How do you explain color to someone who is blind?

Hey everyone,😎 this is my first time posting here. I figured I'd start things off by throwing a question out there that I can't seem to wrap my head around. I've been stuck on this for a few hours now and I'm still coming up empty. The question is... How would you explain the concept of color to someone who is blind?

It’s a long shot. Unless they had vision before and can still vividly recall what colors actually look like.

Christian Parker2 said:Hey everyone,😎 this is my first time posting here. I figured I'd start things off by throwing a question out there that I can't seem to wrap my head around. I've been stuck on this for a few hours now and I'm still coming up empty. The question is... How would you explain the concept of color to someone who is blind?

I think I'd try using music and sound... I'd put on some pieces and describe the tones of the colors to them, almost like saying a specific musical movement might evoke the exact shade of the desert sand they already know through touch—it would be the "color" of the sound we're listening to together. Or, you could just let them describe how they "see" the desert themselves... It reminds me of that beautiful literary description regarding Bach's suites (you'd play the suites for them), where the first is described as a spring green, the second carries the hues of first tears, the third paints with the colors of honey and ripe fruit, while the fourth captures the azure blue of the sky... and so on. Sound possesses this richness of color that is essentially the color of emotions, which you could even attempt to convey through taste... if the person happens to be someone you love (someone we all 🙂), you could have them bite into a slice of peach and tell them it’s a vibrant orange-red, and then give them a kiss and ask them to guess the difference in color. 🙂 Anyway, I hope you don't mind my getting a little playful with these colorful metaphors... 🙂

steelridge58 said:I think I'd try using music and sound... I'd put on some pieces and describe the tones of the colors to them, almost like saying a specific musical movement might evoke the exact shade of the desert sand they already know through touch—it would be the "color" of the sound we're listening to together. Or, you could just let them describe how they "see" the desert themselves... It reminds me of that beautiful literary description regarding Bach's suites (you'd play the suites for them), where the first is described as a spring green, the second carries the hues of first tears, the third paints with the colors of honey and ripe fruit, while the fourth captures the azure blue of the sky... and so on. Sound possesses this richness of color that is essentially the color of emotions, which you could even attempt to convey through taste... if the person happens to be someone you love (someone we all 🙂), you could have them bite into a slice of peach and tell them it’s a vibrant orange-red, and then give them a kiss and ask them to guess the difference in color. 🙂 Anyway, I hope you don't mind my getting a little playful with these colorful metaphors... 🙂

That's quite a description... but there’s one catch... if that person suddenly gained their sight, how would they actually know something is orange-red if the peach wasn't right there? Even with the peach nearby, I'm not sure a blind person could truly recognize the color, since they only know the peach through touch alone.

First, we really need to address the fundamental question of how we actually perceive color.
Once you wrap your head around that, I suspect the conclusion—as depressing as it is—would be that it’s simply impossible to convey that experience to someone who is blind.

Scraped this from the web: It’s actually been confirmed that colors affect us whether we can see them in real-time or not. The whole reason behind it is that colors can send out specific vibrations. Back in Russia, they ran some studies with blind people where they were presented with certain colors. Red was usually described as being warm, rough, restless, or even "rattly"... meanwhile, blind participants always described blue as smooth and cold, even though the researchers used the exact same materials with identical temperatures and textures.

Christian Parker2 said:That's quite a description... but there’s one catch... if that person suddenly gained their sight, how would they actually know something is orange-red if the peach wasn't right there? Even with the peach nearby, I'm not sure a blind person could truly recognize the color, since they only know the peach through touch alone.

To be honest, even before I read your response, I found myself thinking that she might actually feel quite disappointed if she ever saw the actual colors, seeing as her entire imagination had built them from completely different elements and experienced them in such a unique way. I don't know, I'm just speculating, but maybe... As for whether she could recognize something like orange-red—even if the object she usually associates with that "color" were right in front of her, assuming she couldn't identify it by sight without help—I truly believe she wouldn't. It's possible that some scientific insights regarding this already exist and would be worth knowing, but I find what analogsurfer15 wrote to be absolutely fascinating: the idea that colors can emit specific vibrations that allow them to be distinguished.

Reading what you all write here... I've been thinking. It brings something to mind. People with sight dream in color—at least, I do. Maybe it's possible that blind people can dream in color too, if they could just find a way to depict it. I don't know what you think about that... but maybe there's some way to actually make use of it.

Christian Parker2 said:Hey everyone,😎 this is my first time posting here. I figured I'd start things off by throwing a question out there that I can't seem to wrap my head around. I've been stuck on this for a few hours now and I'm still coming up empty. The question is... How would you explain the concept of color to someone who is blind?

Through sound.

I’d probably describe it through pure emotion... I guess I'd tell him: imagine yourself when you're pissed off, that's what red feels like—all aggressive and loud, just wanting to jump out and make a scene. When you're happy, it's blue; when you're calm, it's green, and so on. It likely won't work, but I suppose it's worth a shot, isn't it?

He didn't mention scent... I remember seeing a movie once where they said smell is the easiest way to explain it, but that's just a movie, so who knows if there's any truth to it?
Christian Parker2 brought up dreams, which got me thinking: what do blind people dream about? Do they even dream (I mean those who have been blind their whole lives)? And if they do, are those dreams black and white? Maybe someone here knows...

I decided to switch up the title because the previous one didn't really capture what we were actually getting into...

Honestly, it would be awesome if someone (maybe someone blind?) could jump in here and just
explain how they actually experience color.

You punch him right in the gut and yell, "Now you're gonna turn RED!"
You catch him square in the solar plexus... and suddenly he's turning BLUE, PURPLE, and GREEN!

