I was wondering about it.
Here are my thoughts:
How do you know that the colors you see aren't completely different from the ones your friend sees, for example? I mean, how do you know if you see the color orange as your friend sees the color green? Because you both point at a color and say "this is orange" but to you it looks 'orange' and to your friend it looks what you would call purple, while what you would call purple your friend would call yellow. Isn't that crazy? There is no way to know if we all see the
same colors for a color, or something completely different, unless you could see through someone else's eyes, which you can't. I mean, what if the way you see the
world is equal to all neon colors, or negatives, through my eyes? It really shakes you up sometimes.
You see, my grandfather is color-blind, and he's an artist, so often when I'm at his house he pulls me over to the computer and asks me if his photograph is a bit green, or that spot o
ver there has too much red, or so on. He's green-red color-blind, which means if there's a big green tree and a small red cardinal sitting in it, he can't see it at all. That interests me a lot. I've also heard of people going through strokes or getting an eye replaced and seeing only black and white and having to train themselves to see color. It's funny, but when you see pictures or movies in black and white, it's almost as if you can see the color of things. On my links on the sidebar here, I have a spanish castle illusion which is in black and white, but does this thing that makes you see it in color. It is the coolest optical illusion I have ever seen. That your brain can trick you like that is amazing.
And then there's synesthesia, which is a disease where the people who have it get one sense when using another, like when talking, they taste, or when feeling, they smell, but the most well known case is when you are speaking or reading or listening, basically having to do with words, and you see colors, shapes, or images. I do not have this, but I do like to listen to names, and without judgement of the person whose name it belongs to, think of an image. But it doesn't come immediately, like to someone with synesthesia, I guess. I read a Mango Shaped Space, (which is DIFFERENT from the house on mango street) which was about a girl with synesthesia, which is what got me interested in that. Imagine that each number had a separate color, each name a separate image. And everyone with it have different images. Because they are not really sure (the scientists) about what actually causes synesthesia but they think that it has to do with something about the rewiring in the brain of babies. You see, as newborn babies, or so their theory goes, we all have synesthesia, our sensory nerves are wired together, so they all connect. But as we get older, they rewire, or most people's brains do. The ones who don't, supposedly have the resulting synesthesia. Interesting, no?
Ok, I have no idea how to end this post gracefully and smoothly, so just pretend I did?
Coloring away,
Lola Bellybutton
Title Quote: Joni Mitchell, Blue
