A Thunk is a beguilingly simple-looking question about everyday things that stops you in your tracks and helps you start to look at the world in a whole new light.
Thunk 3:
When you switch your room lights off do the colours of your wall change?
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100 comments:
I think :
The colors of the wall has not changed but has been hidden.
So although my eyesight may feel as though the color of the wall has changed it has merely been covered up by darkness. The color has not changed but the light that exposes it has so it may appear a different shade of itself but is actually still the same.
Objects do not change , our vision and perception of them however does. However , vision should not be the sole influence of our perception, the term seeing is believing may seem wise but things are not alway what they seem. Hence vision can cause illusions but perception.. can cause delusions.
Theme of appearance vs. reality ..
Things are not always what they seem.
Actually, it becomes colorless. What I feel is that color is only present when light is as well. Otherwise it's black, and black is the absence of color. Unless it's gray, which means that the room is not dark enough :) Then again, black itself has many shades and tints. You can't exactly be sure.
Rethinking: When I was in Lahore, my walls were pink. Even if the lights were turned off, I would still have said they were pink if somebody had asked me. Why? Because I had become used to them being pink, so even in the darkness I would perceive it as pink. Because that was the image embedded in my head.
Rethinking yet again: A room cannot be completely devoid of light. If it was only walls and had no windows or doors or lamps, then okay, maybe then it would be completely dark. There would be no light playing off the walls, so there would be no color. In that respect, your brown eyes would not be brown, your shirt would not be green. But who in their right mind would have such a room? How claustrophobic.
There is no straight answer. That's life for you.
The darkness acts like a coat, enwrapping itself over the wall, so we cannot know for sure if it changes or not. And who said objects do not change? How do you know that when you turn your back on an object, it doesnt stand up and dance? You cannot know.
Light does not make colour, nor provide it. It merely proves that it exists. If we were born in darkness, colour wouldnt exist. All thunks will never be answered correctly, because all these thunks relate back to: we dont know. You cannot know things that havent been tried, or approved, or even thought of before, so how can you judge over something that holds a massive question mark? You cannot.
Maybe its about the light. Ever wondered why the light shines so brightly in the dark? And when there is too much of it, it seems less bright? Maybe thats the source of the question, and maybe its just that we see the world the way we want to, for instance, we capture the image of a white wall, and expect the light to shine on it and be white, day after day, night after night, so, it could be that it is us who chooses the colour of the object we focus on.
This is equivalent to a question stating: what happens when you close your eyes? Does the bed you are sitting on, change colour? It all has to do with the darkness and the lightness, for it is they who determine what we see, when we see it, and how we see it. If we focus on the light, we can get multiple illusions of different things, but, the dark lies to us aswell, making objects hidden and appear desolate. We could wake up and find that life was just a massive dream. We could close our eyes and the entire world melts, but re-spawns when we open them. We can only see our faces through a reflection, we cannot see it with our own eyes, so we cannot know for 100% what we look like. We could be blind, yet feel when people are nearby, determine object's distance and length. These things are all un-answerable, so i will just try to answer with a question.
Lets say, we change realities when we close our eyes. When we open them, we return to this reality. So, are we a victim of this reality? Does reality control what we see, what we feel, what we touch, what out emotions are? Does reality make coincidences?
In short, can reality control our visions?
I think that the colour of the walls do not change.
When you turn off your room lights you cant see anything because there is no light present.The darkness blocks you from seeing whats in front of you.Imagine yourself in a bright room,staring at a white wall.The next thing you do is wear your sunglasses and you notice everything around becomes darker.Why is that so?Its because you're blocking your view with a transparent colour which makes everything around look like the colour itself because its the closest thing infront of you through which you can see other things.Same with the dark room case,since the lights are off, you see the colour black which isnt transparent enough for you to see whats around you and therefore you imagine that everything has become black.When you switch on the lights, the rays hit all the objects around, and their original colours bounce off which allows us to see them clearly.Whereas a colour such as black,doesnt have the tendancy to do so.
Sonal Vohra
11 B1
No, I don't think the colours change.
Scientifically, they will obviously look darker because of the absence of light.
Simply, our vision is slightly 'restricted' because of the darkness.
Technically the colour of the walls dont change. Our eyes play a trick on our minds to think the wall colours have changed but it doesnt and we know exactly what the colour is seeing it everyday. Our pupils usually change size depending on the light. If its dark, the pupil grows small and if its very bright it grows large to adjust to the light. So if a room for example was purple in the dark to me it would look violet as like Myra said 'our vision is restricted in the dark'
Our brains are constantly tricking us when it comes to such things. Although we may believe the colours of the walls darken or change when the lights are switched off, they really don't because theoretically speaking, it isn't possible
Most certainly not! For instance, there are many colorful fishes in the sea, but when the sun sets, they all seem like silver slithery creatures. But has their colour actually changed? Of course not! Colour is visible to us to due the the light reflected upon our pupils, therefore when there is no light present, we can not see these colours! But that in no way means that the colour of an object has changed!
It is quite the same with our own qualities and talents, coming to think of it. We may have very many, but unless we throw some light upon them and bring them out like the bright colours of our walls, what use are they of?
It’s not possible.
The colour of the walls do not change.
I agree with Myra...it just looks darker due to the absence of light.
....Yusra Shah 10g1.....
Colours can be seen only due to the presence of light.
Light can actually be dispersed into seven spectral colours, which are either absorbed by objects or reflected back. The colours that are reflected back are what we see, thus being the 'colour' of the said object.
So, if there isnt a light source in the room, we cant see the colours of the walls. However, just because we dont see something, doesnt mean it isn't there.
When you switch off the lights, the color of the walls do not change. In order to see color, light needs to bounce off it and into our eyes. But when there is no light, our brain simply cannot deduce the color involved. Therefore switching off the lights does not change the colors of your wall.
And nice one Nour:
"How do you know that when you turn your back on an object, it doesnt stand up and dance? You cannot know."
When i turn off the lights in my room, everything looks black and white. The walls are dark, but my posters are outlined very lightly in white, making it just so i can just make out the shapes of the figures.
Well, since i leave my blinds open all the time, there is ALLOT of light in my room both during the day and the the night. So when i switch my lights off, i can pretty much still see everything,considering theres a construction site RIGHT next to my building, so theres always some faint light and noise.
Now back to your question, does the colour of my wall change?
Yeah it does. Ofcourse it does.
In the orange light of a light-bulb my wall looks peach-ish and in almost no light (at night) it looks grayish. So it depends on the colour of the light that falls on the object.
My wall only looks white in the daylight.
It all depends on how dark the room has become. If there is adequate lighting seeping in the room to distinguish between being black and being red, then there you go, you have your answer. The colour of the walls do not change on switching off the lights.
But if you have absolute darkness in the room without even an itty-bitty, tiny opening from anywhere, then for your eyes, the colour of the walls and the surroundings change. It becomes black.
But then again, the colour has changed only in your eyes. I dont know whether an optical illusion would be the right classification for this. But anyways, as a matter of fact, the walls and the other surroundings, if we may add them as well, remain true to their original colour even when surrounded by complete darkness.
Black is only what our eyes see. But sometimes, even what you see with open, naked eyes can be misleading. My opinions have never been influenced and depended just on my vision. But I am sure many people will beg to differ. People who think that seeing is believing.
Not at all! Everything might seem dull and grayish but the colours still remain the same its just that we cant see them, since we can only see when light is present.