And so on...

feralviper22 said:He didn't mention scent... I remember seeing a movie once where they said smell is the easiest way to explain it, but that's just a movie, so who knows if there's any truth to it?
Christian Parker2 brought up dreams, which got me thinking: what do blind people dream about? Do they even dream (I mean those who have been blind their whole lives)? And if they do, are those dreams black and white? Maybe someone here knows...

👍 It’s such a massive reservoir of colorful experiences that we could probably try to convey through smell, which sounds incredible. 🙂 ( though I should probably add that since there are people out there who can't experience scent at all, you'd end up facing the exact same dilemma—how on earth do you describe a smell to someone who can't sense it? )

Christian Parker2 said:Reading what you all write here... I've been thinking. It brings something to mind. People with sight dream in color—at least, I do. Maybe it's possible that blind people can dream in color too, if they could just find a way to depict it. I don't know what you think about that... but maybe there's some way to actually make use of it.

I honestly feel like the only way to truly grasp that would be through deep conversation with a blind person—just using pure communication to try and bridge the gap into that "color" world they see or dream about. It makes me wonder if we should actually be trying to visualize the world through their eyes instead. How can we claim to know anything about that reality if we don't try to experience it firsthand? Or, at the very least, combine direct engagement with as much verified research as possible to get a clearer picture. And regarding what you mentioned about dreams... before we dive into whether a blind person dreams in color, wouldn't it be vital to first understand what and how they dream in general? To be honest, I can't even remember if I dream in color myself; I certainly don't recall specific colors when I look back on my dreams, but that doesn't make them any less rich or beautiful when they are.

p.s. I remember reading something once about a blind painter, so if I can track it down online...

darkviper27 said:I’d probably describe it through pure emotion... I guess I'd tell him: imagine yourself when you're pissed off, that's what red feels like—all aggressive and loud, just wanting to jump out and make a scene. When you're happy, it's blue; when you're calm, it's green, and so on. It likely won't work, but I suppose it's worth a shot, isn't it?

Isn't this just a purely ethnocentric perspective? That's how this part of the world generally
perceives red, for instance—as a symbol of aggression or hostility. That doesn't
mean red actually possesses any inherent qualities of that sort,
assuming it even has intrinsic properties to begin with.

Keith Lee2 said:Honestly, it would be awesome if someone (maybe someone blind?) could jump in here and just
explain how they actually experience color.

As soon as I finished reading your post, I thought... 🤣

Well, maybe you were hoping a brother, a sister, or even a partner might stumble upon this thread and say, "Hey, if you don't have anything better to do, why don't you go explain this to the folks over here?"
By the way, there are some pretty deep essays out there tackling this exact topic, and even Robert Pirsig plays around with these ideas when he dives into empiricism versus rationalism in his famous book, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

Also, if you’re looking for a bit of an artistic vibe, check out the Jim Jarmusch film—Night on Earth, city - Paris. Take care.

There’s this blind photographer, Armagan, and I remember reading in an interview that when things come down to the actual colors, he’ll sometimes just ask one of his visitors what color a specific object is, and then he'll take over and get to work based entirely on his own inner vision...

The same article mentions that his abilities are actually going to be tested and analyzed at an American university, where they'll show him a picture of a certain object—which he perceives through the sensation of strawberries on his fingertips—and then they'll run an MRI on Armagan's brain to see what's really happening.

This gadget was actually dreamed up by the Care Tec company over in Austria.
Naturally, it doesn't give blind people the ability to actually *see* colors—that's not how physics works—but it does let them grasp them somehow.
I haven't the slightest clue about the technical specifics, but the company did pick up an award from the German Association of the Blind.
Here is the text accompanying that article (and I hope you don't mind that it's in German):

Even those who cannot perceive the fullness of colors — whether due to color blindness or a total lack of sight — understand the Importance of colors and learns to at least identify them. After all, simple questions like "Is this green folder yours?" or a quick Hinweis: "Tickets of the category A are gray, while category B are pink" can be directed at anyone. Trying to navigate this world of colors when you can't actually see them is quite a mental workout and requires some serious memory.

No wonder, then, that an Austrian invention named ColorTest received near worldwide attention, even Bewunderung. This device from the company CareTec allows blind People to recognize Colors — even if they aren't seeing them.

Without Light there are no colors. If light hits an object, part of it is absorbed and part is reflected. Black objects reflect no Light, absorbing it entirely; with white objects, the opposite is true. Light is composed of spectral colors, though the transitions between colors are fluid. For instance, violet sits between red and blue, turquoise between blue and green, and orange between yellow and red. the ColorTest has its own light source. The light beam of this light source, which itself consists of spectral colors, illuminates the Object being measured. The Light reflected from the Object hits light-sensitive sensors (which act much like the sensory cells of the human eye). The sensors convert the light into electrical signals. These are converted into values for color, Brightness, intensity, and a value for the color scale and are acoustically available at the touch of a button.

It sounds complicated—and it is. Back in 1990, there was a prototype of a color recognition device in Japan, but it never actually hit the market; the error rate in recognition was too high. Given the difficult task, it is particularly gratifying that the solution succeeded in the country of Austria. How much the world knows how to appreciate the invention worldwide is evidenced by the fact that the CareTec company on behalf of the Canadian National Institute for the Blind was presented with the "Winston Gordon Award" in Year 1993. That same Year the company received the "Mercur" of the Vienna Chamber of Commerce and this year the Louis Braille Prize of the German Association of the Blind.

Christian Parker2 said:Hey everyone,😎 this is my first time posting here. I figured I'd start things off by throwing a question out there that I can't seem to wrap my head around. I've been stuck on this for a few hours now and I'm still coming up empty. The question is... How would you explain the concept of color to someone who is blind?

There is actually a logical reason why certain colors are categorized as warm and others as cool... 😁