Now See Here

Colour is a specific example of a general problem. I look at some light with a wavelength of 700 nanometres (.0007 of a millimetre) and I say that I see 'red' - because that is what I have been taught to call the experience I have when I see 700nm waves. You have been taught the same thing, so we look at a poppy and we agree it is 'red' (OK, unless it's a Welsh poppy). But it does not mean that we are having the same experience. Any attempt to define our experience when we see red soon gets lost in the limitation of language and the simple fact of biological variation. The electrical nerve impulses generated by my eyes are different to yours; what my brain does with those impulses is not the same as yours; the emotions and memories triggered by my mind when it gets those impulses are not the same as yours

Some people listen to sounds and get experiences analogous to those they get when they see a colour (called 'chromesthesia') - including some famous composers. Beekeeping and popular science literature sometimes try to illustrate "what a bee sees" when it encounters a particular flower - taking account of the fact that bees eyes are not sensitive to red light but, unlike us, are sensitive to ultra-violet (<400nm). I baulk slightly: if you and I can't truly agree what it's like to see red, how can we guess the experience of a bee, receiving light through a compound eye comprising thousands of lenses?

More generally, we spend our lives communicating and telling one another how we feel, but ultimately we are guessing - projecting how we think we would feel in the same circumstances, based on our own internal life and past experiences. No matter how honest someone wants to be, there is no way to directly communicate what it is like to be them

I seem to have drifted off course. This was supposed to be about how this picture is not what I saw in the sky, or the camera viewfinder, or on a PC screen; but on a phone screen, I like it more. I have no way to know what anyone else will see or experience - the magic and tragedy of the human condition

The living-room is coming together. We are painting it 'chalk' and 'seagull' and 'delilah' and 'donkey ride'. That should give you a perfect picture