To what extent can we discern different colours? What of this power is merely relational (a light blue, a lighter blue)? Have studies been done to determine if our "resolution of discernment" (a particular distance in nanometers of which we can differentiate two visual wavelengths with unaided vision)? What's the difference between how we speak of colour, how we conjure it up in its particularity in our imagination, and how we differentiate it through experience?
Many questions and an extended explanation, I know, I know. I considered narrowing this question down but I realize what I want is a broad answer, with specific issues addressed. So perhaps the most helpful answer would be a specific field of inquiry, not a specific journal article.
I imagine both philosophical and scientific approaches will agree that 'it depends on the perceiver' - a colour blind man may have a much lower resolution for differentiating some colours over others. Or are there contemporary arguments suggesting that colour is entirely subjective, any distinguishing factors are relational constructs out of scientific experiments that confuse qualitative experience with quantitative results?
The reason I'm looking for both philosophical and psychological approaches is that the question was stimulated from the beginning of Hume's
Essay. There he uses a thought experiment as counterexample to his maxim that our simple ideas are composed out of equivalent simple impressions. He imagines a simple idea produced without a corresponding simple impression: a painter who has knowledge of all the shades of blue but one 'blue' in particular goes ahead and lays out the gradation of blue in front of him as a series of swatches, all except the the shade he has no knowledge of. Hume inquires as to whether the painter will see a gap in this array, for even if he has no knowledge of this particular blue, surely he'll see the relational problem of one blue 'leaping' to the other. He then speculates as to whether or not the man can produce a unique idea of the missing blue in his mind. He assumes (rather quickly) that he
must be able to do, then discounts his experiment as too rare and trivial to change his initial maxim. Today, we may answer his problem by saying the painter has a relative idea of what blue should be there (lighter, more greenly) or perhaps we would say that the thought experiment itself is silly and filled with problems. That's not the concern I'm wrestling with.
Instead, I'd like to know more about the subjectivity of colour as is perceived in the mind, and if there is quantitative information on our abilities to do such a thing. (To give a completely arbitrary and baseless example, perhaps the majority of subjects can discern two different shades of red at a resolution of 50nm but two shades of violet at a distance of 10nm).
It is marveling to me that we can distinguish ten million different colours. Under what conditions can we do this? Can I put Colour #9342132 beside Colour #9342133 and distinguish them immediately?
From the initial question I posed in the heading as to whether the power is merely relational, I mean so from the act of reflection. We may be able to discern two colours side by side in immediate experience, but how about the powers of conjuring up different colours in our memory? I understand this is an entirely different field, but I want to approach colour from all angles here.
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posted by dsword at 5:14 PM on October 31, 2008