Colours dont change unless you replace them with another colour. When the lights of the room are switched off, the dark colour around you is the most dense colour which selfishly does not let you notice any other colour. It is like the sun and the stars. In the morning as the sun is up, it dominates all other colour around it because of the sheer mass and intensity of its own colour, whereas just behind this magnificent creation are the stars. They are always in the sky but we only see them at night as the denser colours of the world begin to slumber.
My walls are white and when I turn the lights off they change to a darker color, but people say white is not a color.
Well after reading all these comments, I've just thought? Can we really believe what our eyes show us? What if the world is something completely different from what we see it? Call me crazy, but if you actually give it some thought???? We look at something and simply believe what we see. What if?
You never know
Actually there was this alien conspiracy theory that everything we see is actually a video embedded in our brain by aliens. That does sound weird doesn't it??
It is kind of obvious that the colours of the wall dont "change" because we all have a good brain to think with for which we know that most non living things like walls and floors dont just change according to their own free will. Maybe they get old, dirty and start peeling off with time or even fading, but during the night,and when the lights are switched off,the amount of light falling on the retina is sooo minute that there is less focus and less discerning of objects from one another.The clarity of objects change, and not the colours themselves.
If you were to have some amount of light out through a window or lamp, then you'd see different shades of the colour of the wall due to the difference in the lighting at different points on the wall.Normally,a colour would look duller or darker when lights are switched off, but their colours just dont change.
the color of my wall definitely doesn't change its really just our minds that make us see things in a different light. as the lights go off everything around you is dark, then its just your imagination going wild!!!
The colours of the walls obviously do not change because that would be, well bizzare. We see colours of any sort only when there is any sort of light. So when there is an absence of light (in darkness), all that happens is that we simply will not be able to see the colours, because there is no light for you to see it in.
The colours dont change its just our eyes playing tricks on us. The walls may seem darker, but technically speaking its not possible.
I think the colour of the light and the walls in that room plays the big role in deciding the colour the walls seem to us.
For example, if its a fluorscent bulb and walls are white when you switch on the light the walls may seem yellow-fluoroscent in colour.
Furthermore, it depends if it is day or night outside and the amount of light penetrating through the curtains in the room.
On the whole the walls colour doesn't change it's just the way the light bounces of it and seems to our eyes.
well no idont think the color changes but it definetly looks darker when the lights are switched off.
Nnamdi was here :)
The colours of the wall most surely dont change because that would be scientificaly impossible.
It just appears to be different because the light would be missing and then everything would seem really dark...
I do not think that it is possible for colors to change ...but our perception and our eyes do pay a role in deluding our mind into thinking that they have!!!
There is a famous saying "do not believe everything that you see"- how true...
shadows and light play trick on our senses,but the wise always pause to stop and evaluate the situation before proceding...
i don't feel the color "on" the wall changes just because the lights go off however it would appear to seem that way cause there is no light. things don't change just because you cant see them properly although many a time it would appear to us differently but its the color on the wall where talking about and not how it may seem to be. I guess its kinda like when we meet a person for the first time and they seem to be all great and all but later on we realize what their true colors are and we completely change our perception of them. Well the color on the wall could probably relate to that as the person you once knew is a whole new person and what really matters in the end is to see that person for who they really are in the light :)
No i don't think the color changes, though that is definately another way of looking at it. Actually , i like that way of looking at it. I guess if you were really creative you would say the wall changes colors. But scientifically it just darkens due to lack of light. But thank you for making me think alot and "thunking" (it sounds cooler than stumping), me :P
Lets take a differnt examle:
Hold out your index finger, and look at it with ONLY the right eye, now switch to the left eye, and keep switching till you notice the difference in position. Then open both eyes and notice that the position will be the (almost) perfect equilibrum between the distances of the right eye AND left eye positions.
Conclusion: I believe physical factors such as light etc. DO affect the colours and contrast of an object, but it is from these various angles and perspectives that the final judgement of a colour and its subclassification of various shades exist.
Looks can be deceiving. Yes, the room is dark, but that doesn't mean that the walls change colour. If you go outside when it's dark, you look darker, but you're not. The same rule applies here. =)
the room is dark it changes the colour of what they look. when they are still the same colour it just looks diffrent
As soon as the lights of the room are switched off, the color of the wall is no longer seen since the wall is non luminous object and there is no source of light that could reflect from the wall and enter our eyes and show the color, the walls seem to have become black according to our eyes but the walls haven’t really changed their color.
But if the lights of the room are switched on, some people would always see the color of the walls as black. For them if the lights are off or on it doesn’t matter as the only color they can see in black.
It is vital to distinguish between our perception of the color of the wall and it's actual color to attempt to answer the Thunk.
Firstly, we must consider a few facts. Our perception is bound to change, and is constantly modifying itself due to our daily experiences and much more.
The average human being can view objects differently. For example, an object shadowed might look completely different when it is illuminated. This is because light shapes the way we see color.
Understanding the former, we can now construct a conclusion:
If light shapes the way we see color, and the wall we perceive is an object that is colored, undoubtedly the absence of light in our rooms will cause us to perceive the color of the wall differently. This means that our perception of the color of the wall has altered, but the actual color of wall has not.
Colour is a fascinating property of the universe since its subjective. For example, I may think something is tiffany-blue, but you may think it is aquamarine-green. The truth is that we are both right, since colour is a property possessed by an object producing different sensations on the eye as a result of the way it reflects or emits light.
Using this definition, we can make a few distinctions. Firstly, grass will always be green. However, if I’m colourblind, I may think that grass is actually blue. Grass is still green, but to me, the grass is blue. Does this make grass blue? Lets look at a different example. Blackness envelops a stage, with a single white spotlight shining on a ballet dancer with tanned skin. Then, the spotlight changes colour. Now, the dancer looks purple. Just because she looks purple doesn’t actually mean she is purple.
This poses a very interesting question. Which is more valid: human perception or true physical property? In order to answer this, lets imagine a world exactly like ours. The only difference is that, even though colour exists, the entire human race can only perceive the shades of white, grey and black. Would colour still exist? The answer is yes; however, we can’t see it. Therefore, if the walls of my room were blue, I would perceive them as black. When I switch off my lights, they are still blue, but they look black to me. Thus, it would be safe to say that, according to me, my wall is black because when I turn on the light, it will still be black to me. This still doesn’t make my wall black. In our world, I can see that my wall is blue. When I switch off my light, my wall is still blue, regardless of the fact that it looks black to me. Switching off my lights hasn’t changed any of the physical properties of my wall; therefore, the colour of the wall has not changed. Moreover, physical property is much more significant than human perception. This is owed to a deep-rooted axiom of human existence: just because it seems like it is, doesn’t mean it is.
Humans, we're an interesting bunch. We need norms in our lives. Stereotyping is merely a psychological construct that helps us make sense of the world around us. We do it to almost everything. Despite the potentially tremendous variability in our perceptions of the universe, we've managed to establish a rough method to our madness. We've come to a consensus on colour. Those who don't conform to "red" or "blue" or "green" or any other colour are classified as colour blind. Everyone else has healthy vision. Yet we have no idea how each colour is interpreted by individuals. We have no way of truly communicating that to each other yet.
The classic conundrum: "describe a colour to a blind person".
But we've chosen to agree. And this agreement has given us another means to organize the world around us - be it in ripe or unripe fruit (the original reason colour evolved in humans) or abstract paintings or black and white classics.
