Overcoming Bias

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Is Blue Far?

www.overcomingbias.com

Is Blue Far?

Robin Hanson
May 3, 2010
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Is Blue Far?

www.overcomingbias.com

A Colours in Cultures diagram got me thinking.  Some cross-cultural associations (weak in parens):

  • PINK: healthy, children, femininity, (erotic)

  • GREEN: life, nature, growth, eternity, religion, compassion, jealousy

  • WHITE: purity, luxury, trust, truce, peace, (death)

  • RED: heat, danger, anger, passion, success, excitement, desire,  marriage, love, (erotic)

  • BLUE: cold, rational, art, gods, freedom, loyalty, unhappy, trouble

  • BLACK: evil, bad luck, self-cultivation, penance, style, authority, (death)

  • PURPLE: decadence, flamboyance, gratitude, wisdom, beauty, cruelty, mystery

  • YELLOW: illness, cowardice, deceit, fun, joy, repels evil, strength

  • BROWN:  earthy, (reliable)

  • ORANGE: warmth, learning, (family, friendly, healing)

I couldn’t resist looking for concept-color schemes to explain these.  After all, the concepts associated with key colors must be important concepts. My guesses:

  • PINK: healthy skin, esp. nipples/lips/genitals, = red + white = clean sex

  • GREEN: nature, nature spirits & their emotions

  • WHITE: clean

  • RED: fire/blood/blush, hot emotions, especially domination & sex

  • BLUE: sky/water, far objects & mental mode

  • BLACK: night/dark, bad/selfish

  • PURPLE: rare, = red+blue = far domination = high class/status?

  • YELLOW: urine/puss, sun = relaxed playful mood?

  • BROWN: dirt/ground

  • ORANGE: fire??

I’ve ordered the colors from easy to hard to interpret.  Pink, green, and white seem pretty obvious.  Red, blue, and black are less clear, but we seem to have a rough handle on them.  Purple, yellow, orange, and brown seem hardest to understand.

After my amateur effort above, I went looking for other accounts, finding this, this, this, and this.  Not sure I’ve found the good stuff though. Hat tip to Katja Grace.

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Is Blue Far?

www.overcomingbias.com
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