Colors (blind MC)

No. A blind from birth person has no concept of colour. They cannot know what it is. Their eyes cannot see in the same way that your toes cannot see.

Why is it so necessary anyway? Blind people experience the world in their own ways. Through all the other senses. Why are you so insistent on the necessity of colour?

shelley said:

Can't it be about imagination and not only experience?

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The problem - which Hume put his finger on many years ago - is that certain ideas come only from experience. Visual things like colour can only be imagined if you have some sort of visual experience of them.

There's a similar philosophical conundrum - Molyneux's problem - about shape. Have a look at the wiki article, and also the one for Recovery from blindness. We do have some evidence to suggest that experience is necessary.

Coming at it from a slightly different angle, Thomas Nagel once asked "What is it like to be a bat?" - with the extra sense of echolocation? Or indeed a shark, which has an organ that senses electrical activity around it, so that it can home in on living prey? We can't imagine these sensory phenomena.

ETA: Occurs to me: is anyone round here colourblind? Because that would be a very pertinent perspective.

EATA: I do love Wikipedia. Discovering that Molyneux's problem was anticipated by one of these Muslim scholar guys who seem to have anticipated everything 500 years before we did, Ibn Tufail. Although I note his hypothesis was contrary to Molyneux, Locke or Hume and probably wrong, so unfortunately, in this case at least, way Tufail, Ibn!

Shelley, if it's important to the story, why not write it so the blind character did have sight initially (early childhood) but lost that sight early in life. That way you could use a limited concept of color that would have to be re-discovered or honed. It might still serve the story's needs.

It's not about romantic or soul. It's about understanding and compassion how people are different. Some people simply are born without the concept of colors, or have any use for them. We all learned about shapes, colors, etc. visually as babies, because we can see. Blind people can't see. They can only feel for the shapes, sizes, textures, etc. but can't FEEL colors. It's not something you can feel. Hot does not mean red. It means hot. "Red" has no meaning to them in that context. In any context. Jalapeno pepper is hot. An iron is hot. The gas flame is hot. None of these are red. If you say an apple is red, and the sun is red, they'd say, "So? Is there a correlation? What does it matter to me?" I'm not sure how you can imagine it if you've never even seen something. It'd be like me explaining wormhole if you'd never known what a worm or a hole is, let alone how time and space and light bend... if you have never known what time, space, and light are.

Blind people can't see or know what colors are. Deaf people can't hear tones. Why would we insist on them to "get it" or "try to understand"? It'd be like insisting on a child to understand sex. They have no experience of it, no use of it, no meaning at all.

The love interest of my MC is blind, but not from birth. Several chapters are written from this blind man's POV - funny thing is, most bèta readers only realize afterward that those chapters lack visual cues...

Even though my blind man knows about colors, he's likes his clothes to be black/grey/white, so he won't wear clashing colors and look like a clown. The only other color he wears is the indigo blue martial arts uniform that all other students wear...

shelley said:

Thank you all for your replies. Every single POV is very interesting and it helps a lot.
As for the ones who asked me why I'm so insistent, it's just because of the story. It's important just because of that, and since I started something I am kind of stubborn -I want to finish it, in every believable way possible.
I don't want someone to read it & say "Yeah right, like that can ever happen!".
That's all!

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The trouble is, because you're so insistent that this is the story and you cannot deviate from the path, people are going to read it and think "yeah, right". You're not willing to change the story to make it more believable.

And it does go beyond believability. What you're saying is very ableist. You're basically saying that being able to see is the one true way, and anyone who can't has a hole in their soul. I don't expect you want blind readers to wall-bang your book.

&Deity; forgive me, I find the idea of blind readers throwing books they don't like across the room hilarious. Do blind readers comprise a significant slice of the book-buying-audience pie?

-Derek

FWIW, I have a friend who's been blind essentially from birth. Eye cancer, one removed at six months of age, the other a year later. He has no memories whatsoever of colour.

As has been pointed out, colour has no experiential meaning to him. The names of colours are just words at his personal experiential level.

He, like virtually all blind people, has memorised colour stuff. He knows he shouldn't wear colours that don't go together. (His clothes are labeled so he knows what colour an item is.) He knows the sky is blue and grass is green, and so on.

He's also a writer, so he has also memorised what colours mean to sighted people. His writing is full of colour imagery. But it's all imagery that he's learned essentially by rote, without experiencing it.

And if you want to write about someone who's been completely blind from birth, you have to remember that: they simply have NO experience of colour and it has no direct meaning to them. It's just memorisation of how to use the words.

It's much like someone who has learned how to sound out words properly in a foreign language but doesn't actually know what the words mean.

For example, when I was a kid, we sang a Christmas carol in Latin. The choir director coached us on how to pronouce each word. I can still, (mumble) years later, sing and say some of the lines from that song, but they're just sounds...I don't know what the words mean.

Similarly, I took Spanish in high school (mumble) years ago. Spanish happens to be a language, unlike English, with very firm pronounciation rules. I can read Spanish text aloud perfectly. I've even been told I have a good accent! But the words have absolutely no meaning to me, because I've forgotten virtually all the vocabulary.