If the entire human population of "healthy" trichromats was to get into my bedroom and become fascinated with my wall, under identical lighting conditions, they would all agree on its colour.
Let's hit the lights.
Imagine someone with perfect eyesight grew up exposed purely to orange light. No exposure to any white light whatsoever (including sunlight). To him or her, the true colour of every object would be tinted orange.
"An apple appears red because in white light, the apple reflects the red part of the white light. (Try looking at an apple using a prism. If you pass sunlight through a prism in order to generate a spectrum, and hold the apple in each of the dominating colors, you will notice the color of the apple changing.
When we see the Sun setting, a white-light-emitting object, through our thick Earth atmosphere, the higher frequencies are scattered while the lower frequencies are transmitted. At sunset, when the Sun is lowest in the sky, and seen through the largest amount of "air mass", we see it as an orangish-red color."
(Excerpts from Paul Hewitt's 'Conceptual Physics'.)
Colour is merely the interpretation of different frequencies of light.
Who's to say the colour of an object in white light is any more or less the true colour of that object than in orange light?
(^ Don't make "light" of discrimination.)
The truth is, we don't need to distinguish which one truly reflects an object's physical properties, because they all do. Colour is a subjective experience, determined by what light is present (or absent) and how we interpret it. In orange light, my wall is orange. In white light, my wall is white.
And in darkness, my wall is black. How exciting.
Scientifically speaking, light is just an other form of electromagnetic wave, except it is visible unlike the others. The reason we see colour is due to the property of reflection: light is emitted from a source and then bounces off surfaces, reflecting towards other surfaces, bouncing off those as well, and then into our eye, which in turn helps us to see.
If I were to turn off my room lights, I would still be able to see the wall, however the colour would not change, it would only feel as if it has become much darker, because there is no light reflecting from the wall into my eye any longer.
In conclusion, it is not the colour that changes, it is our vision depending on the availability of light.
Nullius in Verba. "See for yourself".
Well, as far as I see it, there are two approaches to the question; scientific and philosophical. Let's see then, what I end up with...
Let us define the question; what is colour? It is a characteristic of certain light frequencies. Why? I have absolutely no idea. None at all. What is the colour of a wall then? Well, we probably know that the wall's colour is a result of the reflection of light off of the wall.
Therefore, it is probably OK to think that the WALL'S COLOUR (sorry - there was no italic) remained the same whether there is light shining on it or not. Equally, one could think that the wall does not "have" any colour at all if there is no light reflecting off of it. Either way, we can agree that, because this is OUR room (again, sorry about the full caps) we can really change it's colour any time at all. But we're going to have to see for ourselves...
The darkness is something that evokes light, meaning no, when you switch off the lights in your room, the colors of the wall do not change. The walls were painted a certain color, and unless they are repainted in a different color, they will remain the same. The light is what allows you to see the color of the walls, and without the light you would simply not be able to see the color any more. Say for instance, a green tinted light caused your white walls to appear green, they were still initially painted white, meaning they are still white. The darkness, is the same. Without light, you cannot see, but it does not mean that anything has changed, it just means it has been covered.
If we were to say that the colours in the room are changing simply because our visual receptors fail to grasp them is unrealistic. Much like interpreting that a blind person's lack of light entrance through the retina as an absence of light as opposed to a malfunction in the occipital lobe. Personally, I would rather say that colours are masked by the void of light, similar to stating black as an "absence" of colour, re:light. We can not see colour without light.
If I put both my hands over my eyes covering them, in order to not see a particular person next to me, that certainly does not make me unseen to that person as well. Its merely about perception and personal decree, whether the colour of the walls change upon light being switched off or not. If is it just the conditions changing, while the reactants stay the same. Which surely would, in turn affect the product, which in this case is what we see, despite of what we know. This thunk even makes me ponder upon the contrast between knowledge and evidence. Knowledge tells us that evidence is the key to what is true and what lays fake in this universe, where on the contrary, forms of knowledge, such as philosophy requires us to make insight and wild imagination our tool to perceive in this universe. They go hand in hand, however, with themselves, rather than one another.
In conclusion, I would infer this as no, the colours of my walls do not change upon switching off the lights. The colours remain, it is us who lose the ability to see them.
From what i can tell, the answer of this question depends on what your understanding of "color" is.
If ever you have used an application to edit your pictures, (which I'm sure many of you must have), there would have been a time when you would have played around with the color saturation of the image. With decreased saturation , the colors of the picture seem to fade into grey scales turning the picture black and white. Increasing the saturation would in turn make the colors seem brighter or more vivid. This is due to the lightness of the colors - or intensity of light in the image.
The same logic can be applied here. the color of the wall is not in itself changing. It is merely a lack of light that causes the shade to appear darker (less saturated).
This answer to this question revolves around human perception and understanding. Science would tell you that the colour of the wall would not change, however it is simply our perception of the colour of the wall that changes; the wall would seem much darker because the source of light which made the walls look a certain colour, has been eliminated. This can be explained in terms of certain circumstances as well, for example if a red light is shone on a white wall, the wall would seem red to us, but the true colour of the wall still remains white. The same applies for people who may be colour blind. They may see a red object as yellow but that does not take away from the fact that the object in real life is red.
From a psychlogical perspective, for people who fear the dark, the colour of their room wall may appear to change in the dark. They may associate their fear with colours like red so for them, even their pale white wall may change colour at night, but of course, this again is simply their perception, the actual colour of the wall won’t change, unless it is physically painted over, with another colour.
Well, the fundamental question here is whether anything exists in the same state we perceive it to be in when it isn't being observed. Simply put, does something exist if we cannot see it, or in this case, does something change when we aren't looking at it. Looking at this from a typical perspective, you'd say that colour is a manifestation of light, being what you see when light is reflected off objects with different pigments and textures. So, when you turn your lights off, we may no longer be able to see this 'colour', however the physical characteristics of the wall remain unchanged. Or does it? Quantum physics suggest something called particle wave duality. Light shows characteristics of being both, a particle and a wave when unobserved but almost magically changes state to either one upon observation. Does the same happen to our walls? Do they even exist when we aren't looking at them? Do they turn hideous shades of magenta when we're asleep? We may never know, because the moment we try and watch or try and quantify any phenomena, we are observing it, and may change back to its mundane original state, just like the elusive photon. So do our walls change colour when the lights are off? Quite frankly, it's anyone's guess.
Is anything the same when we look away? Do things change when we are unable to observe them?
that is a terrifying prospect to dwell upon.
I dont believe the color of the walls change when we switch off the lights, its our perception of these walls that changes. Because we need light to make out any object.
other than the obvious, I still dont believe anything changes just because we avert our attention from it.
The walls do not depend on our attention to maintain a shade of blue. nothing in the world depends on the living's attention except for, well, the living.
Dues to the lack of light, we are not able to see the wall as blue, but black. Even though a room is never completely deprived of light, it depends on the intensity of light being received, the walls will then display a shade respective to that lighting.
I feel like there is more to this question than just walls and a lightbulb, I feel like this question essentially implies the idea of whether anything is ever the same when it's not given any attention.
And what a question that is, indeed.
If applying this question to human behavior, it can be said that we all have different masks. A mask appropriate for different encounters.
The mask you wear when you're alone is the mask only you know.
I think what the question really is getting to here is; 'do things really change when the way we perceive them does, or is there some continuity in the way that we observe the world around us?'
