So one day I was thinking about the five senses for some reason and I thought of something interesting...

What if we all see, hear, taste, feel, and smell differently, drastically.

For example, In my mouth I taste grape. But in your mouth, the same taste is orange, but your mind recognizes it as "grape".

Another example is I see green, yet, you see blue but its called green in your mind?

How would you go about testing this or disprooving this?

Wondered the exact same thing, but stopped thinking about it fast, because I don't think there is much of an answer, and honestly, who cares?
So if there is a way, I just don't give a hoot.

Well, if I think its blue, and you think its green, then it is not factually either.

This relates back to Substance dualism. I recommend reading Frank Jackson's essay on "Qualia".

This is an extremely old philosophical idea (It's commonly referred to in question form as "Is my blue your red?), and unfortunately, there are very few ways of testing it. The best we can do is use a proxy test. In the case of color, we ask "Which is color closer to blue: red or yellow?"

That's not a very good test, though, because some would say that yellow, being a lighter color than the other two, is not closer to red than blue is. Others would say that red and yellow are closer colors, because they are both warm colors, while blue is a cool color.


If we delve into evolution and genetics, however, we can conclude that people do taste things somewhat differently, but the differences are often subtle. These are in practice more differences in the reaction to our perception in the taste, smell, feel, etc. of something. For example, many people dislike spinach, but I enjoy it, as long as it's cooked in something.

One similar condition is that in all humans, the color green is the most restful to our eyes, and yellow blends in with white easier than blue or red do. These facts may show that perception of color is close in all people. The same applies for the fact that in fashion and art, the same colors complement each other for all people. Blue always pops out in front of red, and green and red are always opposites.


In my opinion, it is highly unlikely that one person's red is another's blue, but the perception of colors is likely to be somewhat different between people.

Well for one, in terms of taste, a lot of people describe certain things as tasting the same. For instance if you eat a lemon, I'm pretty sure the universal taste is lemon since it has a unique property of people generally puckering up due to the sheer sourness...

If a lemon tasted like an apple for someone, their response wouldn't be the same. This can go for other tastes too.

As for what tastes "good" and what tastes "bad"... it's merely acquired. Where you are from and what you've eaten often effects what you will or won't eat.

Ash pretty much said all that needs to be said about color.

It is the wavelengths of the light that determines the colour. Take red, for example. Red has a wavelength range of ~625-740 nm. This means that when you see red, you see light with this wavelength range. When someone else sees red, they see light with this wavelength range. It is impossible for another person to see a different wavelength and frequency than you when looking at the same object, as the wavelength is not affected by our perception of it. What we call this range is unimportant, be it red, blue, or gargry.

Consider your argument disproved, good sir.

Quote from alive

It is the wavelengths of the light that determines the colour. Take red, for example. Red has a wavelength range of ~625-740 nm. This means that when you see red, you see light with this wavelength range. When someone else sees red, they see light with this wavelength range. It is impossible for another person to see a different wavelength and frequency than you when looking at the same object, as the wavelength is not affected by our perception of it. What we call this range is unimportant, be it red, blue, or gargry.

That is infact not true, they can see other colors, but it's because of deffective perception. Some people's brains read things differently. For example, if I say that one color is red, and someone else says that the same color is indeed blue, how can I disprove them? It's just the way that their brain reads the information sent to it.

Because of the color wheel and the colors respective wavelengths.

What does a color wheel have to do with anything?

Quote from Fr0zEnPh0eNiX

Well for one, in terms of taste, a lot of people describe certain things as tasting the same. For instance if you eat a lemon, I'm pretty sure the universal taste is lemon since it has a unique property of people generally puckering up due to the sheer sourness...

If a lemon tasted like an apple for someone, their response wouldn't be the same. This can go for other tastes too.

As for what tastes "good" and what tastes "bad"... it's merely acquired. Where you are from and what you've eaten often effects what you will or won't eat.

Ash pretty much said all that needs to be said about color.

Ahh, but what about this...

Person A tastes a lemon and it tastes like a lemon and is sour...

Person B tastes a lemon and it takes like an apple and is ALSO sour because thats how your taste receptors recieve it...

See, that's just making so sense.

By that logic some people might feel lethal amounts of radiation and think it feels like sex, when really their insides are burning.

But to them, the feeling of sex hurts and the feeling of burning feels good...

Far-fetched, but not impossible.

Perceptions can be very different.

Take, for example, the first televised presidential debate. Everyone in the room thought that I had won, but everyone watching at home thought that Kennedy won the debate. I think this is due to my wet upper lip during the debate that the folks at home saw, yet the people in the auditorium did not see. This televised debate has changed the face of American politics forever.

Kk?

This quite a strange debate, it piques my interest. Peoples brains receive information differently, and they also perceive feelings differently than others. If you take two people, one from Antarctica, and one from Ecuador, then put them in a room with a temperature of, say, 45 degrees, the Ecuadorian will feel cold, but the Antartcican will feel hot.