3 ms·

> 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 m

by 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
    > but it doesn't change the fact that they are different colours. They are the same hue. That is scientific. It doesn't matter what words you use to divide them -- I am sure you conceptually understand they are the same hue. I even found a comment from a Russian saying [1]: > I would say that they are two colours that are sufficiently distinct, but I also wouldn't argue against a statement that голубой is a lighter shade of синий. Again, just like my example with red and pink. Any Russian painter, for example, would have a very clear idea of a unified "blue" hue, because they have to mix paints. Surely you can't deny that? You are confusing two things, words and perceptions. The "arbitrary buckets" you describe refer to words. But they don't change our underlying perceptual qualia. We perceive lots of things we don't bother to give names to in order to distinguish them. Our concepts vastly outnumber our words. And regarding blue specifically -- the brain interprets colors based on the opponent process [2], which includes blue as a one of four fundamental hues. Which argues that it is one of the four most likely colors to have an instinctive perceptual concept for, regardless of whether you give it a word or not. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/russian/comments/75kaij/comment/do6z0mc/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button https://www.reddit.com/r/russian/comments/75kaij/comment/do6... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opponent_process https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opponent_process
    - carlosjobim 2y ago
      Why do you give this kind of importance to hue? Hue is not how people divide colour, unless you want to say that white, gray and black are the same colour. The difference between "sky blue" and "royal blue" is just as significant as the difference between orange and brown.
      - crazygringo 2y ago
        Because hue is scientifically defined and objective. That lets us sidestep all the linguistic stuff so we have something meaningfully perceptual to ground the conversation. And white, gray and black have no hue at all. They're not the same color -- they have no color at all. The hue is indeterminate. (Even if we call them "colors" colloquially.)

by usrnm 2y ago

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
  > but it doesn't change the fact that they are different colours. They are the same hue. That is scientific. It doesn't matter what words you use to divide them -- I am sure you conceptually understand they are the same hue. I even found a comment from a Russian saying [1]: > I would say that they are two colours that are sufficiently distinct, but I also wouldn't argue against a statement that голубой is a lighter shade of синий. Again, just like my example with red and pink. Any Russian painter, for example, would have a very clear idea of a unified "blue" hue, because they have to mix paints. Surely you can't deny that? You are confusing two things, words and perceptions. The "arbitrary buckets" you describe refer to words. But they don't change our underlying perceptual qualia. We perceive lots of things we don't bother to give names to in order to distinguish them. Our concepts vastly outnumber our words. And regarding blue specifically -- the brain interprets colors based on the opponent process [2], which includes blue as a one of four fundamental hues. Which argues that it is one of the four most likely colors to have an instinctive perceptual concept for, regardless of whether you give it a word or not. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/russian/comments/75kaij/comment/do6z0mc/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button https://www.reddit.com/r/russian/comments/75kaij/comment/do6... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opponent_process https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opponent_process
  - carlosjobim 2y ago
    Why do you give this kind of importance to hue? Hue is not how people divide colour, unless you want to say that white, gray and black are the same colour. The difference between "sky blue" and "royal blue" is just as significant as the difference between orange and brown.
    - crazygringo 2y ago
      Because hue is scientifically defined and objective. That lets us sidestep all the linguistic stuff so we have something meaningfully perceptual to ground the conversation. And white, gray and black have no hue at all. They're not the same color -- they have no color at all. The hue is indeterminate. (Even if we call them "colors" colloquially.)