In response to this imaginary follow-up question I've generated; I believe in the continuity of the universe. This, made relevant to the original question, encourages me to conclude that the wall continues to have the colour that the observer perceived when there was light to reflect off of the wall. Now that the light is gone, although there is a perceived difference in colour of the wall, once the light shining previously incident on the wall is turned back on the colours are then reinstated to their original form.
There is the argument that what is perceived should be considered 'reality', as what cannot be perceived at a certain moment cannot exist, which would lead to the conclusion that the colour of the wall does change. I think, in the end, this hypothesis falls down because of the flaws of human perception - how easy it is for human beings to be subject to manipulation of 'primary data' from our sensory organs by our brain and the way it's been hardwired.
In the end, I'm sure that if one switched the lights off in their house, you can still call the wall black, because - to be fair - that's what you perceive. I'm just not sure that would be the universal truth.
So here's what I know about color: Nothing has an intrinsically colorful property. Color is determined by light, as objects reflect light that appears to be a certain hue.
And here's what I know about light: Although we all have the same biology that tells us how we see color due to the different terahertz frequencies of light, the same cone receptors and rod receptors, we perceive light, and colors, in our own individual ways. Black is not black is not black.
Therefore, color is the rendering of those varied frequencies, and perhaps the way our eyes interpret them, more than anything else. Hence, I probably see a different color on my walls because the light has changed - not because the colors themselves have.
One must remember that the concept of "colour" can be completely objective- my red may be different from your red. So with that being said, my perception of a colour will change if the light is turned off, therefore in more ways than not, the colour itself changes as well.
I think when one is answering this thunk, it’s important to know about color and what it is. Color is essentially the property possessed by an object of producing different sensations on the eye as a result of the way the object reflects or emits light; in a nutshell, we see color because of its property of reflection or because the actual object is emitting light. Light bounces off surfaces and reflects on other surfaces and then into our pretty little eyeballs, where our retinal cones are present – retinal cones are cells that responsible for color vision – which then transmits information to our optic nerve which is a paired nerve and has the duty of passing visual information from the retina to the brain. This is why we have people who are color blind – usually because there’s a lack or sometimes even a surplus of retinal cones in their eyeball. Having explained all of this and being a rational minded person, I don’t think the color of the walls change when we switch off the lights; yes it may appear darker, however that is caused by the lack of light being emitted/reflected.
Color is based on our perception (from reflected light being captured and analyzed by our eyes), so yes, our eyes perceive the walls differently (based on if there is other, ambient light around or even if it's pitch black.
When darkness falls perceptions and perspectives change.
No the colour reamins the same, the dyes in the paint are still there you just cannot see them.
THE COLORS OF THE WALL IS NOT CHANGED BUT IT' HAS BEEN HIDDEN.
Technically, the wall IS every color EXCEPT for the color that you see, because it is absorbing those colors and only reflecting the one you see. So the wall would still maintain the property of being able to absorb all of those colors, so no, the wall has not changed color.
Absolutely the color has not changed it simply affects the color of your environment because of the drakness.
The walls in my bedroom, coated in a green wash of paint, directly faces my open windows. My room is just the way I like it: sunny, open and fresh, with the leafy green of the adjacent wall tying everything together, creating a calming and tranquil effect.
From a scientist’s perspective, the green paint appears that way because the chemical composition of the paint allows it to absorb all colours of the spectrum apart from green, which is blocked, and hence reflected back to us - making it the colour that we see the wall as. Green.
However, when there is no light in the room, the entirety of the space looks dark and black. We do not see the true colour of the wall as there is no light to illuminate it. The colour doesn’t change; we simply cannot see anything very well. The chemical composition of wall paint is unchanged. And it always will be.
To be precise, the colour of something is the property possessed by an object of producing different sensations on the eye as a result of the way it reflects or emits light.
If the property of the wall is to produce green ‘sensations to the eye,’ it is green.
If the property of the wall is to produce blue ‘sensations to the eye,’ it is blue.
If the property of the wall is to produce red ‘sensations to the eye,’ it is red.
Be it any colour.
Lights closed or open.
The property by which an object produces different sensations on the eye, does not change.
The colour stays the colour.
Only the presence of light changes the colour received back in the eye.
But the physical colour property stays green. Or blue. Or red.
But when the lights are off, you see black.
So do the colours of your wall change when you close the lights?
In short - only in your eyes and head.
Id like to take a pure physics standpoint here . SO if we were have a room devoid of light then we perceive the the colour sensation of black or in other words we see nothing and hence we see black .This doesnt mean that the colour of the walls have changed . It only means that since we have no source of light to reflect off a surface imbued with certain reflective qualities which on the incidence of light absorbs other colours which comprises the light and reflects back a certain colour which may perceive as red black blue green etc.. However it even in the absence of light maintains the quality which reflects a certain wavelength of light which we attribute to be its main colour
Color is the brain's way of distinguishing the various frequencies of electromagnetic waves that enter our retina. It does this with the aid of specialized cells known as 'cones', each which respond only to a specific range of wavelength-approximately 380-740 nano meters. This range makes up a very tiny fraction in the spectrum, so although the world may look colorful; unlike the Mantis Shrimp, we are missing a lot.
Now say your room had a luminescent wall facing you, split into two colors: Red and Yellow. Behind you on the other side however, is a clean white wall. If you decided for instance to stare at the luminescent wall for about 30 seconds, an intriguing phenomenon follows. The reaction that occurs when a red cone cell and a yellow cone cell detect a color and continuously send impulses to the brain consumes energy. If these colors came in the form of a light source like our glowing wall, it requires almost twice the energy. The glucose stored inside those particular cells are of limited supply so this energy is not infinite. Nevertheless, your cone cells have a backup plan.
If at this point you were to quickly turn off then turn on the lights and fix your gaze on the white wall, we experience that backup plan. For a few seconds you may see the colors Green and Blue fading away in front of your very eyes. This phenomenon is known as the Color After-effect. The Red and Yellow cone cells begin to share their work with the Green and Blue cells when it detects glucose being consumed at rates faster than it is being supplied. These backup cells in turn, start sending impulses to the brain at a slightly delayed rate and thus this fascinating optical illusion occurs.
So simply put, it is impossible for a surface such as a wall to change it's reflective index just by switching a light off and on. However because it is solely the brain and retina responsible for the colors we see, the colors we experience can be variable.
Color is a visual property that can be perceived by the human eye in categories such as blue, green, red etc. This is the dictionary definition in all its glory. Color can also be a medium by which we can associate everthing, even our emotions can be given a color coded scheme.
Now if I were to switch all the lights of in my room, would it change into an emerald green from a Prussian blue? Would I suddenly have a rainbow or a myriad of colors engulfing my room? No, not even in the slightest way possible. Although for the time period that my room is filled with complete darkness I wouldn't be able to see the color, its still the exact same.
The color wouldn't change it all and it is just the way I perceive it in darkness that it appears to have changed., unless its affected by another variable that wasn't present when the color was visible in light.
