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Yeah, I mean, the sky is blue. It's not a rare color. It doesn't really matter if people didn't have a unique name for it -- I can distinguish tons of colors I

Yeah, I mean, the sky is blue. It's not a rare color. It doesn't really matter if people didn't have a unique name for it -- I can distinguish tons of colors I don't have names for. As you grow older, you learn learn the importance of color terms like "salmon" and "ecru". But you can be guaranteed you were perceiving them since you were little... But claims like that are made as part of the everything-is-relative-and-culturally-determined movement. That denies men and women have any biologically determined average personality differences whatsoever, for example. Or that "harmful" emotions like anger are culturally imposed rather than innate, and all we need to do is "unlearn" them and maybe we'll get world peace.

dumpsterdiver 2y ago
Yeah, our vision is calibrated around blue and yellow - knowledge about the color blue is in our DNA.
- xxr 2y ago
  How do you figure “blue and yellow” instead of “blue and red and green” or “magenta and green” or “red and cyan”?
  - crazygringo 2y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opponent_process#Neurological_basis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opponent_process#Neurological_... It's a well-known color model that evidence shows describes the actual color processing in our brain.
    - carlosjobim 2y ago
      This theory is wrong, because there is no magenta light on the real light spectrum. The colour spectrum is perceived as a wheel/circle in our minds, but it is a straight line in physical reality. Thus, these opposites are imaginary and not real.
      - seba_dos1 2y ago
        ...and how exactly is this relevant? We perceive colors, not wavelengths.
        carlosjobim 2y ago
        Tell me: how would the colour cyan be possible for the brain to perceive, if the neurons deduct hue from inverting the sensory input from the cones?
        seba_dos1 2y ago
        https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/Color_perception.svg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/Color_pe... ???
        carlosjobim 2y ago
        Explain what you mean? The color cyan exists on the physical spectrum, but the color magenta does not. Meaning, if colours are perceived inversely, then how would the color magenta physically enter the eye to be inverted to cyan? Or if colours are perceived opposite as in that theory, then why not double inverted or ten times inverted between the eye and the brain?
        seba_dos1 2y ago
        Have you even read what "opponent process" means? Cyan is perceived when both red-green and yellow-blue channels exhibit about the same negative response. It should be clear from the article linked above and the chart I gave you.
        carlosjobim 2y ago
        I've read the article, and the theory is incredibly dubious and most likely false: "There is some overlap in the wavelengths of light to which the three types of cones (L for long-wave, M for medium-wave, and S for short-wave light) respond, so it is more efficient for the visual system (from a perspective of dynamic range) to record differences between the responses of cones, rather than each type of cone's individual response." That's a ridiculous argument. "That is, either red or green is perceived and never greenish-red: Even though yellow is a mixture of red and green in the RGB color theory, the eye does not perceive it as such." Say what? Yellow is both a real physical wavelength, or a perception of red and green light mixed. "In 1970, Solomon and Corbit expanded Hurvich and Jameson's general neurological opponent process model to explain emotion, drug addiction, and work motivation." Bullshit detector bell ringing... "A 2023 opinion essay of Conway, Malik-Moraleda, and Gibson claimed to "review the psychological and physiological evidence for Opponent-Colors Theory" and bluntly stated "the theory is wrong"." Finally some sensible people. Their article is pretty good: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10527909/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10527909/
usrnm 2y ago
> the sky is blue Not everywhere. For example, Russian has a separate word for that kind of light blue colour that you can see in the sky on a sunny day. For me, as a native Russian speaker, the sky is _not_ blue
- crazygringo 2y ago
  I'm curious what the words are? But also, English has a word for "pink". That doesn't mean pink isn't a a red hue, as is conceptually clear to everyone, regardless of linguistics. In everday speech we'll say "I want the pink shade, not the red one", but we still all know pink belongs to the hue of red. I find it hard to believe you don't consider there to be an equivalent innate concept, called blue in English, that you understand to encompass both light blue and medium blue? That includes the sky? And that you probably encountered this concept well before learning English, just when playing with mixing blue and white finger paints as a child? The whole point here is this is about fundamental color concepts that stand independent of any particular language's labeling system.
  - knome 2y ago
    for an English example, I just mentioned in another comment that while brown is merely a shade of orange, we instead treat them as separate colors, culturally.
  - usrnm 2y ago
    The words are "голубой" и "синий". Of course, we understand, that they are closer to each other than to, say, red, but it doesn't change the fact that they are different colours. > The whole point here is this is about fundamental color concepts No, the whole point is that no such thing exists. We divide visible light into arbitrary buckets with very blury borders between them and historically these buckets have been very different between different cultures. Nowadays they tend to converge because of globalisation, but they just converge to some common understanding, not "the fundamental" one.
    - crazygringo 2y ago
Tainnor 2y ago
There's a great deal of research on colour expression and perception in different languages - some of it summarized very well in Guy Deutscher's very accessible pop-sci book "Through the Language Glass". Nobody (edit: apparently except this historian cited in TFA - well, he's a historian, not a psycholinguist) seriously doubts (anymore) that humans fundamentally perceive the same colours (barring specific disabilities), but we do carve up the colour space in different ways, although usually along a predictable path: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_term#Color-term_hierarchy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_term#Color-term_hierar... The whole idea that the Ancient Greeks were maybe colour blind came up due to Homer's epics containing descriptions such as "the wine-dark sea" while never really using a specific term for blue (that would be found in later Greek). Nowadays we understand this to mean that colour description in Homeric times was more focused on light vs. dark than on exact hues. There have been at least some studies showing measurable, though small, effects of this on processing speed, e.g. Russians being slightly faster at distinguishing different shades of blue than English speakers: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.0701644104 https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.0701644104 In my opinion this is consistent with the general idea that the strong version of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is bunk, but some weak effects of language patterns influencing habitual thought can be found. When you write > But claims like that are made as part of the everything-is-relative-and-culturally-determined movement. it sounds like you're trying to engage in some cultural war thing that I will stay out of, but in general it's probably better to look at the actual data instead of dealing in sweeping generalisations.

