Creating a New Colour

[Cyrem]

Now here is some food for thought. Is it possible to a human to create a new colour? I believe that humans to not have the intellectual capacity to come up with a new colour. Now what a mean be "New Colour" is a new base colour (e.g Black, White, Blue, Yellow etc... are all base colours that are used to make more colours).

You can't even imagine a new colour and when you try it is always based on the colours we have already. Even if your created the 'new colour' you wouldn't be able to show anyone because there is nothing on earth that can be used to make this colour, nor would you be able to explain this colour to someone else.

Now if you want to get scientific, nothing has a colour at all. It all depends on how light hits the object and reflects back to the human eye which then the brain converts this into a colour. (This is why colour blind people can see things differently, when the light hits the eye not all colours are correctly absorbed by the eye). So does this means the human eye is limited or pre-programmed to a particular set of colours it can "see"?

I've been pondering this for sometime now, feel free to debate.

[Eagle98]

Possibly we can't.

We can't see infrared light or the high-frequency ultraviolet light. If we could, than there could have some major changes in how we paint, design and so on. Unless we could step into another physical universe that has different laws of physics.

[TheDoctor]

Wander into a physics ignant universe or figure out how to observe more of the electromagnetic spectrum.

Bees can see ultraviolet light. Ask them what they see. Not that you could comprehend it though.

[RockmoddeR]

If we COULD see UV and IF light, that would open up a whole new pallette of color combinations. So yes, there is a way, we just will never see it. :/

[Addictgamer]

I disagree with the subject of colorblindness.

Every disease that has something to do with limited capability is with the brain (with SOME exceptions of course), not the body part that we see as faulty.

So, colorblind people have something wrong with the portion of the brain that perceives color.

Seeing other bands of the electromagnetic is probably impossible with the rods and cones in our eyes.

In any case, ya...It would be very hard, yet possible, probably impossible though, for us to create a new color. In my opinion that is.

[TheDoctor]

I just noticed. Ironic that the *slightly* colorblind admin comes up with this topic...

And addict, what other shape of color perceiving ocular sensor do you suggest?

[Cyrem]

Every disease that has something to do with limited capability is with the brain (with SOME exceptions of course), not the body part that we see as faulty.

So, colorblind people have something wrong with the portion of the brain that perceives color.

Who said it was a disease? It more of a disability, but not all disabilities are brain related. It could be the eye or the brain, I'm not definitely sure. But my grandfather who is colour-blind is getting worse with his colours stating even obvious colours wrongly now. To me, this means it's an eye related problem because as you age your eyes deteriorate sending some people even blind, the brain however(unless getting some sort of condition, does not change).

[Addictgamer]

It depends how you look at it.

I look at it as:

As your brain ages, it breaks down, and you see this in the rest of your body.

[Cyrem]

It depends how you look at it.

I look at it as:

As your brain ages, it breaks down, and you see this in the rest of your body.

Wikipedia agrees that colour blindness is mostly to do with the eye.

Color blindness always pertains to the cone photoreceptors in retinas, as the cones are capable of detecting the color frequencies of light.

The average human retina contains two kinds of light cells: the rod cells (active in low light) and the cone cells (active in normal daylight). Normally, there are three kinds of cones, each containing a different pigment, which are activated when the pigments absorb light. The technical names for these receptors are S-cones, M-cones, and L-cones, but they are also often referred to as blue cones, green cones, and red cones, respectively. The absorption spectra of the cones differ; one is maximally sensitive to short wavelengths, one to medium wavelengths, and the third to long wavelengths, with their peak sensitivities in the blue, yellowish-green, and yellow regions of the spectrum, respectively. The absorption spectra of all three systems cover much of the visible spectrum.

Although these receptors are often referred to as "blue, green and red" receptors, this is not entirely accurate, especially as the "red" receptor actually has its peak sensitivity in the yellow region. The sensitivity of normal color vision actually depends on the overlap between the absorption spectra of the three systems: different colors are recognized when the different types of cone are stimulated to different degrees. Red light, for example, stimulates the long wavelength cones much more than either of the others, and reducing the wavelength causes the other two cone systems to be increasingly stimulated, causing a gradual change in hue.

Only brain damage can cause colour blindness.