33 Comments

I live in rural northern New Mexico with hardly any artificial light at night. When I step outside in the dark, I always see better with my peripheral vision, and I thought it was a defect of my eyes -- getting old or something. Thanks for letting me know that there's a scientific reason for it, nothing to do with me.

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Okay, Mike. I'm kind of in love with you right now. Like, not in a creepy, stalker-ish way, but in a THANK YOU FOR GIVING ME ALL OF THIS TO THINK ABOUT WAY. Seriously, thank you. So fascinating.

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so fascinating to think of worlds beyond our ken and what meaning might lie there, all around us, we just can't see it. And am now insanely envious of the anomaly that allows some to see one million colors--what a world that would be. Wonderful stuff.

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This is so wonderful ... I keep wanting to highlight some of your fresh phrases. Your voice is so irreverently reverent. I'm new to your newsletter and delighted to have found you!

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This new season opener was well worth the wait and then some, Mike! Fascinating stuff and I loved your telling of it.

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Truly fascinating!

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founding

What an incredibly interesting fount of research and insight this is. I'd vaguely heard that some people might be able to see more colors but had never really thought about it or what it might mean. And I had no idea that it takes 40 minutes for eyes to adjust after exposure to light! That makes me rethink my recent early-morning stargazing interludes. I'm going to have to (get to) give them a bit more time.

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I first thought you were going to tell us that Concetta Antico's first quote had earned her a place in Private Eye's Pseuds' Corner. 😂 That she literally is different and sees differently is fascinating. I've always known I can't see like visual artists do, and this confirms it.

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Funny, just this morning I was thinking about how incredible our eyes are and how our camera lenses haven’t actually been able to come close to what our eyes can do. Like I can see things close and far in focus at the same time in a way my camera lens really can’t. The contrast of light at sunrise is so dramatic that I pretty much always have to edit Sunrise photos to make them come out anywhere near the way my I see them, but my eyes can handle that contrast without any issue. Really interesting to think about people that could see more colors!

I was also thinking about how we see what we expect to see. Earlier this week I thought I saw a crow chasing an osprey, but it turned out to be a peregrine falcon chasing an osprey. I just don’t expect to see a peregrine falcon. Then later I thought I had a crow chasing a peregrine falcon, and I actually had a peregrine falcon chasing another peregrine falcon. Again my eyes just didn’t expect to see that, and in that case my camera didn’t see it. 

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I so enjoyed this post. When my mother contracted Macular Degeneration it taught me how much I needed to value my sight as we all became her eyes. You mentioned neuroplasticity and I wondered at that when Mum was going blind. She developed a syndrome called Charles Bonnet Syndrome, where her brain would try and fill in the gaps with anything from her 'brain library'. So she might look at a river and see the rippling of a man's silk tie. At first she thought she was going mad but once the condition was explained, she bravely would laugh about it and tell us what she had 'seen' that day. When you look at it clinically, you can only marvel at the brain's efforts to remedy a situation. Thank you again for an interesting post.

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How we found out my roommate is a tetrachromat, while we were looking for a chunk of land to buy:

roommate: I just really do better when I live where things grow the right shade of green. *shows me some pictures*

me: *glances at pictures* Okay, I'll take pictures of each plot when I go look, so you can tell me which looks good to you!

roommate: Cool! Although *points to one picture* it just needs to be closer to this one *shows another picture* than that one, & I'll be good.

me: *stares back & forth for A Period of Time* ... I literally cannot see a difference between the greens. They look the same to me. These bushes look like those bushes.

me & also roommate: ... huh

& then there was researching, & it turns out our OTHER roommate is also a tetrachromat, they can both see colors in the sunset that I can't, but they also see somewhat different colors from each other!

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But more importantly, what are you playing on that rig? ;)

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I clicked on the link to Concetta's blog and as I looked at her paintings I got a reaction like a occular migraine ...and the colors came actively alive .... a first for me. Very interesting post Mike and thanks to a link from Katherine May for sending me here !!!

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Really interesting! Have you read Jasper Fforde's book "Shades of Grey"? It takes place in Chromatacia, a world like ours but where your ability to see color determines your place in society. Reds outrank Yellows, and only Greys can see at night (but they're the bottom of the totem pole). I thought of this book as I read your piece.

I grew up knowing about rods and cones because my dad taught us to see with our peripheral vision while camping. It's the easiest way to spot the first stars at night, and to know when dawn finally starts to lighten the horizon.

Thanks for the thought-provoking piece, as usual! Can't wait to see what this season on color brings

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I remember wondering as a child if what I called green was what other people saw (as in green grass or trees). I love this topic!

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Excellent start to the new season, Mike!

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