Does colour exist?: Andrew Parker at TEDxSydney

Andrew Parker studied marine biology and physics at the Australian Museum and Macquarie University, and then moved to Oxford University. After founding the 'Light Switch Hypothesis' -- that the Big Bang of evolution was triggered by the evolution of the eye -- he now works on biomimetics, copying good design found in nature. This includes hummingbird colours for paints, non-reflective surfaces on insect eyes for solar panels, and water-capture devices in Namibian beetles for collecting clean drinking water in Africa.
He was selected as a 'Scientist for the New Century' by The Royal Institution (London) and wrote the popular science books In the Blink of an Eye and Seven Deadly Colours (Simon & Schuster). Today he is a Research Leader at The Natural History Museum, London and Green Templeton College, Oxford University.
In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)

[@queenz6988]

Fun fact: there are colors that the human eye cannot detect. We are color blind compared to mantis shrimp. A flower may be a new color, let's refer to the color as "XYZ" , but we don't have the cone cells to interpret XYZ so our eyes just see the flower as purple but in reality the flower is actually XYZ color in reality, a mantis shrimp can see the flower as XYZ but humans just see the flower as purple

[@HarryNicNicholas]

i'm trying to find out if there has been an experiment to detect whether we see colours similarly, or if it's possible in the "minds eye" that my "blue" is some other colour in someone elses imagination. the eye works pretty much the same for all of us, so "red" for me will be sort of red for anyone else, but does our "minds eye" see red for all of us, or can my brain take red frequencies and colour them blue? fascinationg.

[@manjinder2186]

Great talk I was thinking about colors for long time.

[@AlexOotzaAkaSharpy]

This man is gold.

[@raulgalets]

ted talks like that are rare nowadays.

[@kristiancolak-barac6458]

So colors actually dont exist its just my eye and brain

[@rocksjoshua]

Yes. Crazy right?

[@Existentialist946]

That's the mainstream view. But it's nonsense.

[@hgracern]

Night dreams are coloured. Night dreams occur in no dimensions. Maybe we could say that we create colour.

[@piyushsonigara5550]

​@@Existentialist946How is it nonsense😂?? This is the actual truth. What existed is the electromagnetic wave.

[@voidisyinyangvoidisyinyang885]

@@piyushsonigara5550 by Yakir Aharonov and Daniel Rohrlich (2005) "Why does the color of light change?" "only the intensity of the light from a kiln changes with temperature, not the color....If we integrate to obtain the overall energy of the radiation field, we find that the integral diverges...The factor kT [Boltzmann's equipartition average] includes the average of both kinetic and potential energy. These are equal for electromagnetic radiation as they are for harmonic oscillators....Since statistical mechanics and electromagnetism together imply this divergence, statistical mechanics and electromagnetism together contain a contradiction." "So why does the color of light change? We can guess that it changes to avoid the divergence. .. Planck's Law - implies that the color of light changes with temperature." pp. 13-14.

[@HarryNicNicholas]

as attenborough said "the trilobite could sea anemone coming"

[@user-rh4gl3yn5q]

Fascinating! 🌈

[@saurabhp4525]

this is too underrated.......

[@bobsanders640]

A true genius

[@paddybarry4991]

I concur

[@bhaveshmahale1179]

Basically, we are all blind still we all can see.

[@alexovenden8698]

This learned person contradicts himself when he says on the one hand that colours don't exist unless you can see them with an eye and on the other hand talks about diffraction gratings which create colours by causing light waves to break up and that these cause some colours to be emitted and others to be absorbed by the cells of the organism. Surely, the colours which are emitted must be there even if no one or nothing sees them. It's just physics.

