Orange

“Is the color orange that you see the same as the color orange I see?”
This is a deeper question than you might think. I mean, here we are, both looking at the same orange object. My brain interprets what my eyes send it, and yours does the same. We both agree the object is orange.
But is what you experience the same as what I experience, as we both view this object?
Maybe what I experience is what you would think of as a different color – but since we both agree it is orange, that’s what we call it – because we’ve been taught that this particular color is orange.
Frankly, there’s no way to know. Humans are forever separated by this divide – that one person cannot directly experience what another experiences.
Oddly enough, I do have empirical evidence that what you see is, indeed, probably not what I see, even though we agree it is orange.
When I had my lens replacements due to cataract surgery, the surgery on my left eye was done the month before the surgery on my right eye. During that month, I could look at any object, and depending on which eye I had open, I would see it in different colors. For years I had thought I worked in an office with dingy yellow walls; turns out they are a nice off-white color. I think.
There’s a lesson here somewhere. We need to remember that two people can be side-by-side, go through the same experience together, and still have different experiences.
Something to think about.
-Popgun

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