this post was submitted on 03 Apr 2025
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Science Memes

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Technically, all the colors are fake. They're just the halucinations of a brain trying to understand the input from sensory organs.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (2 children)

That doesn't make them fake, in the same way that x can mean 2. You are merely representing a given value (in this case light within a certain electromagnetic spectrum) in a useful way.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 days ago (1 children)

But is my red the same as your red? Hmmm?

[–] [email protected] 16 points 3 days ago (3 children)

if two people can both point to red and agree that it's red, that's close enough. anything beyond that is just pointless esoteric debate.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 days ago (2 children)

I disagree that it's pointless. I think it may be beneficial to humanity (eventually) to establish whether or not there is an objective reality which we all experience.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

There is no way to "establish whether or not there is an objective reality." It's a philosophical position. You either take the reality which we observe and study as part of the material sciences to be objective reality, or you don't believe it's objective reality and think it is all sort of invented in the "mind" somehow. Either position you take, you cannot prove or disprove either one, because even if you take the latter position, no evidence I present to you could change your mind because to be presented evidence would only mean for that evidence to appear in the mind, and thus wouldn't prove anything. The best argument we can make is just taking the reality we observe as indeed reality is just philosophically simpler, but that also requires you to philosophically value simplicity, which you cannot prove what philosophical principles we should value with science either.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 days ago (3 children)

i agree, but that's a job for neuroscience, quantum mechanics, and psychology; not a pack of dorks on the fediverse.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 days ago (2 children)

But I want to contribute to humanity in a meaningful way!

-me, a dork on the Fediverse nearly incapable of contributing to humanity in a meaninful way

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago

Hey now, you could be the person to force manufacturers to add a new type of warning label to random products!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago

Working on it.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago

it's more in the philosophy ballpark, which shapes the interpretration of methodology and the consequences, in my humble opinion.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

But what if the dorks on the fediverse are scientists?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago

then by all means

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Some people see numbers instead/along with colors, and different people see different numbers, so I guess the colors might be different between people too

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago

I would be way more surprised if people who saw numbers with colors all saw the same numbers.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 days ago

I hadn't thought about it that way.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 days ago (1 children)

No, colors are real. And you see them.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 days ago (3 children)

Pink isn't real. There is no wavelength of light that is pink.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago

Clearly, it's light-ish red.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Its bright red, maybe toward purple! Brown is dark orange.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago

This person colors

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 days ago

Light frequencies between blue and red don't exist.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Pink is real, or you couldn't see it. And you couldn't see it unless light was bringing it to your eyes.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

For pink light to be perceived, it needs red cones to fully react, and both green and blue cones to only partially activate.

https://gizmodo.com/if-the-color-pink-doesnt-scientifically-exist-why-can-1464266788

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The definition of color from Merriam/Webster.

a : a phenomenon of light (such as red, brown, pink, or gray) or visual perception that enables one to differentiate otherwise identical objects b (1) : the aspect of the appearance of objects and light sources that may be described in terms of hue, lightness, and saturation (see SATURATION sense 4) for objects and hue, brightness, and saturation for light sources

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Wavelength of green light = 550nm

Wavelength of pink light = N/A

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I guess we disagree.

I stand with Merriam/Websters definition of color. You are using a different definition.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

There is no disagreement. Merriam/Websters definition of color is not scientific. Science says pink light doesn't exist.