It was lights out at the Albert Park Circuit in Melbourne, as the inaugural Grand Prix of the 2025 Formula 1 season kicked off with the much-awaited low growl, followed by the tremendous roar of twenty engines, all screaming into the first turn. The race had begun, and each driver was in a battle against time, pushing themselves and the rocket-like exoskeletons of their cars to close the gap between their car and the one ahead.
Being a relatively new F1 watcher, I had not yet pledged my loyalty to any particular team. The majestic red of the Ferraris intrigued me; after all, there is something undeniably iconic about a red racing machine. Enzo Ferrari’s famous words echoed in my mind:
“Ask a child to draw a car, and he will draw it red.”
There was something poetic about that statement, because, well, it was not entirely untrue.
Then, there was Max Verstappen. Unstoppable as always, he moved with the precision of a cheetah, his overtakes executed with an almost predatory instinct. His presence on the track was electrifying, one of the reasons why he was a four-time world champion- but it was the sleek, understated elegance of the Mercedes cars that ultimately won me over. The black-and-silver arrows cut through the air with a quiet but undeniable authority. And then there was George Russell. Fast, consistent, and in many ways, a one-man army for Mercedes in the face of McLaren's orange hued dominance.
But even as the race continued at breakneck speed, my mind remained tethered to Enzo Ferrari’s words. His statement about children drawing red cars seemed so obvious that it almost didn’t need to be said; yet, the more I thought about it, the more I realized the question it concealed. Why do we associate red with speed, power, and passion? And more importantly, do we all perceive red the same way?
Since our childhood, we have been conditioned to associate certain colors with specific objects. The grass is green. The sky is blue. The sun is yellow. These associations become second nature, embedding themselves so deeply in our minds that we rarely stop to question them. Over time, colors take on emotional and psychological meanings- blue is calming, red is fiery and aggressive, green is natural and soothing. But here’s the fundamental problem: there is no way to know if what I perceive as red is the same thing you perceive as red.
Imagine that from birth, the neural wiring in your brain was slightly different from mine. What I call “red” might, in your mind, appear the way I see “green”- yet because you have always been taught to call that shade “red,” you would never question it. Your experience of the world would be consistent with mine in every functional way, but at a fundamental, unprovable level, it could be completely different.
This is known as the inverted spectrum problem, one of the most famous thought experiments in philosophy and neuroscience. If two people had their color perceptions inverted, there would be no way to verify it. You and I might both agree that a Ferrari is red, but that doesn’t mean we see the same thing. Maybe, to you, the Ferrari looks like what I would call blue, but since language and behavior would remain the same, the truth would remain forever hidden.
Humans have three types of cone cells in the retina, each responsible for detecting different wavelengths of light:
L cones (long-wavelength sensitive)- primarily responsible for detecting red light.
M cones (medium-wavelength sensitive)- responsible for detecting green light.
S cones (short-wavelength sensitive)- responsible for detecting blue light.
Each of these cone cells contains a protein called an opsin, which determines its sensitivity to specific wavelengths of light. Mutations in these opsins can lead to color blindness, where certain colors are perceived differently or not at all.
Once light is detected by these cone cells, electrical signals are transmitted through the optic nerve to the lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN) in the thalamus. From there, the information is sent to V1 (the primary visual cortex), which processes basic visual input, and eventually to V4, the region of the brain responsible for color perception.
Now, here’s where things get interesting. If the wiring of V4 were altered -say, swapping the signals from red sensitive cones and green sensitive cones- an individual might grow up perceiving an entirely different spectrum of colors. They would never realize it because they would have learned to associate those colors with the correct names and objects from birth- this leads us to the central mystery: qualia.
Qualia are the subjective, first-person experiences of consciousness. The raw feeling of seeing red, the ineffable sensation of pain, the way music evokes emotion. The philosopher Thomas Nagel famously posed the question: What is it like to be a bat? No matter how much we understand a bat’s biology, we can never truly grasp its experience of the world. The same applies to humans; we can describe the mechanisms of sight, but we cannot experience another person’s vision.
This is what makes qualia ineffable and intrinsic. They cannot be objectively measured, nor can they be transferred from one mind to another. I can tell you that a Ferrari is red, but I can never truly prove that my red is the same as yours.
This begs another question from the reader: why the hell do you even care? Why does it matter if the red I see is different from the red you do? If both of us see the same things, why should we care what colors those things are?
Well, we should care, because this problem extends far beyond color perception. If our sensory experiences are inherently subjective, then so are our emotions, our pain, and our very understanding of reality. Two people might both experience sadness, but how can we ever be sure that my sadness feels the same as yours? The same applies to happiness, fear, love, and pain.
This problem of qualia is what makes consciousness one of the greatest unsolved mysteries in philosophy and neuroscience. Despite our advancements in brain imaging and artificial intelligence, we still have no idea why subjective experience exists. Why don’t we perceive the world like a machine, simply registering input and responding accordingly? Why do we feel things?
Some scientists argue that one day, we may be able to decode consciousness; perhaps by mapping every neural connection in the brain or developing a theory that explains qualia in physical terms. Others believe that consciousness may be something fundamental, beyond the reach of material science. But with the rise of artificial intelligence, this debate has taken on a new dimension: could AI ever achieve true consciousness, and if so, could human minds one day be transferred into machines? The idea of importing human consciousness into AI has long been a staple of science fiction, but recent advances in neuroscience, machine learning, and brain-computer interfaces suggest it may not be entirely out of reach. Projects like the Blue Brain Project and the Human Connectome Project are already working toward mapping the intricate web of neurons and synaptic connections in the human brain. Theoretically, if we could fully simulate the brain’s structure and function in a digital environment, we might be able to replicate a person's consciousness in a non-biological form. But anyway, getting back to the point-
Philosophers like David Chalmers call this the “hard problem” of consciousness; the challenge of explaining why and how physical processes in the brain give rise to subjective experience. Neuroscience can tell us how the brain processes colors, but it cannot tell us what it feels like to see red.
This raises profound questions about reality itself. If all we know comes through subjective perception, how can we be certain of anything beyond our own minds? Are we trapped in our own personal reality, unable to ever truly verify if others experience the world the same way?
As the checkered flag waved over Albert Park, my mind was still tangled in these thoughts. The McLaren, in all its fiery orange glory, crossed the finish line- but was it truly orange? And if no one could ever prove otherwise, did it even matter?
Perhaps, in the grand scheme of things, these questions have no answers. But maybe that’s what makes them worth asking.
