The "colors", black and white.

[Vinylic.]

DDoS is no longer a problem for now, so I will do the honors of starting the fire again for the Smash Debate hall, weak or strong, interesting or dull, this is my question.

Are the colors black and white really colors? Whether yes or no, why?
Why would people call them a color, rather than others just saying it is as a short term?

 

[Xivii]

They are colors because they come in a crayon box.

 

[Dr. James Rustles]

Are the colors black and white really colors? Whether yes or no, why?
Why would people call them a color, rather than others just saying it is as a short term?

I assume you mean white isn't a color because it's a convergence of colors and that black isn't a color because it's the absence of color. If white isn't a color because it is a convergence of colors, then we need to accept that there are only three principle colors (at least in humans as trichromacy) and what we understand as colors like orange and purple are convergences of other colors like white. We'd essentially have to define color only as the number of visual receptor channels that an organism has for energy wavelengths. From the point of view of an organism's biology, then this might be true, but for practical purposes it isn't. There isn't much point in distinguishing the colors of our principle color channels from color derivatives.

 

[Kewkky]

Colors are essentially a definition of the different hues a person picks up while looking at anything. Depending on the purpose of the message you're trying to convey, you can argue whether orange is a color, or part of the electromagnetic spectrum our eyes can pick up, or a mix of red and yellow paint, or a mix of 2 parts red light:1 part green light... You could even argue it's not a color because it's not part of the primary additive OR substractive colors, and is instead a mix in both categories, which means you're actually seeing two colors at once, not one. One could also argue that there are more colors than what we have the ability to see, but since our eyes can only pick up mixes of red/green/blue, we will never know what they look like.

Black and white is the same argument. I think that in order to make life easier, like I said at first, color should just be defined as the different hues a person picks up while looking at anything. Whether it's a light purple or a medium purple, both are their own colors, and so are black and white.

 

[AfungusAmongus]

We do have "color" vs. "greyscale a.k.a black-and-white" movies, photos, etc. and in that sense an artistic medium that contains only shades of grey (mixtures of black and white) is NOT colored. In a racial sense the term "colored" used to mean "nonwhite", and so a white person was NOT colored (while a black person was colored).

Kewkky raises a good point: any combination of primary colors (for example orange) is itself a color. Black and white are combinations of primary colors, therefore they are colors themselves. I take this as the normal usage of color.

However, in the visible spectrum, each color has a narrow range of wavelengths (orange is 590-620 nm). Black and white do not have a range of wavelengths, so they are not part of the spectrum. Black and white are not spectral colors.

 

[Theftz22]

AfungusAmongus...? The guy from the evolutionary argument against naturalism thread??

 

[AfungusAmongus]

AfungusAmongus...? The guy from the evolutionary argument against naturalism thread??

Yes, I posted heavily in that thread on Reasonable Faith, the forum of Christian philosopher William Lane Craig. Haven't been there in awhile and can't seem to find the old thread, perhaps it got deleted during a forum upgrade. Anyways I'd love to discuss that argument! At the risk of straw-manning it, I might go ahead and make an EAAN thread here.

 

[Theftz22]

You can see it's still there:

http://www.reasonablefaith.org/foru...ry-argument-against-naturalism-4979750.0.html

Anyway, it's nice to know that there are other people that like analytic philosophy that are at least cognizant of the smash community. I do wonder what you're doing here though. The general activity level in the proving ground is low and the debate hall is all but dead. Most of the high-level debaters are completely inactive. I'm not sure what you've seen here that made you join smashboards seemingly just for the debate hall. It's definitely not the best place for discussion of analytical philosophy.

None of this of course is intended to dissuade you if you actually see something of value to you here. Just giving you an honest evaluation of what I see as the current state of the DH as someone who was heavily involved for a while.

 

[AfungusAmongus]

*shrug*, I like Smash and arguing on the Internet. I see your point though. I should try to find more local smashers! Also: where do you recommend for discussing analytical philosophy?

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Why would people call them a color, rather than others just saying it is as a short term?

What does something require in order to be a "color"?

 

[#HBC | Acrostic]

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[Kewkky]

I'm happy that you finally found a time to post that, Acrostic. But now that that's out of the way, what are you implying by that post? I see no reason to post at all if you're not saying anything and leading yourself up to exherting extra effort by posting an explanation of your first post.