dumpsterdiver 2y ago

Yeah, our vision is calibrated around blue and yellow - knowledge about the color blue is in our DNA.

xxr 2y ago
How do you figure “blue and yellow” instead of “blue and red and green” or “magenta and green” or “red and cyan”?
- crazygringo 2y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opponent_process#Neurological_basis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opponent_process#Neurological_... It's a well-known color model that evidence shows describes the actual color processing in our brain.
  - carlosjobim 2y ago
    This theory is wrong, because there is no magenta light on the real light spectrum. The colour spectrum is perceived as a wheel/circle in our minds, but it is a straight line in physical reality. Thus, these opposites are imaginary and not real.
    - seba_dos1 2y ago
      ...and how exactly is this relevant? We perceive colors, not wavelengths.
      - carlosjobim 2y ago
        Tell me: how would the colour cyan be possible for the brain to perceive, if the neurons deduct hue from inverting the sensory input from the cones?
        seba_dos1 2y ago
        https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/Color_perception.svg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/Color_pe... ???
        carlosjobim 2y ago
        Explain what you mean? The color cyan exists on the physical spectrum, but the color magenta does not. Meaning, if colours are perceived inversely, then how would the color magenta physically enter the eye to be inverted to cyan? Or if colours are perceived opposite as in that theory, then why not double inverted or ten times inverted between the eye and the brain?
        seba_dos1 2y ago
        Have you even read what "opponent process" means? Cyan is perceived when both red-green and yellow-blue channels exhibit about the same negative response. It should be clear from the article linked above and the chart I gave you.
        carlosjobim 2y ago
        I've read the article, and the theory is incredibly dubious and most likely false: "There is some overlap in the wavelengths of light to which the three types of cones (L for long-wave, M for medium-wave, and S for short-wave light) respond, so it is more efficient for the visual system (from a perspective of dynamic range) to record differences between the responses of cones, rather than each type of cone's individual response." That's a ridiculous argument. "That is, either red or green is perceived and never greenish-red: Even though yellow is a mixture of red and green in the RGB color theory, the eye does not perceive it as such." Say what? Yellow is both a real physical wavelength, or a perception of red and green light mixed. "In 1970, Solomon and Corbit expanded Hurvich and Jameson's general neurological opponent process model to explain emotion, drug addiction, and work motivation." Bullshit detector bell ringing... "A 2023 opinion essay of Conway, Malik-Moraleda, and Gibson claimed to "review the psychological and physiological evidence for Opponent-Colors Theory" and bluntly stated "the theory is wrong"." Finally some sensible people. Their article is pretty good: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10527909/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10527909/

usrnm 2y ago

> the sky is blue Not everywhere. For example, Russian has a separate word for that kind of light blue colour that you can see in the sky on a sunny day. For me, as a native Russian speaker, the sky is _not_ blue

crazygringo 2y ago
I'm curious what the words are? But also, English has a word for "pink". That doesn't mean pink isn't a a red hue, as is conceptually clear to everyone, regardless of linguistics. In everday speech we'll say "I want the pink shade, not the red one", but we still all know pink belongs to the hue of red. I find it hard to believe you don't consider there to be an equivalent innate concept, called blue in English, that you understand to encompass both light blue and medium blue? That includes the sky? And that you probably encountered this concept well before learning English, just when playing with mixing blue and white finger paints as a child? The whole point here is this is about fundamental color concepts that stand independent of any particular language's labeling system.
- knome 2y ago
  for an English example, I just mentioned in another comment that while brown is merely a shade of orange, we instead treat them as separate colors, culturally.
- usrnm 2y ago
  The words are "голубой" и "синий". Of course, we understand, that they are closer to each other than to, say, red, but it doesn't change the fact that they are different colours. > The whole point here is this is about fundamental color concepts No, the whole point is that no such thing exists. We divide visible light into arbitrary buckets with very blury borders between them and historically these buckets have been very different between different cultures. Nowadays they tend to converge because of globalisation, but they just converge to some common understanding, not "the fundamental" one.
  - crazygringo 2y ago

Tainnor 2y ago

There's a great deal of research on colour expression and perception in different languages - some of it summarized very well in Guy Deutscher's very accessible pop-sci book "Through the Language Glass". Nobody (edit: apparently except this historian cited in TFA - well, he's a historian, not a psycholinguist) seriously doubts (anymore) that humans fundamentally perceive the same colours (barring specific disabilities), but we do carve up the colour space in different ways, although usually along a predictable path: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_term#Color-term_hierarchy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_term#Color-term_hierar... The whole idea that the Ancient Greeks were maybe colour blind came up due to Homer's epics containing descriptions such as "the wine-dark sea" while never really using a specific term for blue (that would be found in later Greek). Nowadays we understand this to mean that colour description in Homeric times was more focused on light vs. dark than on exact hues. There have been at least some studies showing measurable, though small, effects of this on processing speed, e.g. Russians being slightly faster at distinguishing different shades of blue than English speakers: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.0701644104 https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.0701644104 In my opinion this is consistent with the general idea that the strong version of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is bunk, but some weak effects of language patterns influencing habitual thought can be found. When you write > But claims like that are made as part of the everything-is-relative-and-culturally-determined movement. it sounds like you're trying to engage in some cultural war thing that I will stay out of, but in general it's probably better to look at the actual data instead of dealing in sweeping generalisations.