That's what colour is to someone blind from birth: words they learn how to use -- can even use with a high degree of elegance -- but have no experiential meaning to them.

shelley said:

And if I've posted anything that insults someone, please let me know.

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I don't think you have. You're on the internet -- you're going to get all kinds of opinions from all kinds of people. Use whatever you find useful, and ignore the rest.

-Derek

I'm sure there will be people who will complain about my blind MC playing a whole game of wei-gi/go in his head, or practising aikido and iai-jutsu.

The echolocation thing is a good analogy, Torgo. When I picture being a bat or a dolphin, I imagine sending out sounds and interpreting the sounds I get back. In fact, the best I can imagine is getting pictures from the sounds.

But that's not how sight works, and probably not how other senses work either. We say that we "see the yellow chair," not that we "see from the light waves bouncing off it that there's an obstacle in the path shaped like a chair and absorbing all light except that of certain wave lengths." Animals that function through sound may have equally strong pictures/images/songs, so they "hear the chair." But I can't really imagine it.

And if certain sound-waves bounce in certain ways, with aesthetic results, the best the dolphin could say to me would be, "When I hear this kind of coral, I get all happy inside."

Jamesaritchie said:

You can't describe color, or even the concept of sight, to someone who has been blind from birth.

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People do it all the damn time. Whether or not the visually disabled person wants to hear it.

There's no point in describing data to someone to doesn't have the receptors for that data; it's annoying and obnoxious, because mostly, it's useless data.

You can provide data about the emotional associations, and sometimes, that's useful, but mostly?

It's just annoying.

dpaterso said:

&Deity; forgive me, I find the idea of blind readers throwing books they don't like across the room hilarious. Do blind readers comprise a significant slice of the book-buying-audience pie?

-Derek

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We are legion.

I'm on the high end of the vision spectrum, though two years ago I finally smacked into the legally blind area.

But as Admin, I know we have a lot of users on the opposite end of the spectrum. For the visually disabled, the Internet can be fabulous, because it is still mostly a domain of text--and text can be translated to sound, or to braille.

And blind readers use audio books, as well as text-based ebooks with adaptive tech.

I suspect people would be surprised if they knew how many blind authors and programmers there are.

And how many are here, on AW.

shelley said:

Referring to what I say as "ableist" really insults me.

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Except it's not an insult; it's an accurate description.

You are making ableist assumptions. It's ok; you didn't know any better, but you're making assumptions that are hurtful, and inaccurate.

Medievalist said:

There's no point in describing data to someone to doesn't have the receptors for that data; it's annoying and obnoxious, because mostly, it's useless data.

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Exactly what I said but you said it so much better with so fewer words.

Bravo!

dpaterso said:

&Deity; forgive me, I find the idea of blind readers throwing books they don't like across the room hilarious. Do blind readers comprise a significant slice of the book-buying-audience pie?

-Derek

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Braille books are limited but growing, as are audio books. A blind person reads more than they watch movies, or play video games, think about it...

Torgo said:

ETA: Occurs to me: is anyone round here colourblind? Because that would be a very pertinent perspective.

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Why yes I am!
I am colour blind and I am an artist.

This is the form of colour blindness I have (there are several different kinds) from Wikipedia

Deuteranomaly (most common — 6% of males, 0.4% of females):[19] Having a mutated form of the medium-wavelength (green) pigment. The medium-wavelength pigment is shifted towards the red end of the spectrum resulting in a reduction in sensitivity to the green area of the spectrum. Unlike protanomaly the intensity of colors is unchanged. This is the most common form of color blindness, making up about 6% of the male population. The deuteranomalous person is considered "green weak". For example, in the evening, dark green cars appear to be black to Deuteranomalous people. Similar to the protanomates, deuteranomates are poor at discriminating small differences in hues in the red, orange, yellow, green region of the spectrum. They make errors in the naming of hues in this region because the hues appear somewhat shifted towards red. One very important difference between deuteranomalous individuals and protanomalous individuals is deuteranomalous individuals do not have the loss of "brightness" problem.

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Here's a rant about it:

The number one most infuriating question I recieve is "What colour does this look to you?" Usually it's something that is red or green. - I know a pine tree is green, if someone asks me what colour it is I will say green. Then they accuse me of lying.
If it's something ambiguous, I say -I don't know, or something wrong (I mistake green for purple on occasion) Then they usually laugh at me. - hahhaha you can't tell this shirt is green. I'm so glad I could amuse you.

Next irritating question - "What does red look like to you?" There is no way to answer that question. Red to me looks like stop signs? I know they are red. I don't know what you see. I usually just reply with- "What does red look like to you?" And they get confused and drop the subject.

A simple question people ask is - if you can't tell red and green apart, how do you drive?
Simple- Every street light in the provinces I drive in has red on top and green on the bottom.
The sideways ones, I think are red on the left and green on the right. If I were driving in a place where that was relevant I would double check.

There are lots of fun assumptions about colour blindness.
I do not see in black and white.
Objects that are red are not invisible to me. I cannot see through red walls (yes people have asked me this.)

