Oranges
 

What colour is an orange in the dark?

I'll chip in soon...but I've already had this debate at length, so I'd like to see what gets said here before I say too much

uh.. black?
there is no color information in the absence of light.

I disagree - I think that the colour of an orange will always be orange, whether we see it or not.

If you close your eyes, everything still exists - the same colours, the same properties - closing your eyes [not being able to see anything] doesn't make everything lose colour. So therefore, even though it is dark, the colour, while not visible, is still orange (the one we see during the day).

colour is a result of the reflection of light.

therefore

in the abscense of light, colour no longer exists

however

the orange still retains the properties to reflect its particular shade

so...

oranges would be orange if there were light, but in the abscence thereof, they aren't.

phredgreen - what are those properties? Are they the properties of reflectance?
Are you (and anti-fishstick) saying that the colour of the orange depends on the ambient light? So simply by changing the colour of the light I shine on it I can change something which is a property of the orange?

It’s orange…..
But…..is it “orange”?
You see…… the “color” I see as orange…….may be the same as you see, or maybe not.
Perhaps the color you see as orange is the same color I see as yellow. Or vice-versa…but, you’ve always been told it’s orange…..I’ve always been told it’s orange……so we both believe the color to be orange…..but…is it?

Color is interpretation of wavelength. "Color" is what happens to the wavelength when it is interpreted by the brain. To a colorblind man it's never orange!

I agree with Mr sticky on this. Colour is a 'lies-to-children' interpretation from 'a' certain truth. So an essay on what photons are responsible for the colour Orange is less convincing that telling kids that this fruit is Orange..

Good question! So many ways to think about it.

Maybe you could compare it to a star. What color is a blue star? Well, it is obviously blue, dummy. But if you were looking at it from the earth's surface with naked eyes it would appear to be the same color as every other star in the sky. Obviously, in this instance, the inability to actually percieve the color of something doesn't make it colorless.

Just because we lack the ability to percieve a certain characteristic of something doesn't render that characteristic nonexistent. An orange in the dark is still orange, you just can't see it to verify.

Or, like phred sed:

Since color is a function of light, if you took all light away, than the color doesn't exist.

And here I thought that I was the only one that thought up shit like that. :lol: I have been trying to explain that to my wife for years...but all I end up doing is frustrating her, because she can't seem to grasp what I'm getting at. :crazy: Or, I'm just not explaining it right. :(

cnor, Bill O'Rights - you should both read the excellent essay by Daniel Dennett "Quining Qualia".

He puts it much better than I ever could; essentially "qualia" are the (theoretical) internal experiences - so you have something like:

external world ---(sensed)---> qualia ---(interpreted)---> action

What I believe (and he explains ever so nicely) is that qualia do not exist; hence:

external world ---(sensed and interpreted)---> action

ie that you can't talk about some "internal state" which means that "if I saw what you see, I'd see it as yellow" because the internal state doesn't exist. The representation of "orange" in your system is dependent both on the inputs (senses) and outputs (actions) rather than, as would be required for the "if I saw..." to be possible, only on the inputs.

I probably haven't explained that very well; please tell me what you think and I'll try a bit better. But would definitely recommend the essay.

If i could see through your eyes, what i see when i look at the color red might be a different color than what the color red looked like through my eyes. But, since we were both indoctrinated with the idea that that particular shade is red than it's actual color is irrelevant. As long as we agree it is, red it is red.

colour is a secondary quality, not a primary one, hence, like the others said above, it doesn't exist in the same way as the object's mass or dimensions (extension).

that made my brain hurt.......but, I get it.

An orange is always orange. End of story.

Are some of you trying to say that just because I can't see my poop until it comes out of my ass that it isn't brown? I think not.

well.....your poop might not be brown!
what if you ate alot of corn? then wouldn't it be brown with yellow poke-a-dots in it?:hmm:

<b>cliche</b>: first off, i love the avitar. how very cliche. :)


when you shine white light on an orange, it reflects everything it's supposed to, because white is the amalgamation of all colours, so the orange can reflect all of the colours it's supposed to reflect. now turn off the white light and turn on a red light. the orange, along with everything else, will be a shade of red, because that is the only light available to reflect. in the absence of any light, there is nothing to reflect, so it isn't anything.

This question cannot possibly be answered with the given information. I still need to know whether or not the orange is ripe, moldy, frozen or bruised. Only then can I figure out what color it would be in the dark, when I cannot see any of these things.

