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"Trippy" Reality (lemmy.world)
submitted 7 months ago by to c/science_memes@mander.xyz
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https://www.ted.com/talks/anil_seth_your_brain_hallucinates_your_conscious_reality

https://www.sciencefocus.com/the-human-body/5-illusions-reveal-brain-warps-reality

https://www.sciencenewstoday.org/how-the-brain-interprets-reality-a-neuroscience-perspective

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[–] 1 point 7 months ago (5 children)

that's not really a good study for the issue in question since getting a control group of people who never formed associations between colours and ideas would be rather difficult

even a day old baby would begin forming their first associations - yellow is warm because the sun is warm

has the study included totally colour blind people? (like literally blind to colour, full monochromacy) and if so how were their results interpreted?

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago (4 children)

    If they're fully color blind, how could they be shown colors? That would be a bad control group.

    Instead, when doing fMRI stuff, they usually create a "baseline" by showing their subjects random stuff to see how the brain fires up. For example, they could show greyscale images of grass, sun, blood, etc., then see how it differs from seeing contextless colors (ie: a uniform green screen)

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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago (3 children)

    if you show people colours you can be sure they already have associations with them - sun is yellow, sun is warm, yellow is warm - of course everyone will fire up the "this is warm" parts of their brain, but will it be the same thing i call yellow?

    there are bound to be associations that transcend cultures and therefore fire up the same brain parts

    monochromatic colour blind people will see the wavelength of yellow, but their eyes don't have the receptors to distinguish it from light grey. objectively they still "see" the yellow, their eye-brain system just doesn't interpret it in the way other people do

    probably, this is what i know but it might not be true. if there is no way to get a control group of people who never learnt to associate colours with other things (pretty much everyone, aside from monochromatic colour blindess, and actual blindness since birth) then there is no way to test if we all indeed see the same yellow

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago (2 children)

    Isn’t the problem with your example that a completely color blind person cannot differentiate the wavelength, but they can differentiate the intensity of light. I’m also mostly assuming here, that our light cones are sensitive to certain ranges of frequency and that is how we can differentiate different wavelengths.

    The scientific and philosophical question is if we can prove that each person perceive those combination of signals the same way. The subjective experience.

    Unless of course the color blindness is a “software” issue rather than a “hardware” issue.

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago

    oh for sure they can distinguish different intensities

    in art we have 3 nifty ways to describe a colour

    • hue (difference between green and yellow)

    • value (difference between black and white)

    • saturation (difference between grey and neon red)

    even a fully monocromatic person can distinguish the value of what they see, and with some colours they can also tell them apart just by that alone (yellow tends to be lighter in value, blue tends to be darker in value)

    but here the question is (or at least how i understand it) does the hue of the colour affect us in a universal way? and therefore could someone unable to properly interpret the hue be a good control group?

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago

    Very on-topic SMBC today: http://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/mary

    There are multiple types of color blindness, most of the time they affect the production of a specific cone inthe eye. Deuteranomaly is the red-detection cone being affected, and causes issues distinguishing red/green colors, but also blue/purple. It's a "hardware" issue caused by less or lack of detection.

    I've heard of "software" version of colorblindness, but it doesn't seem to be as documented as others. I have a younger sibling that seemed to have "copied" my deuteranomaly despite being able to pass the "hardware" tests...

    The exact neurons in the eye and the brain being triggeres are the same for detection of color, but where the "qualia" differs is to which external interpretation they are linked to. If we were able to isolate the souvenirs/associations that come from specific colors, I'm sure in general people would see the same colors.

    Just like touching something hot triggers the same neurons as touching capsaicin, it creates a signal to the brain. What happens inside the brain depends on the life experience of each, but the initial signal is the same, and it can be proven with fMRI.

    Off course, if we want to define a "qualia" as "the thing that can't be proven by science", then off course it won't be provable using science. What is it, though?

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