Colours and a mind explosion

Source

I know that I've said before how I wonder about colour.

Specifically, I wonder if we all see the same colours or if we see different colours, but have been taught to recognise it as a certain colour.

I feel like that makes no sense.

Let me try to explain.

I'll use an example.

We all know that the grass is green.

We look at the grass and we think yes, green.

But what I wonder is do I look at the grass and think green and see green, when somebody else could look at the same grass and think green, but actually see a shade of purple that they've learnt to call green.

Doesn't thinking about that just absolutely boggle your mind.

Mine feels like it's about to explode.

The levels of mind boggling went to a new level for me today.

You know I doing a placement in a children's centre right?

Well all of the kiddies winks that I work with are pre-school age.

So basically that means they're under four.

One of the things that they're asked pretty obsessively by all adults that come into contact with is 

"what colour is this felt tip/flower/ball/pencil/blah blah blah?"

I was doing that today whilst I sat and drew cars with a group of kids and asked them what colour was the pen that I was holding.

They all said blue.

Which it was.

Then I picked up another felt tip that was a lighter shade of blue and asked what colour it was.

They all said blue again.

And then I thought...these kids are so young and they've been taught that this pen is blue.

They also know that the other pen is a darker shade of blue and if I would have held up any other shade of blue I'm sure they would have recognised that too.

But how do they know that all of these different shades are still the same colour?

Let the mind boggling commence.

I think that children must be much smarter than I ever imagined.