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RE: "Your brain ... the most complicated thing in the world..."

in #philosophy7 years ago

This doesn't surprise me. It's the brain simply trying to make sense of the world around it. Especially in a confusing world where we see "green" on the grass, but in reality the grass is every color BUT green. It reflects it away, and that's what our eyes capture.

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I think the surprising part of pink is that it's not physical. Green can be mapped to a single wavelength of a photon. Pink cannot be mapped to any wavelength and is only the combination.

More precisely, wavelength is 2-dimensional but most people see color as 3-dimensional. Our brain invented that extra dimension out of utility. Some people can even see color in 4-dimensions (1).

This happens with physical sensations as well. A few examples (may cause some discomfort):

  • You can always see at least part of your nose
  • You have to breathe manually now.
  • Your tongue can never quite find a comfortable place to rest in your mouth
  1. https://www.popsci.com/article/science/woman-sees-100-times-more-colors-average-person

I think you might be mis-extrapolating what that article talks about in terms of dimensions. She's not seeing in 4 dimensions. They used the term "dimensions" to mean something more like "more characteristics of color" than others can detect. They're not referring to dimensions like I think you are trying to infer.

I'm sorry if I was unclear. I do not mean physical dimensions. I mean dimensions of color.

Since most people have three color receptors (rgb), we see color as a three dimensional object. Think of the color cube.

Since she has an additional color receptor, the object to describe how she sees color is 4-dimensional. In other words, most people can see all combinations of 3 colors. She can see all combinations of 4 colors.

This is fascinating to me, actually, because not only am I a photographer, but I'm also colorblind to a degree. I'm referred to as red/green colorblind, but that's not what I experience. My trouble is between green and brown. For example, I can't tell what's brown or green in camo. I can tell both are there, but that's my mind convincing me both are there because I know they should be. To me they just look like different shades of the same brown.
Or green. Dammit I don't know which one it is.

Well you might like this: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/mantis_shrimp

You might also checkout http://enchroma.com/shop/ I'm not sure if they work for every type of color blindness and they are pretty expensive but it'd be cool if they worked for you.