Color Blind?

The human eye is considered as the most important of the sensory organs. A blind person is deprived of a lot of pleasant as well as unpleasant sites. Most of the eye defects can now be cured by man. But remember that we can cure only what we detect.

Let us see how the human eye basically works. Light from a source (waves or photons depending on which theory you believe) strikes different objects. An object absorbs certain wavelengths of light and reflects the rest. The absorbed rays may be given out from another end of the object. This will make the body transparent. But for this freaky theory we’re more interested in opaque objects. A green colored object will reflect only the green wavelength from the visible spectrum. This reflected light strikes the retina of the eye. The optic nerve located in the eye transports the impulses to the brain, due to which we’ll be able to see the object.

Now for argument’s sake, let us imagine a new born baby which has a defect in its eye receptors, or its brain which eventually results in a deformity. The deformity causes the child to see the visible spectrum in the reverse order. Meaning VIBGYOR (Violet, Indigo, Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange, and Red) becomes ROYGBIV for it. But this deformity should be perfect such that it sees all the shades of the visible spectrum but in reverse order. Also Infrared and Ultraviolet wavelengths are exchanged. Now for blue, the child will see yellow and yellow for it will become blue.

As the child grows up, it’ll learn the names of different colors around it. Although it’ll see the colors differently, it’ll call our yellow as yellow and our blue as blue. This is because it is taught to call them so. Thus, we’ll not be able to identify this deformity in the child.

Now blue is a very soothing color from my ‘point of view’ and is also one of my favorites. That child may also like that color but it calls it yellow. Thus my favorite color is blue while that of the child is yellow.

Now imagine that instead of spectrum reversal, the spectrum gets shifted for another child, say child02. So this child will be able to see VIBGYO only. It will be unable to distinguish the color red. It may also be able to sense a part of the ultraviolet spectrum. But this is a very rare case. Such a person is commonly referred to as a color-blind person, by us. Wikipedia defines color-blindness as follows: Color blindness, or color vision deficiency, in humans as the inability to perceive differences between some of the colors that other people can distinguish. Doesn’t the above theory support this definition?

Similarly we can have people who see only a part of the spectrum. The rest is truncated. Or some others may see it only in shades of black and white (what we commonly refer to as grayscale). These deformities will however be very easy to detect.

Now, the condition of spectrum reversal may exist, but we won’t be able to recognize it easily. There are also some animals which suffer from similar conditions. Most of the entities in the animal kingdom suffer from color-blindness. Bulls cannot see red! But there are also some which can sense Ultraviolet or Infrared radiations. This we commonly refer to as the sixth sense of animals. Maybe this ability helps some animals to sense dangers that emit UV or IR radiations (like volcanic eruptions, acid rains, etc.)

The points in favor of this theory are:

1> Different people have a different liking to different colors.
2> Some people are color-blind.
3> Some animals can sense dangers.
4> Hallucinations that some people see may just be high concentration of IR or UV matter.

But there is also one point against it. Red has a wavelength that carries itself further than other visible colors. Thus the child in the first case will be able to see violet better. But such a case is still not known. Everyone finds it easier to see red than other colors.

Let me know if you find any points in favor or against this theory. And let me know if you find this theory cool. I’m waiting for comments.

It all depends on your ‘point of view’.

Thank you for reading this post. Your comments, pingbacks, ratings, reviews and any other contributions are greatly appreciated.