Something I have had for 18 hours

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Last evening, as I was beginning to settle down for the night (watching online tv, catching up on news, etc...), one of my relatives asked me: "how do you describe the color blue to someone who has never been able to see?"

Fair enough, I thought. How does one describe blue, or any color for that matter, to someone who is blind? I began to think, which in my case, is never a good thing, being that at the end of my thinking period, I usually end up in a terrible mood, yet I continue to put myself through them. I was unable to come up with any possible way to do so, even though it doesn't necessarily mater. I went to bed with my mind filled with various things, woke up this morning, and still was thinking about how to describe a color to a blind person.

I have yet to come up with a solution. My inner psychologist is rampaging around inside my head, doing who knows what at this point.

So, my question to those of you who see this is, how do[i] you describe such a thing to such a person?

That is an interesting challenge. If they are interested in physics and optics, it is possible to describe how colors indicate different wavelengths of light, which might make sense to them. The next step might be to come up with an analogy between colors and scents or sounds, if possible, since these last two are obviously important to a blind person

Yes, I did think of making textures/different stimulants correspond to colors (e.g.- cold/blue, hot/red), but I really want to play the devil's advocate in this scenario. What is to happen once a person, without sight, is to come upon something with one stimuli, but said item does not correspond with that specific color? Again, not necessarily important, just a bothersome idea....

Certain blind artists claim that different colors have unique "textures" to them. So the concept of color may not be as alien to [some] blind people (from birth) as we might assume

This thread is starting to make me think of a Dave Chappelle skit, the "Black White Supremacist"

Not to drone on, however, you bring up a good point with the mention of the sketch. I believe that the blind do have an advantage over the rest of us, being that they have no judgement over nationality, appearance, or even clothing choice, for that matter. In that one aspect, I would relish the disability, if you will.

Surprisingly perception of some colours is also influenced by cultural roots too. I read a scientific article a few years ago regarding language and how it changes our perception. Apparently the Russian language doesn't just have the one colour blue; it has two different words for two different shades of "blue" and they are considered different colours by Russians. During tests it was shown that Russian people were able to distinguish more shades of blue than those with English as their first language. If I get time I'll try and find a link to the study.

Edit: Here is a link:

http://www.nature.com/news/2007/070430/ ... 430-2.html

Match color frequency to sound pitch. A non-sighted person will be able to grasp some of the relations between colors that way.

White would have to be "white noise" of course. Blue would have a higher pitch than red, etc etc. The problem is that sounds do not mix like the primary colors so the sound pitch representation would not be completely faithful.

Using a mathematical representation of frequency, an unsighted person could acquire an abstract understanding of color but it would at best be an analog to the real thing. Again sound could be used to represent frequency superposition.

ruveyn

What's the point of describing the color blue? Just show it to the person. If the person is actually unable to see color blue, then the whole thing would be pointless.

If he had a color to sound transducer he could do something useful with the ability to distinguish colors (even if by sound). Think of blind folks knowing what color a traffic light is showing, for instance.

ruveyn

In russian they have 2 different words for dark blue and light blue (siniy and goluboy) and in german they have 2 different words for dark purple and light purple (lila and rosa). In english we have the words cyan and lilac to describe light blue and light purple but they aren't as commonly used as the words for other colors and they are commonly thought of as just being different shades of blue and purple. The color pink is technically light red but it has its own name. Pink is as valid of a color as cyan and lilac but it is more commonly thought of as being a separate color from its darker shade. Perspective of colors and many other things are definitely affected by language.

As for the question of "how do you describe the color blue to someone who as never been able to see it", it would be impossible because it is the only adjective that can be used to describe itself and there is nothing compare it to. The only way someone could know what blue looked like is if they saw it. It is possible that this could be achieved in the future through Brain-Computer Interface or by some other surgical means.

i remember learning that Helen Keller's teacher taught her different colours through textural and temperature sensations. so she would connect that cold=blue, red=hot, etc. but i do not know whether it was just a fanciful story or not.

Instead of doing it with pitches, do it with modes. Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian and Locrian can each represent a different colour on the spectrum, and modulation can represent the blending of modes. That way you can use pitch as an analog of depth of colour tone, and volume as an analog of brightness of colour tone.

Blind people are encouraged to use emotions and the other senses to compensate for the one sense they lack. Blue can be described as "blueberries" through the sense of taste. It can also be thought of as minor notes in music through the sense of hearing. There's sadness as an emotional representation of the color blue. Something cool to the touch can be connected to the color blue since it is also considered to be cool as opposed to warm or hot. There are many ways to describe colors besides relying on their visual quality.

I think the question is fundamentally one of semantics. "Blue" has several meanings. You could be talking about blue in the academic sense, that it is a specific type of visible electromagnetic energy with a wavelength of approximately 450-495 nm. You could be talking about all the things around us which we perceive as blue, like the sky, or open water, or blue jeans, or lapis lazuli. You could go even further and talk about the many symbolic roles the color blue has taken, such as the values of vigilance, perseverance and justice embodied by the azure chief on the Great Seal of the United States. As suggested here many times already, you can also draw analogous relationships from blue to other modes of perception, such as sound or emotion or temperature; indeed, as an artist, I've referred to blue in terms of it being a "cool colour" many times. But I suspect the implied crux of the question is, how do we express an experience we have all had to someone incapable of perceiving it? We, the sighted (and presumably, not colorblind), all have a basic, unspoken understanding of what "blue" is, because we've experienced it for ourselves. So how do you explain that experience in words?

The simple answer is, sadly, that you just can't. You can be as poetic or academically precise as you want, but words are not a substitute for the experience itself, and they never will be. All of the methods of description which I have just suggested are ultimately meaningless to someone who has never had any concept of colour. Our spoken language is simply not adequate to reproduce a concept like "blue" without losing something in translation. Moreover, using the word "blue" in common vernacular actually relies on an assumption that "blue" is a common experience that everyone has had. But, as demonstrated by the blind person, that isn't always a reasonable assumption to make. Barring the theoretical restoration of the blind person's sight, there is no way to recreate the full impact of the concept behind the word.

For practical purposes, if you want the blind person to be aware that there is something which the sighted experience as "blue", you can use those analogous temperatures or sounds. But don't forget that these things are not actually "blue", in the true sense of the word. "Blue" is a word we have devised for a phenomenon which inherently presumes sight.