

[YT2095]

I`v never heard of a case of anyone going mad after putting on a pair of Night Vision goggles or heat vision.

my answer would be a definite, No.

 

Although there MAY be a case for the Reverse situation whereas someone with perfect vision is suddenly blinded, and has to reconcile that.

[Phi for All]

New colors wouldn't have that much of an impact, for reasons others have stated. I'm sure the brain will categorize any new color the same way it always does ("sort of a lemony blue with a touch of aubergine").

 

All of the senses would work this way, with the brain categorizing the signals to make some historical sense out of any new input. A new touch is going to feel *like* something, a new smell would be close to something else, a new taste similar to something experienced before.

 

I think the mind-blowing part would come from something we have no senses to measure. How does a fourth spatial dimension lend perspective to the first three?

[thedarkshade]

I think the mind-blowing part would come from something we have no senses to measure.

Well that then would not be problem at all since no senses to measure means not sensing it at all:D!

 

How does a fourth spatial dimension lend perspective to the first three?

Having watched all those string theory lectures and series, this wouldn't really surprise me!

[Phi for All]

Well that then would not be problem at all since no senses to measure means not sensing it at all:D!

We can't observe wave state but we know it exists. We can see tracks from the wave state, like spreading flour on the floor will show you the tracks of cockroaches. We don't see them but we see where they've been.

 

Having watched all those string theory lectures and series, this wouldn't really surprise me!

But can you even imagine what a fourth spatial dimension might be like? What perspective would a fourth dimension give to the first three? I think this is more the kind of thing that would drive you mad, seeing something from the fourth dimension through three dimensional vision.

 

A new color? We see them all the time, probably.

[Mr Skeptic]

I'd imagine that a fourth dimension would look like time, and a 4-dimensional object like a 3D holographic video. However, I can't imagine seeing all of a 4D object all at once, without using my own fourth dimension.