 

[Ussi]

What would you call black and white if they weren't colors? This is like arguing over a definition of a word

 

[#HBC | Acrostic]

I'm happy that you finally found a time to post that, Acrostic. But now that that's out of the way, what are you implying by that post? I see no reason to post at all if you're not saying anything and leading yourself up to exherting extra effort by posting an explanation of your first post.

You're an idiot.The OP mentioned nothing about the electromagnetic spectrum or whatever nonsense you picked up from chemistry and decided to share in this thread because you couldn't masturbate to it anywhere else. Your whole spiel about colors is just a really desperate tangent on your part to take a garbage OP and recycle it into pseudo-intellectual debate hall trash. It's ironic that this is a discussion on colors, due to your inability or lack of perception to view the OP for what it is. You're too busy dressing the elephant in the room rather than calling it for what it is.

 

[Kewkky]

You're an idiot.The OP mentioned nothing about the electromagnetic spectrum or whatever nonsense you picked up from chemistry and decided to share in this thread because you couldn't masturbate to it anywhere else. Your whole spiel about colors is just a really desperate tangent on your part to take a garbage OP and recycle it into pseudo-intellectual debate hall trash. It's ironic that this is a discussion on colors, due to your inability or lack of perception to view the OP for what it is. You're too busy dressing the elephant in the room rather than calling it for what it is.

If there's anyone who doesn't deserve their debater postbit, it's you. Starting with a spam post of some ASCII pic, then next post is all ad hominem... I support debate topics, but there's none around so we do what we can with what we have. How about you get out of this thread if you've nothing worthwhile to contribute? You could've just explained why it was that this was a dumb thread in the first place instead of your terrible choices for posts.

Also, doesn't matter if the topic is just about semantics. A thread here doesn't have to be discussing controversial topics in order for it to be an acceptable 'debate forum' thread. Defining a word with no clear definition is still, in fact, a debate (although not an exciting one).

To me, it looks like that first post of yours was just fishing for likes. Why not simply say what's wrong in the first place is beyond me.

 

[Krynxe]

Please, stay on topic and take any personal grievances to private messages. Or, ideally, be mature and avoid being victim to drama.

 

[Xatres]

I would say that "colors" are simply a system of identification created by humans to explain a physical phenomena. The colors black and white exist because we can identify them using the system that we specifically designed. The same argument works for musical notes, flavors, and any other physical sensation.

You could argue that "savory" doesn't really exist, and yet we use it to describe foods that give us a certain sensation. There are physical properties within a given food that makes it savory, but those things are biological and not sensational in nature.

I think the color debate gets interesting when you consider something like the color pink, which is really just your brain freaking out trying to decide what to make "not-green" look like.

 

[#HBC | Acrostic]

Please, stay on topic and take any personal grievances to private messages. Or, ideally, be mature and avoid being victim to drama.

It's not dramatic in the slightest. I interpreted his post as posturing and he countered back by stating that my post was useless b/c I questioned his underlying motive and stated that I'm the one who is posturing to receive likes by posting awesome ascii art. Your choice of moderation came twelve days after his last post to our conversation which means the conversation had pretty much ended by the time you decided to intervene. Ideally you should have been able to inference that this conversation was over if you actually had any genuine concern about our interaction instead of chalking up a few dicey words as being a grievance on either party. Jesus, what a joke.

 

[Xivii]

What does something require in order to be a "color"?

A pokemon game.

 

[Thor]

So you're telling me that Orange is not a color? Or Grey isn't?

Also, that would imply Crystal and Heart-Gold and Soul-Silver are colors. Maybe you can send me pics of them or something (and not the game, smart a*$) but I think your condition is neither necessary nor sufficient.

Color is a distinction we make in how light reflects off of various surface - when all the wavelengths of light are all absorbed it's black, and when all the wavelengths of light reflect it's white (I may be wrong on my physics here... but I'm pretty sure it's based on reflection and absorbtion). So I think color, defined as the composition of wavelengths reflected off an object, suggest that white is a color (all wavelengths) while black is not (rather it is the absence of color or the absence of light). I'm not sure where the electromagnetic stuff comes in here - I think that's more a question of picking up radiation than seeing color in a shirt or on Falco.

Also if you zoom in far enough apparently all colors are simply different compositions of black and white - then all colors are really partly reflections of those wavelengths and part absorptions, suggesting white is the only full color.

