Topics Color

Question Is color an inherent part of the universe? If colors are actually made up of different wavelenghts then do colors actually only exist in our minds? How then can cameras capture colors?

Accepted:
July 29, 2011

Comments

Great set of questions! Lots of literature for you to investigate (starting with Hardin's "Color for Philosophers"...) But let me just say briefly here that one typically begins by distinguishing clearly and purely physical properties (like "wavelengths") from "perceived color" -- for there are many demonstrable cases where a given perceived color can NOT be matched or mapped onto any given wavelength(s), and vice versa. Once you make this distinction then it is easy to hold that wavelengths (plus other factors) CAUSE perceived color, or at least are a causal factor therein, but are not identical to them. Then you will begin to ask whether perceived color can be identified with any clearly purely physical properties and will probably find out that the answer is no. (Or if so, it might end up being a brain property -- ie when you perceive color x you are always in brain state y etc. -- but that is a far cry from what we want to normally say about colors, namely that they are properties of surfaces of bodies, or of light ....) And once you've gone this far you will be tempted to see in the distinction between perceived color and all physical properties the basis of an argument that 'colors exist only in the mind' .... (the point about cameras doesn't seem to matter -- once perceived color is distinct from all physical properties ...)

best, ap

Question Is color an inherent part of the universe? If colors are actually made up of different wavelenghts then do colors actually only exist in our minds? How then can cameras capture colors? Accepted:July 29, 2011

Question Is color an inherent part of the universe? If colors are actually made up of different wavelenghts then do colors actually only exist in our minds? How then can cameras capture colors?

Accepted:
July 29, 2011