Humans see colors.  This is a fact.  We observe them by interpreting the way light bounces of different surfaces and distinguish the frequencies as different colors.  But do we all observe colors the same way?

When two people look at and object that is red, say, a stop sign, the both see the color of the stop sign, they both register at as the color red, and they both walk away in agreement.  But what if the people actually perceive red as being two different colors?  What I mean by this is what if the way the first person interprets red as being the same color that the second person sees when they look at something that is green.  The first person has always been told that the object is red, he has always perceived it as being red, but in reality it is a very different color that what other people see.  What is interesting about this situation is that there is absolutely no ways of knowing how other people perceive colors, it is something we can only learn through personal experience and we cannot experience something someone else is.

This idea that the world around us cannot be perceived or explained completely through knowledge is something that scientists call qualia.  Qualia are the subjective properties behind experiences, and confuse the people that study them to no end.  In the past, scientists have come to define the way people learn as being completely knowledge based, meaning that people can learn and understand everything by simply being told it, like a student being able to understand mathematical concepts by reading material to explain the procedure.

This way of thinking, however, is not accurate when one does not have a reference towards the topic being discussed.  A person who has been blind their whole life, for example, has no way of understanding colors.  Someone might explain to them that stop signs are red, an apple is red, fire is red, but the blind person still isn’t able to understand what exactly red is.

Qualia are confusing and unexplainable.  We are, as of now, unable to explain these conundrums; they are ineffable.  Perhaps one day, scientists will discover a way to experience things that other people experience from exactly their perspective, but until that happens; we are all alone in our own minds.  Will there ever be a way to communicate qualia?  Why do you think we are unable to understand qualia?  Are more things qualia then you initially think?