Also I can't quote people properly because it doesn't attribute the quotes . If someone wants to explain how to quote properly (either in a private message or here as a side note) that would be appreciated.

Also debates are at least partly a question of how one approaches the topic - if you don't like science-based arguments you can ignore them or try to logically refute them but face-palming is childish, ad-homs are rude, and neither of them makes you look like a competent debater.

 

[AfungusAmongus]

Light is waves of electricity and magnetism (shoutouts to JC Maxwell). The wavelength determines the color we see. Humans can break any color down into 3 primary colors (not black and white) because our eyes have 3 different types of cones that each pick up a different range of wavelengths.

Also I can't quote people properly because it doesn't attribute the quotes . If someone wants to explain how to quote properly (either in a private message or here as a side note) that would be appreciated.

Select the text you want to quote and hit the " button at the right side of the toolbar. Change QUOTE to QUOTE="Thor" in the beginning of your quote, but not at the ending. Replace "Thor" with the name of the person you are quoting.

 

[Theftz22]

*shrug*, I like Smash and arguing on the Internet. I see your point though. I should try to find more local smashers! Also: where do you recommend for discussing analytical philosophy?

I honestly don't know for sure, I haven't done philosophical discussion online in a while. When I was, I know that the reasonable faith forum was one of the best, though I believe the quality has generally decreased. I think the comments sections of blogs by analytic philosophers are actually good places, like prosblogion.ektopos.com, alexanderpruss.blogspot.com, blog.kennypearce.net, etc.

 

[Thor]

Also I can't quote people properly because it doesn't attribute the quotes .

We'll see if this comes out right.

Also if it's three ranges of wavelengths that would suggest color is still composed of many different wavelengths, each length being a shade, and so it's all slightly different lengths that allow us to see these shades of red/blue/whatever. Also, again the wavelengths must be absorbed/reflected - so then colors are just composites of the various wavelengths, so unless we are saying only red/blue/yellow (I think those are the three) are the valid wavelengths, that would suggest to me white is a color (all of them at once) and black might be/isn't (it's the absorbing of all the wavelengths so that no 'color' is seen.) Actually it would have to be combinations, because the only way we could see orange/pink/(not the primaries) is if they are combined from the other wavelengths of the primaries. Since white is all of them at once, it would be a color - and since black is none of them, and color is due to the presence of wavelengths, the absence of wavelengths = absence of color = black is not a color. My reasoning.

EDIT: Hey, it worked! Thanks for the help.

 

[Kewkky]

Black can be a color too. You can tell the difference between a black wall and a dark cavern, can't you? Unless that 'black' isn't actually the black you're talking about. IMO, darkness should have a different 'color' classification to it instead of black, since it actually doesn't absorb any colors.

Black is actually a very interesting "color". It's true that a perfect black will absorb all wavelengths, but no such color actually exists (maybe black holes could actually be called "black" in this regard). Black isn't colorless, which is why that term was created. However, technically, black IS the lack of color. Look at the world's darkest metal ever created, you can clearly tell it apart from other colors, including other blacks. Is the classification you make yourself enough to classify it as its own color? Or is it really the absence of (almost, since it's not perfect) all colors?

 

[Thor]

Actually that's a good point. And black holes actually just "eat" the light, so I don't know that they have ever been "seen." (I read somewhere that they have not been seen, but I'm not stating this as fact, only an anecdote). So I guess that you are right we can call black a color, because it's variants of the wavelengths.

And you're probably right about absence of light not being the color black, because there was never a wavelength to be absorbed or reflected in the first place (at least one that people can see).

 

[pidgezero_one]

It depends on how you define colour. For example, from a physical and biological perspective, our retinas consist of rods and cones, where there is a higher concentration of hue-discriminatory cones around the optic nerve, and a higher concentration of intensity-detecting rods in your periphery. Generally you cannot see colour in your peripheral vision, but you can detect changes in intensity (basically, degrees of black and white). This would suggest that black and white are modifiers rather than independent colours.

In computer usage, the white-black spectrum is defined where red, blue, and green values (the "building blocks" of all colours in the RGB world) are all equal and their hues nullify each other. This may also suggest that black and white are not necessarily colours - open up photoshop, you'll have the same shade of grey independent of what hue you specify. If you define colour by hue, black and white are not colours.