Ha ha ha... first off, I think we should clarify that the lights are switched off when it dark outside or that there are no windows in the room because otherwise its pretty pointless switching of the light (that’s the first thing that came to my mind when I 'red' this). (Colour pun #1)
If we were speaking from a purely physics point of view, the colours of the wall have most definitely not changed as colours are seen as the product of certain electromagnetic waves being absorbed and certain waves being reflected back based on the wall’s constituents and properties. I know this part is 'cyan'-tifically proven. (Colour Pun #2)
However, if we look at it from a biological point of view, the colour of the wall essentially changes because it looks different to our eyes. See, colour is defined as “a phenomenon of light or visual perception that enables one to differentiate otherwise identical objects.” So if I had a bright pink wall and a light blue wall in the same room with similar dimensions, I wouldn’t be able to ‘differentiate the otherwise identical objects’ when the lights are switched off. In that way, the two walls can be seen as transforming into a completely new colour (provided my eyes with its millions of rods and cones have not yet adjusted to the darkness because if so, I would be able to distinguish between the slight differences in hues of the wall).
Another factor that can be taken into consideration is the amount of knowledge one has about the subject of light and its properties. Take, for example, a baby. The properties of light and the entire abstract concept of colours completely flies over her tiny little head (which is filled with rainbows and sparkles and fluffy unicorns and other 'pigments' of her imagination). (Colour Pun #3). For her, when dear mommy kisses her goodnight and puts of the light, the colour of the wall has changed.
With no knowledge of the electromagnetic waves or the visible spectrum, our ancestors, much like the baby, must have thought that the darkness was somehow an insatiable hungry beast that engulfed all that is light and only returned it when the mighty sun or a blazing flame vanquished it.
So, to conclude, I don’t think that the colour of the wall itself changes, objectively speaking, but it does change relative to ‘us’ i.e. our ‘perception’ of the wall changes (IB ToK question!). But this is just my opinion; don’t take my word for it. After all, Nullius In Verba.
(P.S. Did you see all the colour puns when you 'red' this? I hope they 'blue' you away too!)
Seeing is part of our five senses. Our five senses are the only way that we actually learn anything. We rely on them heavily. For instance I cannot prove that water boils at 100 degrees celcius if I cannot see the thermometer or hear the sound of the bubbles (or even feel the heat). Thus theoretically in the observations of the human eye, when the lights in a room are turned off the colour of the wall does change in the perspective of the human eye. However, as human we are intelligent beings who are more than capable of recognising patterns and deducing meaning from them. Taking that into account even though the colour of the walls may appear to change 'common sense' tells us that the colour of a wall cannot just change, it is a mere optical illusion in that our vision is impaired by the lack of lighting in the setting.
So in response to the question: no the colour of the walls doesn't change when the lights are turned off. But our brains are easily deceived and can be persuaded into believing in a fantastical phenomenon that is colours changing due to light. 'Common sense', so called knowledge obvious to everybody is against this. As soon as this question is asked, the audience have a reflex response 'no'. Common sense is a funny thing. I think the purpose of this question isn't in fact to test if you are a simpleton by judging you 'sense' but one to test how one can respond to the implications of the question.
I may see a wall under certain lightning and say its color is lime green. Under different lighting I might see the color as grass green. Further somebody else seeing the wall under the same lighting conditions as me may see a completely different hue. Thus one can say that our perception of color depends largely on our interpretation of different frequencies of light. Also how we perceive color is subjective and can differ from person to person.
In conclusion, on switching off the lights the color of the wall doesn’t change but our perception of the color changed due to a change in the frequency of light.
I’m no science student. I have no idea what light is composed of or how it is refracted.
All I know is what is perceive.
So when I switch the lights off in my room, my lilac purple walls turn a cozy shade of my favorite color black and the white, abstract skyline of Dubai painted on them attains a near-luminous effect, glowing in the darkness around, dispelling a sleep-inducing haze.
Hence, I would say yes, the colors of my wall do change when the lights are switched off, not to mention some portions even mysteriously gaining the property of luminescence.
And since you haven’t seen my walls, you really can’t say otherwise can you?
We use our 5 senses to interpret everything around us. If one was to look at a white wall in the dark, they wouldn't see it the same way they would in the day. However the colour of the wall is not changing, but is being "hidden" from us. Similarly, if we were told to touch a wall without knowing what we were touching, then we may perceive it to be something else.
Think of it like this - if we were to put a red filter over a light and point it at a white wall, we would see the wall as a shade of red, but we still know that the wall is white.
In conclusion, only our perception of the light changes. The actual colour of the wall stays the same.
If the lights in my room went off, would the colors of the wall change?
I'm going to attempt tackling this question with as much rationality as possible-
If I were to be blindfolded by my friend as he/she stood in front of me, once the fold is on my eyes, and I can no longer see this friend, does he/she exist?
YES.
Same goes for the colors of the wall. Once the lights are off, it is true I can no longer see the color of the wall, but as soon as the lights go back on, the wall will still be its boring shade of ecru and no longer be black as all I could see around me was pitch darkness.
This question could also be answered differently, the lights in my room are off. The sheer umber curtains have sunlight blazing through them, my cream walls now APPEAR orange-ish and the lights in my room are off. But it doesn't mean, the walls are now orange, they're not.
All of these answers depends on the human spectrum of sight and perception. It is how I see it, but because I can no longer see it doesn't mean it has altered or it no longer exists.
Colour, like feelings, tastes and opinions is a very subjective term. What might seem like blue to me might be violet to another person or even black to a dog.
However, in this situation light exists simply for us to view the colour of the walls better. When there is light, we see a much clearer, sharper and evidently sky blue colour of my walls.
Therefore, when the lights or source of light is removed, what we see before our eyes is simply the same sky blue coloured walls with the absence of light that makes the walls appear a darker shade. It is the very change in the frequency of light that causes us to view the colour of my walls differently.
Colours are merely the result of the absorption of certain wavelengths and the release of others. So colours aren't constant they're just variables that are affected by the amount of light directed towards them and its type. For instance, if blue light is shone on a red shirt, the shirt would appear black because blue is on the opposite side of the spectrum thus it will be fully absorbed.
In conclusion, I think the walls of my room change in colour as I switch on and off the lights. Which is something I find fascinating.
Pondering on the question logically, you'd expect the statement to stand true as your whitewashed walls suddenly turn jet black in gloom.
Yet, does the colour actually change? By definition, a colour is "the property possessed by an object of producing different sensations on the eye as a result of the way it reflects light" therefore we can conclude that the colour of a wall isn't something that changes with it's environment's state - It's a fixed property relating to the wall rather than it's environment.
Rather than a change in colour of the wall, our eyes undergo a change in perception as they cannot detect the faint (coloured) light reflected off by the wall. If we understand colour as simply a property of quarks (light waves) it makes undulated sense that it's characterised by which the light interacts with (the wall) rather than the environmental state.
Speaking pragmatically, these colours do not change; it is only our perception of the wall that changes. Our ability to view a plain world with colours is thanks to the ability of certain cells (eye cone cells) to perceive the differences in the wavelength of the various waves that fall under the visible range of the electromagnetic spectrum. Light waves hit the object, which absorbs some of these waves, while reflecting other waves, depending on the properties of the material that it is made up of. Reflected waves are picked up by our eyes, which then translate the difference in wavelength into colour. In essence, the various colours we see are nothing but a dispersion of white light rays.
However, when I was a small kid, the colours of my walls definitely used to change, when the lights were turned off. What seemed to be a plain, tranquil, turquoise changed into an envelope of darkness for all my fears to come true. The grim black setting was ripe for all sorts of nether-worldly spirits to haunt me with their demoniac features and menacing tones. The seemingly invisible wall somehow had the powers to elicit a strange fear within me, as must have been the case for many children across the world. Indeed it is this colour change that has made wrapping a blanket over my face still a habit today.
