Red is a Color and a Color is not Real

When you look at a tomato you may see the shape, which is typically round. If the tomato is ripe, then you also see that it is red. When you see a tomato you know it's there because you can feel its smooth skin and rough stem. You distinguish it as a tomato due to its unique set of attributes such as the way it tastes. The color red is a particular attribute of a ripe tomato. How did the tomato acquire the attribute of red? Well we don't know why tomatoes evolved to be red, but we do know that red is a classification of colors. So what are colors? Colors are a property which is an effect by which light is emitted off of an object and then received through our focal lenses or eyes. Because humans have a significant mental capacity, we are able to take these properties in light and classify them into what we call categories. Due to our evolutionary survival skills, our minds were built to categorize in order to distinguish between predator and prey. Without categorizing things all around us, we would not be able to distinguish a threat from a piece of nourishing food which would make survival impossible. Our ability to classify is critical as a living species.

Now that we understand a little about colors and how we see them, that leads us to the question... Is red real? Well we know the difference in light is a real occurrence, but the idea of the color-- red is not real. Red is a classification of a color and a color is an idea. An idea is intangible. It is not objective in nature. It merely exists in our minds. But if it exists in our minds then it must be real? Well aliens from Mars exist in many peoples' minds, but there has yet to be any truth come from that premise. By definition, real is to "[exist] as a thing or occurring in fact; not imagined or supposed." We don't imagine the color red, we see it and then we process it. It is the transfer between the occurrence of the property being emitted off the tomato to the classification we make it as color where it is no longer real. We have to remember that ideas are not real even when they are attributes of matter in the objective world we live in. Lets put my argument to the test. If red was real then it must be a known fact to everyone. If a person is color-blind then they have no perception of the color red, therefore if you asked a color-blind person what color a ripe tomato looks like, they would likely give a wrong answer. If it is a known fact that the color of a ripe tomato was red then why didn't the color-blind person know it as a fact? That is because perceptions are not facts, nonetheless the idea of red varies from a color-blind person to a normal-visioned person. This proves that a persons perception of red is not real, at least not to everyone. Keep this is mind when you make daily assumptions. Sometimes your perceptions are not always the same as others. What may be real to you is not to someone else.