Indefinite?
indefinite /ĭn-dĕf′ə-nĭt/ adjective
- Not definite, especially.
- Unclear; vague.
- Lacking precise limits. "an indefinite leave of absence."
this post was submitted on 11 Jun 2025
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I have a vague notion of a new color. Success!
I'm thinking take an artist with exquisite color sense, and dose them (consentually) with mushrooms/ acid; that should do the trick.
Infinity does not require to be all encompassing.
The set of natural numbers is infinite, yet it contains no negative numbers.
The set of whole numbers is infinite, yet it contains no fractional numbers, except arbitrary fractions like four halves.
The set of fractional numbers is infinite, yet it does not contain most real numbers...
Pick any two adjacent known colors. Find the wavelength midpoint between these colors. Determine if this is a known color. Repeat until you've found an unclassified color.
This isn't an imagination problem, its a math problem.
Everything is a math problem. It just needs to be written in the proper form.
This doesn't really work because colors are a spectrum. You can split and merge existing colors like using a single word for blue and green (like Japanese) or distinguish between light and dark blue (like Italian) but "light blue" isn't a new color. It's part of the blue spectrum
Yeah tell that to Pantone LLC
but "light blue" isn't a new color. It's part of the blue spectrum
A spectrum isn't a color, its a range of wavelengths. "Light Blue" is a narrower range of wavelengths with higher brightness value than the "Dark Blue" end.
We define a unique "color" as a specific combination of hue, saturation, and brightness value. "Inventing" a new color is just a question of finding a combination of attributes that hasn't been produced before. Thanks to the midpoint theorum, you can do this right up to the point of Plank's constant.
I meant spectrum as in it's not a fixed value but, fine, I can call it range instead. Doesn't change my argument.
What do you mean "hasn't been produced before"? That comes with a huge burden of proof. People produce color gradients all the time. Pretty many colors in them.
And if you produce a shade of blue that by happenstance is either more or less saturated than anything else, what have you found there? It isn't a new color by any meaningful definition. It won't blow anyone's mind, it's just a shade of blue similar but not identical to other blue shades. It falls into the blue range. The observable light is devided into colors, each inhabiting a range. The exact way is different depending on language and other contexts but by no meaningful definition is a color just a single value.
Before you double down on your definition: the implication is that your definition doesn't make much sense and to demonstrate it from a different angle: how precise are you going to measure these? Let's say a common blue has the saturation of 63%, would 64% quality as a new color? What about 63.2%? Where do you draw the line? And if you have to draw lines anyway, why not choose a meaningful way as in defining "blue" as one color?
What do you mean “hasn’t been produced before”? That comes with a huge burden of proof.
Sure. But, again, that's not a question of creativity, just an exhaustive exercise of proving uniqueness.
It isn’t a new color by any meaningful definition.
Because color isn't an invented concept, it is a perceived wavelength value/range. Asking for a "new color" is like asking for a "new number".
Under your broader definition of color, we've already found the three or seven or I guess nine if you want to count black/white, existing colors. The only way to "invent" new colors is to expand the spectrum by which humans perceive light.
Understanding how light works and how one might accomplish this takes creativity. But if we're excluding ultraviolet or infrared because they're outside the natural visual spectrum, all we can creatively accomplish is proving we've exhausted the range of available colors.
Under your broader definition of color, we've already found the three or seven or I guess nine if you want to count black/white, existing colors
Which is the point of the meme and I agree with it
all we can creatively accomplish is proving we've exhausted the range of available colors.
There is a lot we can do creatively besides creating new colors from stretch. The meme is about how the human mind is creative but this one thing it can't do.
Besides, how is your method creative? You said yourself it's pure mathematics.
Which is the point of the meme
The point is based on a faulty understanding of creativity. It's not a counting problem.
Besides, how is your method creative?
It's not. The problem isn't a problem of creativity. That's the underlying flaw in the comic's conceit. "Give me a color that's not a composite of primary colors" is an impossible task because of how we define the concept of colors, not because an individual is incapable of coming up with a color permutation that has never been seen before.
I think you're conflating creativity and imagination. The task isn't about physically creating a color but about imaging it. About a mental image of a color you never saw before. Not about actualizing that color.
It's not a counting problem.
You made it into a counting problem so I really don't see your point here
"Give me a color that's not a composite of primary colors" is an impossible task
Exactly. It's even impossible to imagine. We can imagine shapes and form and stuff we never saw and will never see but for colors, this isn't true. That's the whole point.
The task isn’t about physically creating a color but about imaging it.
How on earth do you tell someone they haven't imagined a new color? That's quite literally impossible to assert or deny.
You made it into a counting problem
It is inherently a counting problem because of how sight and color recognition functions.
It’s even impossible to imagine.
It is impossible to for a second party tell a first party that they have been unsuccessful in imagining something.
It is impossible to for a second party tell a first party that they have been unsuccessful in imagining something.
Looking at the last panel, I can say with certainty, that dude failed at the task.
