[ExI] quantia game

[spike]

OK so we have been grinding away on describing a concept called qualia to a
bunch of guys, many of whom think mathematically.  Many if not most of us
here are engineering/science/math/technology geeks.  OK so we can deal, an
engineer sees a problem, solves a problem, ja?  It's our nature.  That's how
we got to be geeks.  I propose a game, a challenge to those of us guys who
have to work at it to distinguish between colors that our female
counterparts  can easily see.  

 

Open an excel spreadsheet, click in any cell, then go up under that paint
bucket icon, upper leftish, left click on the black triangle, go to the
bottom of that menu and select "more colors."  OK now you have a hexagon
filled with various colored hexagons, 127 of them (black is missing, which
is why the painfully non-symmetric ugly 127 instead of the beautiful
soul-calming 128.)  This is your box of crayons.

 

Start out with the easy one.  Pick the one which is the most red.  OK no
problem, most of even us lads can find that one.  It looks to me nearly
indistinguishable from the hexes to the right and left of red, so I choose
the one in the middle.  OK guys, left click once on that hex, now go under
the tab above called "custom" just to the right of the "standard" tab, left
click once to drop that menu.  There it shows you how much red, how much
blue, how much green is the hex you chose.  If you hit it right on the first
try, 255 red, 0 blue, 0 green, then you are gay.  

 

Kidding, bygones. 

 

OK that one was easy.  Red is a good descriptor for qualia, since we pretty
much all define red the same way. 

 

Repeat experiment, harder this time.  Pick the hex you think is purple,
defined as 0 green, 255 red, 255 blue.  Did you hit that one on the first
try?  OK try orange then.  

 

Third test, harder still: yellow.  Recall the emissive spectrum is a little
different than the absorptive: when you play with crayons and watercolors,
your primary colors are red, blue and yellow, and mixing colors makes them
darker, heading towards black.  In the emissive spectrum it is the dual of
that: primary colors are blue, red and green, and mixing colors makes them
lighter, heading towards white.  I would be surprised if anyone here hits
yellow exactly right on the first try.  If you do, then come on out of the
closet, you are among friends here, we won't tell.  {8^D  Kidding bygones.

 

We can imagine creating a continuous spectrum in which we vary the cell
color continuously, then have the geeks pick the most red, the most orange,
the most yellow etc.  Cool!

 

spike

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