[@mickeyd642]

You are just misunderstanding the wording. He is saying that color only exist in the mind of a living being. That is correct. Color is not a property of objects or light waves. Color does not exist in the universe external to the mind of a being. When he speaks of color being emitted he is talking about "seeing color in the mind". When he says "cells emit color" he means that we see that color only subjectively within our mind. He's not saying that the light waves being emitted contain color that actually exist out in the physical universe. We only perceive it that way in our mind. I can say "I see white light being emitted from my computer screen". The "white" only exits in my mind. The actual light waves are nothing more than colorless information that our eye/mind system interprets as color within our mind.

[@jrshipley]

I agree that the lecture is a bit careless about fine philosophical points. Very interesting stuff about biology, but doesn't answer the title question because of this lack of precision. Is there any likeness between physical color and qualitative/perceived color? This is an old and vexing philosophical question that cannot be answered dogmatically.

[@zanescheepers2084]

Actually the color we perceive is dependent on the wavelength of light being reflected and, the intensity of the light being reflected.

[@zanescheepers2084]

Renato Leandro You are not understanding. The eyes do detect light, but the eyes don't see anything. A person with optical nerve damage can't see anything, but their eyes still work normally. Detecting light is a mechanical process. You can do it with your hand. If you hold your hand near a fire, you feel the heat. Your skin is detecting infrared light. It's the sensations which occur in the brain. So we see light (brightness) because our eyes detect light (EM radiation).

[@kristiancolak-barac6458]

You think so

[@Existentialist946]

I disagree from the off. I think that colours, odours etc really exist out there, they are not a creation by the brain. I hypothesise that vision, smells, sounds are a form of ESP. The brain merely modifies this perception, it doesn't create these qualitative aspects of reality.

[@matt.willoughby]

No they don't. They're just qualia, they don't exist.

[@Existentialist946]

@@matt.willoughby I don't agree they're qualia. Colour qualia etc is to buy into representational realism i.e we don't perceive the world directly, but have a mental image of it. The mental image is coloured even though the external world isn't. But if they were qualia, then they would certainly exists. Colours, sounds, smells exist in some form. We immediately experience them.

[@EinkOLED]

The visible wavelength in the electromagnetic spectrum represents a tiny fraction. So we are evolved to only picking up only the visible light compared to all the invisible frequencies in the remaining electromagnetic spectrum. So, colour cannot exist. Our brain is trapped in a skull and needs external sensors to allow us to survive, even if it deceives us into thinking we're experiencing reality.

[@Existentialist946]

@@EinkOLED The "So, colour cannot exist" assertion is a non-sequitur. .

[@blizzard1198]

So do you think colours objectively exist as we see them or close enough?

[@leedogification]

Possibly the most boring lecture I have ever seen. It also had almost nothing to do with the title. "Does color exist?" - then just talks about color. Never once relating back to trying to actually answer the lecture title. A very poorly put together lecture. A more accurate title would have been "Color creation in biology and how we can learn from it."

[@HarryNicNicholas]

write to your local MP, or better still whinge in public, that ALWAYS gets results, sadly the result you see here, derision, sarcasm maybe even a character assination, try using the search bar and formulating a sensible search, meanwhile, shut the creche gate on the way out.

[@raulgalets]

I dont think you whatched it. Also, if you want the answer: No, color does not exist. It is an ilusion. Not like in "time is an ilusion", no. Color is literally special effects for our brain

[@voidisyinyangvoidisyinyang885]

@@raulgalets not really...by Yakir Aharonov and Daniel Rohrlich (2005) "Why does the color of light change?" "only the intensity of the light from a kiln changes with temperature, not the color....If we integrate to obtain the overall energy of the radiation field, we find that the integral diverges...The factor kT [Boltzmann's equipartition average] includes the average of both kinetic and potential energy. These are equal for electromagnetic radiation as they are for harmonic oscillators....Since statistical mechanics and electromagnetism together imply this divergence, statistical mechanics and electromagnetism together contain a contradiction." "So why does the color of light change? We can guess that it changes to avoid the divergence. .. Planck's Law - implies that the color of light changes with temperature." pp. 13-14. See color does exist!!

[@NorthKangaroo]

Lenmo