Radio Lab: Colors

I found this podcast to be the most entertaining and interesting of all the readings/videos assigned thus far. I enjoyed the narrators and how their personalities were illustrated through their discussion of colors. Additionally, I listened to it while driving back to Baltimore from Massachusetts. Not only was I able to put their words into context of the colors of the changing leaves on the trees tunneled in the highway but also the day fading into night as the world around glowed then darkened.

I think what struck me about this podcast is how much the narrators describe color as being an individual process. What I understand through their discussion was that color depends on us. Is color a social construct? Though color may be an individual process, we all have shared notions of what we perceive to be red, green, purple, etc. Does this mean that color exists because we communicate about it? This phenomena reminds me of the tree falling in the forrest. The tree does still fall even if no one hears it or is there to see it right? But does a color still exist even if no one sees it? How do blind individuals have a perception of color?

When the narrators discussed how different animals have different ranges of color, I put this into a cultural context. Though humans in one country or continent are different in species, there are many cultural dissimilarities that exist. I wonder if this can be compared to the color spectrum of a butterfly and a dog, or a human, etc. In India, there may be colors that exist that we have never seen three-dimensionally in the U.S. When I say this, I mean colors in their natural state, not man-made reproductions, but certain pigments that exist in spices, colors of different water sources, etc. Is this possible?

While this podcast got me excited about color and being able to work with it but conversely, this podcast only opened the door to more questions I have on the topic of color and our perception of it.