Visual Cortex Theory

The eyes are capable of seeing a wide range of colors from very dark to very bright in a myriad of wavelengths and combinations. Because of the range of colors the eyes can see, they are not only useful, but important to survival of any kind.

We detect colors as warnings or they can change our mood. Different combinations make us feel different ways about what we look at and so we develop a sense of color coordination.

However, there is an interesting question that can be asked by anyone and receive an indefinite answer: Do people see the same colors?

This question poses an interesting idea about eyes and how the brain interprets colors. It is very well known that the back of the eye, or retina, that captures light, and color, is comprised of cells called rods and cones which detect light and dark wavelengths of light respectively.

What isn't known, as far as I am concerned, is whether or not every brain comprehends certain colors equally. When light strikes objects, all wavelengths but one are absorbed. The wavelength that is reflected and strikes the rods and cones in the retina is what the brain interprets as colored light.

Now, are all wavelengths the same color or could they be coded by the brain?

As children and infants we are told what objects are colored what. An elephant is gray, the sky is blue, a rock is brown and the grass is green. The brain has coded a wavelength of light and now we have information and a label to put with that code of light.

The question of whether or not every person sees the same colors comes from whether or not the brain codes one particular wavelength of light the same way.

For now, this is an impossible task to determine if this is true or not. Show someone a blue card and they will say it is blue. This is akin to every color; oranges are orange, potatoes are brown, and tomatoes are red.

But if the eyeballs of a person were switched with another's, would they see the same colors they saw with their own eyes? Would wavelengths picked up by the new and foreign rods and cones register equally with the brain? What if the colors someone saw were not the same otherwise?

If the wavelengths interpreted by the eyes were not the same we would find that the grass is not green but blue, an orange is white, and tomatoes are teal. Although the lights and darks may register the same, color coordination would fail invariably.

Imagine if your white walls were now red, your blue bed sheets are tan and your house is now beige. What was once neutral is now flamboyant and unusual.

Consider a different situation; What if color is merely labels? What if, as a child, you were taught that orange isn't called orange but it's called blue? Blue isn't blue, it's brown? Would this child see the same colors all other children see? Or maybe they would but just call these colors by confusing names.

Sans the colorblind, who have brains troubled by the coding of wavelengths, could everyone see the same colors? Is my blue the same as you're blue or could they be offset only by a small unnoticeable amount?

What if the coding is subtly misinterpreted by the brain and nobody quite sees the same colors, not as radical as opposites or compliments, but subtle hues and saturations vary only slightly.

What if we are like television sets? We know what skin tones people are supposed to have or what a tree is supposed to look like and adjust a television to project the correct colors. But every once in a while, we see a TV just slightly out of tune in someone else's house where their purple isn't quite the purple your TV projects or their blue isn't quite your blue.

Could it be possible that then, when they observe a blue, but not 'the' blue, that they are not seeing your colors without being colorblind?

In the end, for the question of whether or not people see the same colors, it's a definite possibility. Unfortunately there is no way to tell definitively.