The instance of walls “changing colours” wonderfully highlights how it is perception of an individual himself that influences his/her world. Our emotions and thought processes play an impactful role in deciding how we choose to perceive an object or an abstract notion, that remains constant. It's this difference in perception that has made our world more exciting and vibrant; by creating a multitudes of cultures, languages, value systems, etc. that have explored our planet from divergent points of view.
Colours are like love and art, they are abstract and do not really “exist on their own” but depend on the individual who perceives and experiences them. Hence colours, like art and love, add the beauty of subjectivity to a world run by objective processes.
Different colours appear because of the absorption of the objects surface and the reflection of it depending on the wavelengths transmitted. For example, a red shirt looks red because of the dye molecules in the fabric absorb the blue/violet wavelengths of the light. Red light is the only light is reflected from the shirt. However, if blue light as shone on the shirt it would absorb all the light, making the shirt appear black as there is no red light being reflected by the shirt.
Similarly, the walls colours appears to change colour when the light is switched off because the colours reflected from the surface of the wall changes. This explains why the reflected colours perceived by our eyes allow us to see a different colour, while the property of the wall doesn’t change therefore there is no actual physical change in the colour of the wall but only in our perception.
Colour does not have an independent physical existence. The perception of colour – which can be highly subjective - is only made possible due to the existence of light. Therefore, it almost goes without saying that the way in which we perceive the colour of an object will change according to the type, quality and quantity of the source of light it is subjected to, and the light reflected off adjacent surfaces.
This phenomenon underlies the disappointment caused when a shade of paint that looked so perfect at the store goes “off” when applied to the walls of a room. It is a concept known as metamerism: a phenomenon that occurs where colors change when viewed in different light conditions. Subsequently, if colors do, in fact, change in relation to changes in light, then the color of your walls do change when you switch off the lights as well.
Colour, as we see it, is the labelling of different wavelengths of the the electromagnetic spectrum by our brains and thus do not actually exist. The reason we see these particular wavelengths and not the others is merely due to the fact that the spectrum of light passing through the atmosphere peaks at around the green wavelengths. This is also why humans can distinguish more shades of green than any other colour.
What gives an object a particular colour is how it absorbs and reflects light depending on its chemical composition. So when the lights in my room are turned off, the chemical composition of the wall stays the same and so the “colour” of the wall does not change.
What does change, however, is our perception of the colour of the wall as it appears to turn black when the lights are switched off. This, to me, is not a valid argument because our perception is intrinsically flawed and one might as well say that an object disappears when we look away from it since we don't see it.
To conclude, no, the colour of the wall does not change simply due to the fact that the composition of the wall remains unchanged.
We are able to distinguish colors from interpreting the different frequencies of the light they reflect. Thereby my perception of the color of the wall is always subjective. In fact different people and species interpret the same frequency of light differently since the process of identifying a color depends on the brain's response to light reacting with the several types of cone cells in the eye. But this can be seen as irrelevant since the question is whether my perception of the color of the wall changes, and since my brain still uses the same mechanism and i still have the same cone cells this bias is removed. But when the "color" of any object is due to the colors absorbed and reflected by that object, so if my wall is blue this means that when I shine a stream of light on it all the frequencies of visible light are absorbed except for the frequency of the blue light, this is why i see it as being blue, but when the lights are closed I am no longer shining a continuous spectrum of light on it and it no longer reflect light with the frequency that my eye would recognize as blue. So it does change colors
Physically considering this situation, the colours of the walls remain the same, however, referring to optical facts: we as human beings require light to see colour, and if there's an absence of light, undoubtedly colour will cease to exist. Light is absorbed and reflected, the light that is reflected, is the colour that our eyes catch, thus causing our sight to be different according to the intensity of the light.
When the lights of a room are switched off, it is not possible for the walls to change colour immediately, our eyes adjust to the lack of light, and we begin to see a new shade of the color, or an entirely differently hue altogether. Like an artist's palette the light transforms the colour into something new.
The colors of the wall will always remain the constant, they will not change if the lights have been turned off.
Our walls will look dark and those matte white walls will start to look darker, it's not the color of the walls changing it's the way we perceive the color of the walls from our eyes.
In the dark, our eyes work differently. Our pupils start to expand for the main purpose to accept more light into the eyes. It takes a few minutes for our eyes to get adjusted and when they do, we see things differently. Things that seemed bright now seem to turn darker and start moving towards hues of purple and blue.
A person's perception of colors is a subjective process whereby the brain responds to the stimuli that are produced when incoming light reacts with the several types of cone cells in the eye. In essence, different people see the same illuminated object or light source in different ways. Like, the fascinating trend which was a viral phenomenon, I'm talking about the dress, which many viewed as White and Golden, whereas many others as Black and Blue. Some also saw it as Blue and Brown! Although the dress was originally Blue and Black. This significantly shows how COLOR PERCEPTION varies and how confound it can get. Now we know that the concept of 'color' is extremely objective. The green i see would not be the same no matter how meticulous you are or how good a vision you have. Though the green objects' form/structure/conformation/fabric is unchanged. Thus the colors of my bedroom wall would change to a shade of yellow when i turn turn off the lights to a shade of black (based on the wavelengths or frequencies of any remaining light they reflect, emit, or transmit) from EYE (not the walls' composition) though you know surely that the second you turn your lights back on you see yellow with little red stars.
The actual/real colour of the wall remains unchanged as the lights go on and off, only our view/perception of it does. The colour can’t realistically change however; the color seems to appear darker as the lights go out, because of the way light and eyesight work.
So what can determine if color changes, is what we hold more accountable, physical change or perception, to add to this, lets consider the fact that without any light there would be no color to begin with.
The idea that without the presence of light, there would be no color, impacts our view of the situation. Since light determines if at all there is a colour one may argue that if there is less light, the colour itself does change.
This question delves deep into the human perception of colour, as well as the true definition of colour.
In physics, colour is the he property possessed by an object of producing different sensations on the eye as a result of the way it reflects or emits light. Therefore an orange appears orange because in white light, the orange reflects the orange part of the white light. If a differently coloured light shines on the orange, then the orange would be a different colour. The same applies in the case of the room.
If a blue light was shining onto a yellow wall, it would or could be perceived as slightly green.
But if all light is gone from the room, then, logically, there is no colour at all since colour is just the reflection of light at a particular frequency.
But human perception also comes into play here. When we believe something to be true, it is very difficult to change. My wall is blue and with or without light, I will continue to perceive to be blue, and so it is blue, to my perception.
Colour is defined as “the property possessed by an object of producing different sensations on the eye as a result of the way it reflects or emits light”. By using one of our main senses of sight we are able to interpret and analyse this colour so it is stored into our brain.
When observing a wall your eyes will create an image for you in order to truly be able to see the wall’s colours, in plain daylight you might see it as an off-white colour, yet at night the colour shifts a darker, greyer tone – why is this? The actual shade of the wall has not been changed as there is no physical component that has been altered or tampered with yet due to the limiting reflection of light we interpret it as darker.
The perceived and observed colour is changed depending on the circumstances but this is not reflective of the true nature of it, there is no change in the wavelength or frequency emitted meaning that there is no empirical evidence to suggest that the wall has changed. It has been proved time and time again that our senses are untrustworthy and can manipulate us, therefore it is not within the realms of possibility to believe that the walls have changed colours due to the simple action of turning off the lights.
