[Guest]

How do you describe a color without using samples or other colors?

Example: How would I describe green without using a sample or pointing to a green object?

[bonanova]

How do you describe a color without using samples or other colors?

Example: How would I describe green without using a sample or pointing to a green object?

There are several ways to do this.

However none of them will guarantee that another person experiences your perception of that color.

Color is both a physical attribute of electromagnetic radiation [frequency or wavelength] and your psychological reaction to perceiving it.

So if your question is: "How do I describe my personal experience of perceiving the color green?" then short of pointing to something that you perceive as green and saying "Look at that and you'll know." it's hard.

Hard like describing a sunset to a person born blind or a symphony to a person born deaf.

Describe green as the color of the dominant radiation line of mercury.

Describe green as the color of electromagnetic radiation whose wavelength is between 577 and 492 nanometers

Describe green as the color of electromagnetic radiation whose frequency is between 503 and 520 THz.

Describe green as the color you get when you mix cyan and yellow ink or paint. [if you're permitted to mention other colors]

Or ... going "outside the box" for a moment,

Describe green as the color that it's not easy to be [Kermit].

Describe green as the color that's spelled "g-r-e-e-n"

But I don't think it's possible to describe the perception of green in terms that will make another certain that he's perceiving the same color as you are.

Good question!

[Guest]

I am going to take a slightly, okay greatly, less scientific approach.

It was once believed that color could be used to treat ailments. This was called chromotherapy. It is based on the fact that it is generally accepted that there are warm and cool colors. Based on that, here is what I have come up with...

Yellow, Orange, and Red would be described using heat and/or cheerfulness with yellow being a warm and fuzzy feeling up to red being hot and angry. Red is also the color that is usually first picked up by the eye so you could describe red as the first color you see.

Green, blue, and violet are the calmer or cooler colors. Blue is a calm and cool, while violet starts to enter a much more chilled and darker mood (depression, apathy).

Black, of course, is easy. It is the absence of light. White is a little tougher. I would describe it as clean and sterile, pure, holy.

The biggest hiccup I run into is when trying to describe green. The problem is that green is natural, and nature can be both peaceful (a rolling Irish countryside) and frightening (a critter infested rainforest). Green can also be clean and neat (the fresh grass of a baseball diamond) or ugly and infectious (mold, gangrene).

And now, after really reaching out on a limb, color as an equation:

Let the color prism be a circle represented by x^2 + y^2 = 1. Let's assume that yellow, orange, and red are "positive" colors and that green, blue, and violet are "negative" numbers. Also, remember how the colors are located in the prism: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet. So with all of this, I came up with the following:

Red (-.866, .5)

Orange (0, 1)

Yellow (.866, .5)

Green (.866, -.5)

Blue (0, -1)

Violet (-.866, -.5)

These are of course, the pure forms of the colors and everything in these points would be a blending. White, since it is the combination of all light, would be the function itself. Black, the absence of light, would be an empty set {}.

[Guest]

There are several ways to do this.

However none of them will guarantee that another person experiences your perception of that color.

Color is both a physical attribute of electromagnetic radiation [frequency or wavelength] and your psychological reaction to perceiving it.

So if your question is: "How do I describe my personal experience of perceiving the color green?" then short of pointing to something that you perceive as green and saying "Look at that and you'll know." it's hard.

Hard like describing a sunset to a person born blind or a symphony to a person born deaf.

Describe green as the color of the dominant radiation line of mercury.

Describe green as the color of electromagnetic radiation whose wavelength is between 577 and 492 nanometers

Describe green as the color of electromagnetic radiation whose frequency is between 503 and 520 THz.

Describe green as the color you get when you mix cyan and yellow ink or paint. [if you're permitted to mention other colors]

Or ... going "outside the box" for a moment,

Describe green as the color that it's not easy to be [Kermit].

Describe green as the color that's spelled "g-r-e-e-n"

But I don't think it's possible to describe the perception of green in terms that will make another certain that he's perceiving the same color as you are.

Good question!

Ahh you had what I was looking for in the first few. I asked a few of my friends to do the same and they couldn't think of squat. I never thought of a color as an equation though...

[Guest]

How do you describe a color without using samples or other colors?

Example: How would I describe green without using a sample or pointing to a green object?

you cant, and therein lies the limitation of language.

you cannot explain/describe something that you "sense" without having that person "sensing" it.

you cant describe the taste of coffee to a person without taste buds

you cant describe what a flute sounds like to a deaf person

you cant describe color to a blind person

you cant describe the feeling of soft on your skin to an alien

and you cant describe the smell of cinnamon rolls to a person without olfactory sense.

and finally, (I know this is more for another thread, but still apropo here) you cant fully describe God to a human, that is why the bible is limited, because it uses words.

[Guest]

How do you describe a color without using samples or other colors?

Example: How would I describe green without using a sample or pointing to a green object?

Green is easy!

But it's not!

[Guest]

How do you describe a color without using samples or other colors?

Example: How would I describe green without using a sample or pointing to a green object?

what is the colour/color of a granny smith apple?> (damn. granny smith is a sample...)

Edited July 2, 2008 by IcE(mAn)

[Guest]

In order to describe a color to someone who can't see it, you describe how you feel when you see it. For instance, with green you could describe your front lawn, a pickle, toxic sludge, grass covered hills, moss in a great forest or the light deep in the ocean. Give them a sense of how you feel when you see it.

[Guest]

In order to describe a color to someone who can't see it, you describe how you feel when you see it. For instance, with green you could describe your front lawn, a pickle, toxic sludge, grass covered hills, moss in a great forest or the light deep in the ocean. Give them a sense of how you feel when you see it.

That's not describibg how you feel, that's giving examples, which isn't possible.

If you have never seen a color, I don't see ANY way someone could describe it to you. The only way we have of describing something is by comparing it to something else. If you had a new type of food, you would probably describe it by comparing it to other flavors you have had.

[Guest]

In order to describe a color to someone who can't see it, you describe how you feel when you see it. For instance, with green you could describe your front lawn, a pickle, toxic sludge, grass covered hills, moss in a great forest or the light deep in the ocean. Give them a sense of how you feel when you see it.

I had the same thought, but it would result in a highly inconsistent, personal, and opinionated, answer. I personally agree with carlosn27 and don't think that you can truly use words to describe feelings without relating them to similar sensory experience. But I do think that the flaw of language is not it's inability to describe feeling but it's necessity to categorize and package everything in order to communicate information and thereby describe anything. It is a necessary evil, but I think that is where the flaw lies. That flaw does however open the door to an answer to a question like this and I think that Jkyle1980 hit on it perfectly.

Answer: The only way to describe anything without an example as a point of reference is to create point of reference by categorizing the thing in question (hopefully with other similar things; ie colors) and comparing it to the other elements in that category.

[Guest]

Answer: The only way to describe anything without an example as a point of reference is to create point of reference by categorizing the thing in question (hopefully with other similar things; ie colors) and comparing it to the other elements in that category.

I agree, what I meant by my previous post would be to convey colors through feelings, like red = anger, blue = cool. That way you can give them a reference to something they have already experienced. Sorry if I was a bit vague in my answer.

[Guest]

cant you just write the word green?

i could be wrong