Come to think about it, I think I'll find out right now! ::flicks off lights:: Now where on earth did that orange go?

And orange is everything but orange actually. What you see is the relfected light, ie the light and color that the orange rejects. Therefore and orange absorbs and is every color but what you see!

phredgreen - thanks!

I was just wondering how best to illustrate my point. Say you go out and buy a new shirt/tie/etc. In the bright lights of the shop it's a lovely orange colour. You take it home, and put it carefully in your (opaque :) ) cupboard.

Your friend/girlfriend/wife comes round. You tell him/her you bought a new top. He/she asks what colour it is.

Do you say:

a) It's orange.

b) It's black. At least, it's black now. But it'll be orange later.

If (b) is what you do, then fair play to you - but I'd be very surprised; I'd imagine you'd say something along the lines of (a). ie in your everyday use you're prepared to agree that the orange is still orange despite its current larck of illumination...

If anyone wants to read the essay by Dennett I mentioned earlier I've found it exists on the internet:

Quining Qualia

I'd recommend paying attention to the "neurosurgical reversal" (#5 and #6) - I think they explain things very nicely. Most notably the idea that in the links:

Sense ---(a)---> Qualia ---(b)---> action (internal or external)

If I were to reverse a, or b, your world would change completely (ie all colours the opposite of normal) - but no-one, including you, could tell which one I had done (assuming I did it by 'magical' means). And if I reversed both, nothing would have changed. You would behave the same, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference yourself. So that at least strongly suggests that a and b may be the same...

Anyway, have a look at the essay if you're interested.

...so an orange with red light shining on it is red?

I like the idea that it's colourless though. When I've had this debate before, it's always been black vs. orange (with occasional comments that if there is a particular mold on the orange it will be luminous and therefore a kind of aqua colour).

Killconey, we're assuming an orange orange :p

how's about i just eat the orange and we call it a day?

Oh....an orange orange.... Well that changes everything. By now though, I don't think that the orange that I was working with is still orange since I ate it for lunch today. But I guarantee that the next orange I get will be orange.

Say, that gives me an idea! If an orange in the dark is orange, is it safe to say that the orange I haven't seen will be orange? I personally have faith in this, but I know that there are plenty of people on the TFP who have different beliefs than I do. What do you say guys and gals? Any orange atheists out there?

AUGH!!! You beat me to it!!! Thats almost exactly what I was going to say!! haha!

Except I would have started it off correctly with, "An orange " instead of "And orange" :D

I did something with colors for a science project was.. in the city finals.. thats a question he tricked me with. Something you don't forget after that.. heh.


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Personally I don't care what color it is. Seeing how I'm now allergic to them, and cannot have more than a glass of orange Juice without feeling sick.. I try to stay away from them, regardless of color. Also, spend all this time figuring out the color, and someone is bound to walk by and eat the orange. ;)

It depends upon what your definition of "is" is.

The melatonin in the skin of the orange that gives it it's orange color is always there so if the lights are on or off it's always orange.

Meh i'd argue it would still be orange.

so this is a question to challenge our perception. neither is right or wrong.

and me being the first to answer ^ there i didn't even think of all the other implications the question could have :-D because to me, no light = no color.

interesting.

I lifted this question from another forum. It was more or less taken over by this question for several months, and there is still no consensus, although there are still new things being said. What's been said so far fills several books.

well it's like thinking of matter as being composed of small particles. it may not mean anything in a practical everyday sense, but just thinking about how what we see and touch is misleading is an exciting suggestion (for me). the notion of colour is the same deal.

Here's an interesting question as well:

What color is the orange when you close your eyes?

If you eat an orange in a forest and there is noone around to tasteit, does it have a flavour? Aaaah.

If it is dark how do you know the orange is there?
Could be and old raquet ball.

i just checked and it looks black to me but thats too simple an answer.

Reflection of light creates color. No light? No color.

Just to mess things up, I heard recently that some women have a fourth type of color receptor (the reverse of color blindness), so what do you think "orange" would be then?

Like many questions, this boils down to semantics, i.e.;

-What is "color"?

So without a standard set of definitions, the question is meaningless.

i don't think anyone touched up this subject yet...is the orange old and moldy? i suppose anything perishable will become that way if you leave it alone in a dark room. i know that happend to my grandmother when we put her in one.

hy_ - so, as per my earlier post, you tell everyone your clothes are black? (assuming you keep them tidied away...)