Not really. A "color" is what we call a categorization within ourconditioned brain of a particular combination of not just wavelength, butsaturation and hue. Color is not really "out there." But thedifferent wavelengths of light are really "out there."Am I justplaying with semantics?
No. Different cultures with their languages arrange what we callcolors differently than English speakers. Russian speakers make the same red /pink and orange / brown distinctions as we would. But they will also make afurther distinction between sinii and goluboi, which Englishspeakers would simply call dark and light blue. To Russian speakers, these"colors" are as separate as red and pink, or orange and brown are to us. InMandarin and Japanese, what we call "green" is considered a type of Blue!
What we see "out there" is not really what is there. It is theprojection of our brain's sensory processing onto the world before us. Ofcourse, what we see is a pretty good facsimile of the Real World. If it werenot, it would impede our ability to survive and pass on our genes.
_Written by J. Trevor Woodhams, M.D. - Chiefof Surgery, Woodhams Eye Clinic