Color is the property possessed by an object of producing different sensations on the eye as a result of the way it reflects or emits light.
Newton observed that color is not an inherent property in objects. The visible spectrum of light to humans comprises of different colored lights of different wavelengths. The color of an object greatly depends on its surface. The surface absorbs certain wavelength of light while it reflects the other. We perceive only the color of the reflected rays of light that reach our eyes. Light receptors within the eye transmit messages to the brain, which produces the familiar sensations of color. Thus, red is not "in" an apple. The surface of the apple is reflecting the light we see as red and absorbing all the other colors. An object appears white when it reflects all wavelengths and black when it absorbs them all.
The eye and the brain work together to convert the light received to colors we can understand. The retina is covered by millions of light-sensitive cells, some shaped like rods and some like cones. The difference between them is that the rods allow us to see in very dim light but are incapable of perceiving color, while the cones let us see color but they don’t work in dim light. When it gets dark the cones lose their ability to respond to light. The rods continue to respond to the dim light, but since they cannot see color, everything appears to be various shades of black and white and gray.
Since color is only a matter of how our eye receives and processes light, when the room is dark, the color of the walls do change.
Colour only exists in our heads. Certain electromagnetic waves enter our eyes then our brains assign colours to them according to their wavelengths. Basically, colour is just our brains' way of differentiating between different electromagnetic waves.
The thing is, we cannot see all electromagnetic waves. We can only see those with wavelengths approximately between 400 and 750 nanometers. And even those two values are not standard amongst everyone. Each person's minimum and maximum visible wavelength values vary slightly. For example, my minimum wavelength value might be 399.5 nanometers, but yours might be 400.5. So in theory, the colours I see are (ever so slightly) different than the ones you see.
Now to understand why certain objects have colour, I will use my green walls as an example. When light falls on them, they reflect only the waves with wavelengths that correspond to the colour green in our brains and absorb the rest.
Therefore, my walls merely decide what kind of waves enter our eyes, and our brains decide the colour of those waves. So technically, the walls decide what colour they are. But as I have mentioned above, I see colours slightly differently than you do. So really the walls cannot convince our brains what EXACTLY their own colours are. So maybe the walls really do not decide what colour they are?
So whether the colour of your walls changes when you turn off the lights or not really depends on whether you think:
1) Our brains decide what colour the walls are. Therefore, walls DO change colour when the lights are turned off since the colour of the walls is relative to our brain's perception of it.
2) The slight variation between each person's visible wavelength range is negligible and the walls decide what colour they want to be. Therefore, the colour of the walls DOES NOT change when the light is turned off.
I personally agree with the first statement.
Color is a wonderful invention of the brain. Different frequencies of light enter our eyes, and color is produced. The type of light reflected from the wall depends on the physical characteristics of the wall itself.
What I understand is, when the room is dark, the “color” is dimmed but not changed. This leads to the rods taking over,sending signals from the retina to the brain. If we follow this line of thought, we can conclude that the color of the wall does not change, it is our perception of the wall that changes.
The color of the wall in itself does not change, there is no physical transformation of the wall when the lights are off. If we painted the wall white, when the lights are turned off, the wall will still be white.
However to our eyes it might seem as if it changes, and this is due to frequencies that come into our eyes to detect color. Therefore, yes to our eyes the colour on the wall has changed.
Since color is something created by our brains and our eyes, therefore it is a question of perspective. Physically the color does not change but from our perspective and with our eyes we can believe the wall changes color or dimes.
What is light? ‘the natural agent that stimulates sight and makes things visible.’
What is colour? ‘the property possessed by an object of producing different sensations on the eye as a result of the way it reflects or emits light.’
So simply, as it is defined as the ‘agent that stimulates sight’, when it is absent we are plunged into the darkness. It doesn’t mean that my walls immediately turned black (unless we possess very high tech walls with a circuit system inside to switch colors along with the change of the light switch).
Unless and until I keep shining the same type of light on my wall, its color would remain the same, but if I change the colour of the light then the colour of the wall would differ as well. Wouldn’t it?
In conclusion, no, the colour of the walls, or any other piece of furniture in my room for that matter, does not change color as the lights go off. The source of light is cut off hence no reflection of wavelengths occur and no ‘colour’ reaches our eyes.
To define colour in simple words, it is your brain's perception of the wavelengths of light that enter your eyes. Different wavelengths are percieved as different colours and it is said that perception of colour is unique from person to person. That being said, it is evident that for a person to see colour, there must be some wavelength of visible light entering their eyes; the absence of which would result in what we know as darkness.
So if we were to swtich off the lights in a room, no light would reflect off the walls and enter your eyes, therefore, you would not see any colour. But does that mean that the colour of the wall changes or fails to exist? No, I believe that it doesn’t. This is because in darkness, there is no way to see colour as the very thing that causes us to see it (light) is completely missing. However, if the light source were to change; i.e. not white light or dim light, this could possibly alter our perception of the colour of the wall.
For these reasons, I believe that the colours of the wall do not change when the lights are switched off.
From incessant switching on and off the bedroom lights as a child, I have learnt that the colour does not magically change; but I noticed that when the lights are out the walls appear darker, and I chalked this down to the way eyes perceive light and shades. The definite colour of the wall does not change as the lights go on and off, only the view/perception of it changes.
This leads me the question of how humans determine colour changes, it is sense perception; what we find tangible, changes we can perceive. Now continuing the previous train of thought, without any light, there would not be any colour to see in the first place. This revelation directly impacts my perspective on this question; because if light determines if there is acolour I may argue that the colour is dependent on the intensity of the light.
Colours are different to each viewer, as proven in a 2012 Daily Mail article featuring Colour Vision scientist Jay Neitz from the University of Washington.Even if we may look at a Red Ferrari with a friend, indeed we would agree that the car is red, however, what we both won't be able to describe it, the shade, the hue of the colour red would be different maybe not by much, but possibly even by the smallest HEX unit. Therefore, even though an object might be a certain colour, we call it by the colour we see it as (Throwback to the black/blue gold/white dress). So it really depends on the viewer. At first thought, it would seem that it has changed as we say that the colours of the object are the colours we perceive it to be eg. A colour blind person calling something red, yellow. However, with thought, it would come to pass that the wall hasn't exactly changed colour but the light reflecting it has changed.
This scenario would be the perfect example of subjectivity vs objectivity. Since the confusion with "the dress" we all have pretty much understood that everyone perceives color differently because of certain biological traits. So even when the wall is not dark, my friend and I may disagree on the color (or shade) of my wall. Objectively, however, the color of my wall will stay the same no matter what and I can test it through tristimulus colorimetry. Surprisingly, when the room is absolutely dark (presuming that no light gets in at all) both my friend and I will agree that my walls are colored black.
Vision is merely when your brain processes images of your surroundings based on the amount and type of light entering your eyes. When the lights of my room are switched off, there is no light entering my eyes, and hence I cannot process any images. But does that mean that the objects are not there? Or that their properties have changed simply because I cannot process the image? Another example would be if we were to shine, for instance, yellow light upon some objects. My brain would process the colour of those objects differently than the original colour due to the way reflection of light works. Does that mean that the initially red book is now orange or brown? No, it remains red, because my ability to process the image does not affect the object's actual property. Hence, when I switch of the lights in my room, my brain processes a different colour because of the lack of light, but the wall's colour, its physical appearance, remains the same.
