Isn’t the problem with your example that a completely color blind person cannot differentiate the wavelength, but they can differentiate the intensity of light. I’m also mostly assuming here, that our light cones are sensitive to certain ranges of frequency and that is how we can differentiate different wavelengths.

The scientific and philosophical question is if we can prove that each person perceive those combination of signals the same way. The subjective experience.

Unless of course the color blindness is a “software” issue rather than a “hardware” issue.

[–] shneancy@lemmy.world 1 points 6 days ago

oh for sure they can distinguish different intensities

in art we have 3 nifty ways to describe a colour

hue (difference between green and yellow)
value (difference between black and white)
saturation (difference between grey and neon red)

even a fully monocromatic person can distinguish the value of what they see, and with some colours they can also tell them apart just by that alone (yellow tends to be lighter in value, blue tends to be darker in value)

but here the question is (or at least how i understand it) does the hue of the colour affect us in a universal way? and therefore could someone unable to properly interpret the hue be a good control group?

[–] i_love_FFT@jlai.lu 1 points 6 days ago

Very on-topic SMBC today: http://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/mary

There are multiple types of color blindness, most of the time they affect the production of a specific cone inthe eye. Deuteranomaly is the red-detection cone being affected, and causes issues distinguishing red/green colors, but also blue/purple. It's a "hardware" issue caused by less or lack of detection.

I've heard of "software" version of colorblindness, but it doesn't seem to be as documented as others. I have a younger sibling that seemed to have "copied" my deuteranomaly despite being able to pass the "hardware" tests...

The exact neurons in the eye and the brain being triggeres are the same for detection of color, but where the "qualia" differs is to which external interpretation they are linked to. If we were able to isolate the souvenirs/associations that come from specific colors, I'm sure in general people would see the same colors.

Just like touching something hot triggers the same neurons as touching capsaicin, it creates a signal to the brain. What happens inside the brain depends on the life experience of each, but the initial signal is the same, and it can be proven with fMRI.

Off course, if we want to define a "qualia" as "the thing that can't be proven by science", then off course it won't be provable using science. What is it, though?