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The Magic of Reality
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Sean Faircloth:
Attack of the Theocrats!
I rather think that all of us with the proper opsins perceive red or green or blue in the same way.
For all our variety, which is substantial, study after study reveals just how identical we are when it comes to the basics of perception and behavior.
I expect the subjective experience of color (and sound, for that matter) to fall squarely in that category.
With the possible exception of those rare women who possess an extra opsin. I don't expect they experience any new colors. What I suspect is that the extra opsin (which may be a slight variation on red, or a slight variation on green) would be wired up as its normal counterpart. This may very well skew the colors of objects compared with the rest of us. But I'm more inclined to think they still experience the same subjective colors, and instead would describe objects as being of a different color, when pressed for extreme detail. Unfortunately, I have seen no empirical data on these points, so I'm speculating.
Permalink Sat, 12 Jun 2010 16:55:48 UTC | #479654