Darkness is simply known as the absence of light. Therefore when we do take away light i.e. turn off the lights we bring in darkness. Therefore even though the colors exist there is no way for us to perceive what we call color.
Color is subjective just because it was a concept created by us humans, we were able to perceive and differentiate between different wavelengths of light. It also brings to light (no pun intended) the fact that being able to even recognize colors as off the light spectrum is something that is somewhat unique to us humans.
Back to the question of whether or not the colors stay the same , the colors stay the same due to the fact just because we cannot perceive something doesn't mean it doesn't exist. The colors do exist it is just that since we cannot see due to the lack of light that we are unable to see it, however that does not take away it's presence. Even thought light is required to bounce off the colors to project the colors into our eyes, a color does not stop being a color just because of the absence of light.
No. The colour is the same, our perception of it has changed. A dark room is not a room that is all black, it is a room of many colours but no light rays bouncing around and reflecting back to your eyes. This is to say, if we turn our back on something and can no longer see its colour, is it colourless? Of course not, it is just that we can not see the colour at that given moment.
When you switch your room lights off do the colours of your wall change?
Let us start by defining all the key points of the prompt. To turn of the room lights would mean to cut of the source of the photons of light that bounce off the walls and into our retina at a particular frequency and wavelength that we detect as a certain 'color'. Darkness, however, is the lack of light. Our eyes receive no feedback and 'black' is the color when no light reaches our eyes. Therefore, the 'colour' of the walls would change when we turn off the light in a room but the properties of the wall wouldn't. The wall would still absorb a certain wavelength of light and the others that are bounced out mix together all the same. Drawing to a conclusion from this, the answer to whether the color of the wall changes or not solely depends on what we define as color.
As always, the imperative is to define the various terms. A color, to begin with, is either the property of an object to reflect light in such a manner that it produces a particular sensation on the eye, unique to its particular brand of ‘color’, or the sensation itself. Thus, the existence of both a colored object and an observer are contingent to both the existence and observation of color. This raises the somewhat tangential question of whether an observer is necessary to establish the mere existence of color but, like most questions, it’s a matter of definition; your answer depends on whether you consider the sensation, the property, or both to be the color.
Thus defined, with the nuances somewhat adequately explored, let us examine what it would mean for the color to ‘change’ as a result of an absence of light. Insofar as color is a sensation, it necessarily follows that this sensation must somehow be changed, regardless of its physical reality as a property, for the answer to be an affirmative. Concerning light as a property, it must be seen whether the property itself is changed in the absence of light. The color of the light itself must remain consistent and, to yield the most sensible answer, a sterile white as the color white is a composite of all other colors.
Now, to approach this question with as much experimental integrity as can be mustered by a high school student from the comfort of a keyboard, it is left to apply controls; taking into account the possible variability of the sensation of light between observers, the observer must be kept the same. Considering that color is necessarily dependent on the wall’s property it, too, should be consistent.
From the position that color is a sensation it’s fairly evident that, the sensation having changed, the color can also be said to have changed. For instance, in a room with walls that one would perceive to be ‘blue’, turning off the lights would result in the perception of ‘black’ or something comparably dark, the conclusion here being that the color has, indeed, changed. As far as light exists as a physical property, though, the answer is a very solid no.
However, let’s begin removing the various controls (insofar as it remains sensible) rather than switching off the light and see what the result becomes. To start with, let’s change the observer; it is commonly asserted, due to either an inability of science to establish whether the perception of a color remains constant from brain to brain, or the minor differences in the positioning and size of the range of an individual’s ability to perceive color on the electromagnetic spectrum, that color is subjective and, thus, a qualia. If this premise is valid, the conclusion then is that – when changing observers – while the fact that the color perceived changes when light is removed, it also potentially changes between observers. Next, let’s change the color of the light, ceteris paribus: a wall that is white under white light will become orange under orange light. The conclusion is the same as the previous one; changing the light does not affect the physical property of the object, but affects the kind of light that is reflected into the eye of the observer thus, again, changing the color of the light.
The overall conclusion to this entire exploration being that, while the property of an object that affects how light is reflected to produce the sensation of color does not change and – with a singular observer and consistent lighting – is entirely contingent on it, if either of these factors are changed, the perceived color could very easily change.
Colour is the property possessed by an object of producing different sensations on the eye as a result of the way it reflects or emits light. The visible color spectrum, what we know as the rainbow (RGBIV), encompasses light wavelengths from approximately 380 to 720 nanometers and breaks down into three primary colors: red, green, and blue. Our eyes contain three kinds of nerve cells that respond to different wavelengths of light, red, blue, and green, plus a fourth kind that responds to all wavelengths, and a fifth that responds to motion. We don't have a nerve cell for yellow. Yellow light triggers both the red and the green cells together, and our brain interprets that as yellow.
As strange as it sounds, objects themselves don’t have color. They have properties that determine which wavelengths of light are absorbed, and which are reflected. It is the mixture of the reflected light that enters our eyes and gives us the perception of color. White means that all the visible spectrum was reflected. Black means all of it was absorbed, that is, it was neither reflected nor did it pass through. The true "absence of color" is black. Black is not a color, it is a either an absence of light (hence, no color), or a pigment (ink) that absorbs all light and doesn't reflect any back (hence, no color).
Think about a red car sitting under a streetlight. All of the colors from the halogen light are shining on it, yet we only see red. That’s because the car’s paint is absorbing the green and blue rays of the white light and reflecting the red. When you look at the car, your retina receives the reflected red light and sends a message to the brain: This car is red. The car definitely looks red under noon daylight, but appears bluer under the night sky, and more yellow under fluorescent and horizon sunlight; but without a point of reference, they all just look red.
That’s because our eyes tend to capture the brightest part of the scene, call it white, and judge all other colors relative to this “bright-level.” Different people pick up on different visual cues, which changes how we interpret and perceive colors. This is really important to understand in industries where color, and color perception, are crucial.
If you get a magnifying glass and look at a white area of your computer screen, or put a droplet of water on it, you'll see that it's not actually white at all. It's made up of dots that are red, blue, and green in a triangular pattern. But because they are so small, they run together and your brain interprets them as white. If you again look at your computer screen with a magnifying glass in the black areas, you will see that all the red, blue, and green dots are turned off.
Therefore when we do take away light i.e. turn off the lights we bring in darkness. So, even though the colors exist there is no way for us to perceive what we call color in the absence of light. Therefore, colours don’t change as their wavelengths don’t change.
When switching of your lights of your room, the colours of the wall don’t change as this is just a fact of an absence of a light and not the actual color of the walls of the room changing. The absence of light makes it seem like the colors of your walls are changing, alothugh if you were to turn the light back on – the colors ouf the wall should still be the same. Another side you can debate is that when switching off the light of the room – the vision that is perceived is still a color change therefore you can say the colors of the wall have changed according to one person’s vision but the actual color of the wall hasn’t been altered by someone else but rather of just that particular individual’s eyesight. In conclusion, the actual colors of the wall haven’t been changed but if talking in terms of an individual’s vision – the color of the wall has been changed only to a single individual.
I think this is an interesting question, partly because we tend to think of color as an inherent property of something, like its mass or charge. However, color actually exists solely in our minds. Several properties of an object can affect its color, like its material and physical structure, but the color is also affected by the source of light it is illuminated by. So when you turn off the light, you remove the color from the walls.
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