the interesting and deep commentaries on our target article reflect the continued high interest in the problem of colour categorisation and naming. clearly, colour remains for many cognitive science related disciplines a fascinating microworld in which some of the most fundamental issues for cognition and culture can be studied. although our target article took the stance of practically oriented engineers who are trying to find the best solution for orchestrating the self-organisation of communication systems in artificial agents, most commentators focus on the implications for cognitive science and we will do the same in our reply.