It is inherently a counting problem because of how sight and color recognition functions.
It's, again, no question of sight and color recognition but about imagination.
You're still looking that the comic from a very wrong angle and say "it makes no sense". Well, from my angle, it does.
It's a thought experiment, reminds me of zen Buddhist koans. "What is the sound of one clapping hand?" or "What did your face look like before your parents were born?" don't have an answer. You can tell me you know the answer and I can't proof you wrong but that's not the point. It's about making people think. "Imagine a color you never saw" is the same. You can tell me you made it and maybe that would mean enlightenment for you but it's beside the point. It's a thought experiment obviously meant to have no answer (again, look at the last panel). The more you tell me that makes no sense and there is no answer, you're proofing my point. The comic makes it explicit that there is no answer. You impose a very different meaning onto it that doesn't lead to anything and say "the comic doesn't lead to anything".
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They are not talking about the mathematical definition of color, but how the color is represented in the mental image you have in your head. Think about how a blue wavelength becomes a blue "pixel" in your head. It is possible to imagine other colors? If we could see ultraviolet, what color would it be? Is my blue the same as your blue or what my brain interprets as blue is different from what your brain does?
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Colors aren't sharp combinations of wavelengths though.
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I know I heard about a group in Africa (IIRC) where they have a lot more words for greens, but they don't have a word for blue, or something like that. When given a test to identify the odd color out, when it's a very slight tint change of green they identify it quickly, but most westerners take a lot longer. When all of them are green, but then there's a blue one, they take a long time, but westerners see it instantly.
It's why IQ tests are fundamentally flawed. Just our launguage can shape our recognition of the world. Imagine how much the rest of our culture, education, and surroundings influence us. None of these make us better or smarter than anyone else, yet they'll all make us better or worse at different things. They're all valuable, and it's part of why diversity, equity, and inclusion are so important. These different points of view can bring so much value to us
It’s why IQ tests are fundamentally flawed.
Since you have failed to correctly define the words “highfalutin”, “dogsbody”, “apiary”, “valise”, “collet”, “haruspex”, “threnody”, or even “copse”, we regret to inform you that you are functionally illiterate and likely mentally disabled.
highfalutin
Person that farts a lot
dogsbody
Body of dog
apiary
BEES
valise
That stuff that reduces friction
collet
Piece of meat
haruspex
Protagonist no. 2 of Pathologic, and protagonist of Pathologic 2
threnody
Made up word
copse
Corpse without r
😎
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The same is true for English too.
Brown and orange are different brightness levels of the same colour. Brown is dark orange and orange is light brown. Yet people experience brown and orange as separate colours, because we have separate words for it, while we experience light blue and dark blue as different brightness levels of the same colour, because both are called "blue".
But we did recently invent a new color, or at least a new way to perceive color.
This one’s for me! I saw a new color the second time I broke through on DMT! I can still see it in my imagination. I’ve broken through since and haven’t seen it again.
Trying to imagine objects in higher than 3 spatial dimensions.
Imagining 2 or more temporal dimensions.
Designing a system of governance that is fair to all constituents, physically realizable, and marketable enough to convince future constituents to follow it.
Imagining 2 or more temporal dimensions
This one's actually kind of easy. The plot of Back to the Future (and every other time travel story where changing the past is possible) doesn't work unless there's more than one timelike dimension.
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I had the hood of a car come down on the back of my head when I was taking out an alternator.
I saw all kinds of new colors!
You could have done something more productive, like coming up with the Flux capacitor....
The visual spectrum is finite. So it's an impossible task.
There's actually impossible colors that can be seen by playing with the visual spectrum of the color sensitive molecules. You can also play with visual processing to further see impossible colors
I'm not saying there's infinite combinations, but there's ones you've never seen and no one has a word for
Brown is not in the color spectrum, doesn't have a wavelength, yet we can imagine it and see it.
Space is a finite number (three) of dimensions, yet we can imagine space with higher number of dimensions.
Yup technically orange
Brown is on the colour spectrum, it does have a wavelength. Specifically, it has the same wavelength as orange. Because brown is dark orange and orange is light brown.
What's not on the colour spectrum are multi-wavelength mixed colours like e.g. red and blue light combining to something that looks like spectral violet. And while these multi-wavelength colours are physically different than a pure spectral colour, the sensation to a human is identical, because both trigger the cone cells in the eyes in an identical way. Which is why we can have screens that only emit three colours and still trigger the same sensations as millions of different spectral colours.
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Epic Its like a purple, blue, pink, but more vibrant with sparkles. Similar to what is used for epic level items in games, hence the name.
For this to be a color, it needs to be even at all points, so no sparkles!
No, no, they have a point - if they can imagine something that's perfectly uniform and sparkly, then that'd actually be something novel
Trying to think of a new colour after turning off my mental safeguards felt like I was a computer dividing by zero. Honestly, would not recommend.
Gergle Merf.
I searched for “moof” but I don’t know what color that is.
Red but a bit greener
We would have also accepted a bluer yellow.
greg2
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