People also don't realize how unnecessary colour is to vision. If you take a picture of a red hat on a green background and remove the color- you can still see the hat unless the tones are exactly the same. Even if the tones are similar if one is smooth and the other is rough you can see the difference.
That's the trick with colour blindness tests, all the dots are tonally exactly the same, it's just the colour that's different. I can't tell the orange dots from the green dots so I can't see the number.
If it was an orange felt number on a flat green surface I could see it.
If it was a light orange on a dark green I could see that too.

If I go shopping I bring a friend. I only buy blue and black pants. My shoes are black. That way I don't go out looking like a crazy clown lady.

At the end of the day I don't miss the colours I don't see. I have never seen them. My vision has always been this way, and nothing looks odd to me.
I have always wanted to see from another person's eyes before, but in conversation it has been impossible for them to describe theirs to me. Though they do have a fun time trying. (They are always the ones to ask. I never have.)
A stop sign is a good example.
They say- red is like a stop sign.
Well I see stop signs. I knew it was red before we had the conversation. I can't see it harder, see it better?

Pink and Orange are the same- I don't care what all you people say! If someone shows me something that is pink or orange I make an educated guess and I'm usually right.

If someone asks me what colour their orange is, I punch them in the face.

Personally I despise when people ask me 'how I see' or try to help me figure colours out. I will never ever see the same way other people do.

Colour blindness is considered a disability. I cannot get a job as a pilot, driving trains, many forms of engineering.
Electrical work is dangerous and I am terrible for picking good bananas.
I have trouble with games and software text regularly and my computer is set up to compensate for that.

Colorblindness is very common within both branches of my family.
On my father's side, it's almost like a badge of honour. His philosophy is we're right and everyone else is wrong. (he doesn't care that we're out numbered)
Fun fact- camouflage doesn't work as well on colour blind people. I have an great uncle who was used as a scout in the army because camo just didn't work on him.
I havn't had a chance to test myself on that game, but would like to try...

/End rant


As to the original question

How would you describe colors to a blind person?
Bottom line, I don't see red or green correctly. This is how it usually goes.

"My shirt is green," they say.
"I mistake green and brown. Sometimes green and purple."
"Well, it's like grass."
"Yes, I know grass is green. Again, green and brown often look the same. How is green different from brown?"
Followed by a long pause. Perhaps more props will help.
"It's greener. These leaves are green, this tree trunk is brown."
"I know leaves are green. I cannot distinguish it from this brown colour here." I point to a fence the same tone as the leaves.
"Well it's just greener. Brown, I guess is redder."
"I have trouble with red. Orange and pink are the same thing."
"No pink is redder."
"I don't know what red is. How can I know what redder is?"

/continuous loop forever.

The visible spectrum is a tiny sliver of the complete light spectrum. Far more colors than we can imagine. Can you describe how ultra-violet, x-rays and gamma rays look? It's light, but we're blind to it, in the most literal sense. I have known one person who could see slightly into the ultra-violet spectrum, but never met anyone who can see X-rays. And we can't take terms like ultra-violet to mean shades of violet. Yellow and blue could both be described as ultra-red. Can you imagine someone trying to describe how colors beyond the visible spectrum look to you? Can you imagine the color of radio waves?

Someone asked about how the blind dreamed. Well, there are plenty of senses in my dreams besides sight. Some blind people like Stevie Wonder, who saw for the first few years may dream in sight, I imagine those blind from birth, dream in sound, temperature, touch etc.

The best thing would be to contact your local blind school. I'm sure that they would be glad to help you, in order that you get it right.

I don't know how relevant this is.

I met a girl who was born blind.(no eyes). She is an incredible pianist and singer. One of the things she does is divides singing voices into 'silver' and 'gold'. Silver voices, to her, are singers like Trisha Yearwood' who have very clean, clear voices whereas gold voices are warmer and throatier. I hope my description makes sense! I found the concept interesting and I wish I'd asked her how her music teacher came up with those two distinctions.

But, yeah, if a person has been blind from birth, they have other ways of perceiving the world around them and colors really are unimportant.

shelley said:

Also, I have a customer where I work that is blind. He mentioned, one time we were talking that he was very curious about colors. That's how I got my idea.

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This doesn't surprise me one bit. Folks may be obnoxious 99.9% of the time by assuming what disabled folks probably want, but that doesn't stop disabled folks from being extremely varied in how they feel about things

So, if you have a blind character who is curious and wants to hear a good attempt at the same feeling as color? I do think the taste/temperature ones are the best bet, imho. I've never done it with anyone, so I don't know that it works for them. Maybe you could use your customer as the literal model for your charcter. See if he wants to discuss it more?

On the general subject of color and meaning, I always feel like I should feel more things about the rainbow being in the order it is. Like green should feel so different than orange, for example. Yet, my real feelings about color are very attached to experiences with them. I always 'mess up' on those cultural associations with color. Younger I'd never have chosen saffron robes for religion, for instance Now I would, after smelling the incense and tasting the spices from those regions. It is interesting, I think.

Rhubix said:

If someone asks me what colour their orange is, I punch them in the face.

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