Real world example of "I don't even know what I don't even know"

[ErGingerbreadMandude]

I first came to know about my color blindness when I went to have my eye testing for my driving license. For about 20 years I thought I was an idiot that couldn't learn colors. On the bright side, color blindness also helps you become a regular target for ridicule.

Gym trainer: "Yeah, see that yellow machine over there? Yeah its for your biceps go check it out"

"how the fuck do I use this yellow (green) machine for biceps?"

---

I'm colorblind and I also don't know which is which color. Essentially I don't even know what I don't even know.

Well one thing you could do... I don't know if it would help or not but it looks like it might... is, just as a fun experiment and maybe to be able to deduce something from it; most paint packages allow you to manipulate colours in the image by RGB value. So even if you can't see a particular colour... as in distinguish it from another... you could still set it by its value instead. Then you'd have something to work with in deducing what range of colours you can't see/distinguish. For instance if you took an average image and gradually removed the red component from the whole image... which you can do usually at the slide of a slider... would the two images look exactly the same? or if not... if you could perceive a difference in the images at some point, that might tell you something about the extent of the colourblindness. I don't know if this would work... it's just an idea... but it sounds reasonable enough and I'd like to try it myself to have an idea of how a colourblind person might see the world (ie an image with the red component removed) and maybe be able to settle a long standing, but friendly and jokey, dispute with my dad about the colour of a piece of furniture... I maintain he's colourblind, he maintains I am but if this works, maybe it could prove it one way or the other by who perceives a difference in the colours or not, with the RGB values to prove they're different.

I don't know if there are tests available online but the way my doctor found I was color blind was by using some images. The image have different colors in it and then if you look good enough you will see a particular number inside the image created by a pattern made by a color. I was able to find the numbers the first couple of times but later when the doctor showed me the image and asked me "See this 5?" I couldn't see shit, all I saw was just random meaningless colors in random order

[KUSA]

[emjay]

I first came to know about my color blindness when I went to have my eye testing for my driving license. For about 20 years I thought I was an idiot that couldn't learn colors. On the bright side, color blindness also helps you become a regular target for ridicule.

Gym trainer: "Yeah, see that yellow machine over there? Yeah its for your biceps go check it out"

"how the fuck do I use this yellow (green) machine for biceps?"

---

Well one thing you could do... I don't know if it would help or not but it looks like it might... is, just as a fun experiment and maybe to be able to deduce something from it; most paint packages allow you to manipulate colours in the image by RGB value. So even if you can't see a particular colour... as in distinguish it from another... you could still set it by its value instead. Then you'd have something to work with in deducing what range of colours you can't see/distinguish. For instance if you took an average image and gradually removed the red component from the whole image... which you can do usually at the slide of a slider... would the two images look exactly the same? or if not... if you could perceive a difference in the images at some point, that might tell you something about the extent of the colourblindness. I don't know if this would work... it's just an idea... but it sounds reasonable enough and I'd like to try it myself to have an idea of how a colourblind person might see the world (ie an image with the red component removed) and maybe be able to settle a long standing, but friendly and jokey, dispute with my dad about the colour of a piece of furniture... I maintain he's colourblind, he maintains I am but if this works, maybe it could prove it one way or the other by who perceives a difference in the colours or not, with the RGB values to prove they're different.

I don't know if there are tests available online but the way my doctor found I was color blind was by using some images. The image have different colors in it and then if you look good enough you will see a particular number inside the image created by a pattern made by a color. I was able to find the numbers the first couple of times but later when the doctor showed me the image and asked me "See this 5?" I couldn't see shit, all I saw was just random meaningless colors in random order

Yeah what your doctor did, and what KUSA has erm, thoughtful as ever, demonstrated looks like the same principle as what I was suggesting but more thought-out and organised; a graded change in the RGB values until you couldn't perceive any difference and then from the number, they'd know what 'level' of colourblindness you had. Pretty cool.

I'm in two minds here... thank you KUSA for your very clear illustration of these sorts of tests, that was indeed helpful... but... you know my dilemma. Which I can now resolve by telling you that due to my own perceptual difficulties... not colourblindness but depth perception, I can't do Magic Eyes... many people can but I can't. So if you wish, have at it (just to even things out a little)

[account_inactive]

@KUSA

[ErGingerbreadMandude]

Does the first picture say something? The second one was hard but I made out "Fuck you color blind"

[KUSA]

Does the first picture say something? The second one was hard but I made out "Fuck you color blind"

The first one is something you put in your mouth.

You almost got the second one.

[dyresand]

So penis....
and fuck the colorbind lol.

[ErGingerbreadMandude]

Haha so that's what it is

[Godscreated]

I'm colorblind, too. For all I know, people could be making shit up and having a laugh behind my back. One of my bucket list items is to try those glasses that supposedly fix it.

Non-colorblind people don't know how good they have it. Every time someone says to me, "Hand me that red one," I want to be like, "Woah, check your privelage, bro! Stop making me feel inferior and use descriptions everyone can see."

BTW, the worst part about being colorblind? Whenever someone finds out about it the first thing they do is ask you what color something is. Every. Fucking. Time.

I know someone who is color blind and I never even thought to say that. We did discuss how he might know what colors are what in the context of fishing. One thing I thought was when he was fishing at night he could tell which colors the fish could see best given the weather situation, since fish do not see color at night.

GC

[Faith No More]

Yeah, I'm admittedly ignorant of color-blindness. I'd be interested in hearing what anyone more knowledgeable  would have to say.

People seeing greyscale is actually only in extremely rare cases. For instance, I'm pretty damn colorblind. I scored a 1/10 on the eye doctor's color test, but I'm not even close to seeing greyscale. Let's say (and I'm totally making this up for illustration purposes) the normal human sees 100 million colors. Well, I see about 10 million colors (I don't know if that's actually the proportions, but you get the idea). So, I still see colors. I just don't see as many, and that results in me frequently not being able to tell the difference between colors that other people can. Green and brown are extremely difficult to tell apart, and blue and purple are pretty much just one color. I get a lot of other colors confused, but those are the big two. Also, when you look at one of those color paint swatches and see seven different shades, I see about three.

That doesn't seem like it would really make much of a difference, but the truth is that humans use colors in a way that can make it difficult for people that don't see as many to operate, especially at nighttime when the lack of light makes discerning colors even harder. I've stopped at blinking yellow lights and run right through blinking red ones. My first grade teacher chewed me out in front of the class for coloring a plum blue. So, even though I can see some color, it's not something I can rely on. Like with KUSA's images. At first, I could vaguely tell that there was a shape in those top images. I stared for a little while and after considering who posted it, I thought to myself, "Oh, I do believe that is supposed to be a cock and balls." In that bottom image I see nothing but random dots.

It's not about how the brain interprets colors, either. The rods and cones in our eyes are responsible for determining color, and people with colorblindness just have less of them. So, even though my brain is perfectly capable of interpreting all of those colors, the signal it receives from my eyes is flawed compared to other people. I have no idea how a pair of glasses is supposed to get around that, but I sure am curious to see what it would be like.