ETA2: Further thoughts on perceiving redness: If you were never able to perceive wavelengths that correlate to redness, would you know redness? If your eyes were damaged to stop seeing red you would probably continue to dream with red. But if you have never seen red, would you dream in red? This is relevant to discovering the source of redness in non-wavelength related experiences which is slightly different than the question, “Where is the color?”
I wish they had a better description of that. I’m synesthetic, with normal color vision, but sometimes get sensations of colors that seem impossible to experience. ‘A kind of greenish-purple’, for example—no, I don’t mean blue, and it’s not a purple pattern with green bits, it’s green and purple at the same time.
I also get ‘colors’ that make even less sense. For example, I’ll occasionally get a color that ‘looks’ grey but doesn’t ‘feel’ grey; it feels like it should have a separate label, and my mind refuses to categorize the stimulus with things that evoke ‘truly grey’ reactions. That makes me wonder if I’m experiencing the same effect as the one mentioned in the article.
That’s incredibly interesting—I recall that the article mentioned colorsighted synesthetes observing synesthetic colors that felt different from similar real colors, without going into any particular detail.
I don’t know how much more detail could be given, really. I don’t think I can do any better job of describing it than I just did, and I like to think I’m pretty good at that kind of thing.
This is true—and from a heterophenomenological standpoint, I don’t see that more needs to be said. Your remarks were perfectly clear despite their brevity.
From the article linked (synesthete is a keyword explained in the article):
They found a synesthete who was color blind. That may seem strange, but what it really means is that the subject had problems with his retina that left him able to distinguish only an extremely narrow range of wavelengths when looking at most images in the world — his brain was fine, but his eyes weren’t quite up to the job. But when he saw certain numbers, he experienced colors that he otherwise never saw.
And that, I guess, answers that question. Awesome.
I don’t know if colorblind people dream in color, but colorblind synesthetes can experience colors their eyes don’t register.
I wish they had a better description of that. I’m synesthetic, with normal color vision, but sometimes get sensations of colors that seem impossible to experience. ‘A kind of greenish-purple’, for example—no, I don’t mean blue, and it’s not a purple pattern with green bits, it’s green and purple at the same time.
I also get ‘colors’ that make even less sense. For example, I’ll occasionally get a color that ‘looks’ grey but doesn’t ‘feel’ grey; it feels like it should have a separate label, and my mind refuses to categorize the stimulus with things that evoke ‘truly grey’ reactions. That makes me wonder if I’m experiencing the same effect as the one mentioned in the article.
All this makes me want to do is go find a way to hack eye hardware so I can experience the weird colors too...
Give it ~20 years and we will calculate the way to consistently hack your brain to experience the weird colors and other synesthetic sensations.
That’s incredibly interesting—I recall that the article mentioned colorsighted synesthetes observing synesthetic colors that felt different from similar real colors, without going into any particular detail.
I don’t know how much more detail could be given, really. I don’t think I can do any better job of describing it than I just did, and I like to think I’m pretty good at that kind of thing.
This is true—and from a heterophenomenological standpoint, I don’t see that more needs to be said. Your remarks were perfectly clear despite their brevity.
From the article linked (synesthete is a keyword explained in the article):
And that, I guess, answers that question. Awesome.