Adding white paint to any other colour decreases that colour's saturation, and adding black to any other colour increases that colour's tint. Once again, no change in hue, etc.

however this is all useless information from a cultural perspective. We know what someone means when they say "the colour black". Crayon boxes aren't labeled "14 colours + 2 shades". Black and white are, for all intents and purposes excluding the technical, colours, as I am not convinced that the socially developed definition of a colour is less valid in context than any other. So basically, the colour distinction depends on context entirely, and this was the most useless first post I could have made.

 

[Thor]

Context, context, context.

Socially, both are colors. In reality, I'm tired of discussing this thread. I might try to make a different topic later. And I would support crayon boxes being labeled "14 colors + 2 shades" if only to confuse the **** out of 5-year olds. (And yes I'm an American cuz I spell it C-O-L-O-R. I don't know where C-O-L-O-U-R comes from but I find it weird Americans were too lazy to add the U and it stuck).

 

[Vinylic.]

You can't simply state that they're colors, but feel free to make another thread.

 

[Thor]

Eh, sorry. This thread seemed sort of... done (not that much felt like it was "debated") so I probably stopped making arguments.

And if I can think of something, I'll make another thread (have to get into the full hall somehow...)

Again, sorry. But I have concluded they are colors (people can feel free to disagree), which is why I (erroneously) did so in my last post.

 

[Bob Jane T-Mart]

A more important question, who cares? As long as we all agree on that something is "black", something else is "white" and something else again is "orange", that's all we need right? Otherwise, we're just playing word games.

 

[TopTierPichu]

black and white are colors because they exist, there are objects that are colored black and white,
It makes no sense to say that my Game cube is colored silver and "no color", to say that would only confuse people. while yes Black is the absence of color, and white is every color still look completely different from blue, red, and yellow. so White and Black are only colors for the sake of clarity

 

[StealthyGunnar]

A more important question, who cares? As long as we all agree on that something is "black", something else is "white" and something else again is "orange", that's all we need right? Otherwise, we're just playing word games.

Well I suppose we all do to an extent, since we're debating this. But I agree that we can move on if we "all agree." I suppose that this then is what is being debated: what is the definition of color? -and- Do "black" and "white" fit under this definition?

It is very easy to play word games with this kind of debate because the word that we are trying to define has many uses in the English language, formal and informal alike. The answer depends on perspective: are we talking strictly about light or pigments?

 

[GofG]

Arguing about definitions is stupid.

A tree falls in a forest; does it make a sound?

"Yes," says Alice, "because it generates sound waves which travel through the air."

"No," says Bob, "because there are no conscious minds nearby to perceive an auditory experience."

The argument continues.

"That's stupid," says Alice, "just because there's no conscious minds around to hear the sound doesn't mean there's not a sound."

"That's stupid," says Bob, "just because there's a wave of air pressure doesn't mean that there's a sound."

They retreat to the dictionary.

"Aha! See! Sound, n. 1b: A wave, traveling through a medium (as in air), categorized by a specific frequency (pitch) and wavelength (volume)." says Alice.

"Aha! See! Sound, n. 3a: The auditory experience of a soundwave as perceived in the mind of an observer." says Bob.

"Oh, and who are you to argue against the more popular definition? Your usage is uncommon." says Alice.

"And I suppose you're the one who gets to decide that?" says Bob.

The problem with their argument is that, regardless of how aggressive they are, they don't disagree about anything which is actually happening in the real world. They both agree that there's a soundwave being produced, and they both agree that there are no conscious observers around to hear it.

This means that there is no new fact, unknown to them but knowable, which could settle their argument. There is no experiment they could perform to prove one of them correct and the other incorrect.

They will keep arguing forever.

This argument is exactly like their argument. Are black and white colors? or are they just shades?

Bah. There is no new fact which will resolve the argument. There are those who say that black and white are shades which cannot be produced with white light through a prism, and therefore aren't colors. There are those who say that there are both Black and White crayons in a Crayola box, and therefore they are colors. None of these people are actually disagreeing about any facts about reality. There is no experiment which could prove one side or the other to be correct. They will keep arguing forever.

 

[Kewkky]

Bah. There is no new fact which will resolve the argument.

We stopped this discussion a good while ago. Why bring it up again? Sounds like you're trying to revive a topic that you yourself say is pointless.

 

[GofG]

Eh. I was just replying to the top threads. Also, 3 months isn't a CRAZY resurrection.

 

[FirestormNeos]