When I see the color orange, what am I actually seeing? Is it the same thing that you see when you look at something orange?
Or does every human being see something a bit different when we look at things that are orange, only we have learned by convention to all agree to call what we see “orange”?
How would we be able to empirically find out the answer to this question? Would such a thing be even theoretically possible?
I wonder whether anybody has worked on this.
Happy July 4th!
Yes, some neuroscientists are working on that, and one of my friend is one of them. He told me color is a perception, not a fact. There is no such thing as “orange” but perception. So yes, we have learned by convention and agreeing on colors.
-Dennis (MS student of class 2003)
Wow, that’s awesome! Do you have a reference to his published work on the topic?
Turn out my friend is not specialized in color vision but some of his students study this.
One of the recommended book is https://foundationsofvision.stanford.edu/. Chap 9 looks like a good start but it is pretty technical. (He keeps telling me color vision is extremely technical and and highly specialized field in neuroscience.) Another easier to read is this book. https://www.amazon.com/Brain-Vision-Scientific-American-Library/dp/0716760096