k brown wrote:Well, I still maintain that you're confusing light and color - of course light is physical, I didn't say it wasn't. it's color that isn't 'physical' - it's only a perception that our brains create based on the physical wavelengths of physical light.
And no - there IS no sound in space, because there is no air to vibrate; that doesn't mean things don't vibrate in space, just that there's no air to be moved by those vibrations, so no sound. You hear people speak in your dreams simply because your brain remembers what people speaking sounds like and can provide that pure perception for you. There's no air vibrating you're eardrums while you're dreaming, so no sound. Just because your brain 'hears' something doesn't mean there is sound - sound and hearing are not the same thing; sound is physically vibrating air (whether there's someone around to hear it not), hearing is a perception in the brain that can be triggered by sound or generated on it's own in a dream - from memory. Just as wavelengths of light and color are not the same thing - color is just a groovy sensation that our brains do for us.
As to Roentgen (not a 'thing' in itself, just a unit of measurement), all electromagnetic radiation is of course physical, but X-rays and gamma rays don't have a color because they don't produce a sensation color in our brains - again there is no such thing as physical color. Different wavelengths of light/radiation are just that: different wavelengths - a given frequency of radiation will produce different sensations of color in different species. If there was a species that perceived X-rays and gamma rays as a color then it has a color for them, but not to us. Why? because color is not a physical thing, just a mental reaction to a physical thing, and that reaction can vary from person to person and species to species.
The main point of your original post is proof of all this - there is no wavelength of light to represent magenta; the brain doesn't like this 'gap' in the spectra between red and violet, so it 'makes up' the sensation/color magenta for us. Magenta doesn't physically exist, but it does as a sensation of color (for humans; there many animals that don't perceive colors that we do and vice-versa), because color is a purely mental process triggered by different wavelengths of light.
I think the items I included explain this pretty clearly - or do think they are in error?
I feel we're just going to go 'round in circles on this, so it's probably time for others to weigh in.
Since you persist on ignoring the scientific world because they see color as physical, as a result of light being reduced to certain wavelengths and that eyes from insects to humans have physical/biological receptors to react to those physical colors, it sure is difficult to convince you of the error in your thought process.
The same is true for sound. You seem to think that sound only exists because of air. Pretty easy to disprove as more than enough sound is produced on a daily basis in -wait for it- water-! I'm glad scientists didn't know of your definition of sound, and instead invented the sonar. And those dolphins communicating with each other per sound under water, they must be a perceptional illusion, for sure.
Of course there is sound produced in space. An explosion blows with a bang, it doesn't care if there is a matter of sound transportation system like gas or liquid.
Interesting that you see roentgen as part of electromagnetic radiation and therefore as physical, although it is just a part of the light spectrum as green, blue, red, or microwaves. So you say, yes there is a spectrum of wavelengths, but only those that are convenient for my personal view of things are physical, while colors (for whom physical receptors exist, even for ultraviolet) specified through their wavelengths just as microwaves or roentgen (I have no clue what the term is in English, in German it is called "Röntgenstrahlung" and IS a thing!!!) are the great exception.
I wonder what else you deny a physical existence. Maybe electricity? It sure does only exist, when it is moving through a copper line to your PC, right?
But I understood that I won't reach you. It is sad that you as an artist lack the understanding of color, but maybe art and science really don't go well alongside.
trogluddite wrote:It seems to me that in terms of the physical and perceptual processes, we're pretty much all agreeing with each other!
I think it's the semantics of the word "colour" (and colour names) that is causing the confusion. In other words; do we reserve the word "colour" only for the perceptual experience, or can we extend the meaning to also describe qualities of the electromagnetic radiation which causes that experience? Or to put it another way; when we say "red light", are we saying that "redness" is a property of the light, or are we only saying "light which makes us perceive redness"? Although it may not be immediately obvious, we are potentially using two different glosses of the same word.
In everyday speech, there no problem with saying e.g. "red light", of course - we all know what is meant. But in a more technical discussion like this one, it may be much more ambiguous; so I do feel that reserving the "colour" words only for the perceptual phenomena, and using only technical terms like "wavelength"/"frequency" for the electromagnetic phenomena can be beneficial, even though it's rather more cumbersome.
And not true.
We have receptors for red, green and blue! Holy shit a monitor wouldn't work if we hadn't discovered it, as it is using the very same system, but to display color instead of sensing it.
And guess what, without light you won't see a color. Test it by waking up at 3 am and watch your favorite colors that do have to be seen, because they are just a product of your brain, instead of being physical specifications!
Of course "redness" is a property of red light, it's so well a property that it is used to measure distance and size of planets and stars (via redshift)!!! How much more physical can it be?