I’ve never seen olo, the "teal-like" color that, according to researchers led by James Fong, appears to those who have had a population of cones stimulated by a laser. The title of their article published in Science Advances is “Novel color via stimulation of individual photoreceptors at population scale.” * But I have just seen colors in brightness and intensities I appear to have missed for decades.
Cataract surgery, the painless minutes-long process of improving vision robbed by years of exposure to ultraviolet light, gave me a more colorful—check that, intensely more colorful— world. The gradual loss of that intensity went unnoticed. Then my twilight world turned into daytime in minutes.
But why tell you this?
Seeing Is a Function of the Brain
We humans compensate for our eyes’ blind spots by mentally filling in the gaps in our field of view. Similarly, we recognize faces we see only partially, the world of recognition largely a function of experience or memory and an ability to turn parts into wholes. This process applies to what we think and believe as well as to what we actually see. Definitely it applies to how we interpret the spaces around us.
The Clouded Brain
There is an argument to be made that just as cataracts becloud vision over many years of exposure, so constant exposure to a single ideology also clouds the brain and darkens understanding. Thus, media pundits steeped in their views (Left or Right) fail to see what others see clearly. The obstructed view of those “liberal” pundits over the course of Joe Biden’s presidency is an example. Steeped like a teabag in Leftist propaganda and fear mongering, many Democrats thought nothing wrong with a president who could not form unified coherent thoughts and who was not fully in charge of his administration. Myopic party loyalty shaded the eyes of many who voted for and continued to support Biden until that “operation” called the debate opened their eyes. Similarly, the Russian Patriarch’s distorted view of Ukrainians who were prior to the invasion affiliated with the Russian Orthodox Church demonstrates that humans do not see what is plainly visible to others, that Ukrainians were not Nazis who intended to invade Russia and were not prior to the war intent on conquering Russia. Nor were LGBTQ Ukrainians seeking to undo the moral fiber of Slavs first in their own country and then in Russia. Further, the Patriarch could not see that many young Russian men would lose their lives as they were in the process of taking Ukrainian lives and perpetrating war crimes like rape and torture in an action that the Patriarch saw justified.
Olo
That there is a color only a few humans have seen is a lesson for all of us. Just as prior to the cataract surgery I could not see colors as you see them, so I might also fail to see what others see in human affairs. The gradual diminution of my eyes reversed by cataract surgery is an analog of opening up one’s perspective on all things human. You, for example, might see “olo,” and I might not even know that “olo” exists, such is the nature of “seeing.” Because all of us have eyes with blind spots that necessitate our filling in gaps with prior knowledge to complete a scene, we have, I believe a tendency to fill in perspectives similarly. If something in the practice of an ideology doesn’t make sense, we make it make sense by “filling in” excuses, rationalization, projection, and blame.
*
SCIENCE ADVANCES VOL. 11, NO. 16 Novel color via stimulation of individual photoreceptors at population scale
Cataract surgery, the painless minutes-long process of improving vision robbed by years of exposure to ultraviolet light, gave me a more colorful—check that, intensely more colorful— world. The gradual loss of that intensity went unnoticed. Then my twilight world turned into daytime in minutes.
But why tell you this?
Seeing Is a Function of the Brain
We humans compensate for our eyes’ blind spots by mentally filling in the gaps in our field of view. Similarly, we recognize faces we see only partially, the world of recognition largely a function of experience or memory and an ability to turn parts into wholes. This process applies to what we think and believe as well as to what we actually see. Definitely it applies to how we interpret the spaces around us.
The Clouded Brain
There is an argument to be made that just as cataracts becloud vision over many years of exposure, so constant exposure to a single ideology also clouds the brain and darkens understanding. Thus, media pundits steeped in their views (Left or Right) fail to see what others see clearly. The obstructed view of those “liberal” pundits over the course of Joe Biden’s presidency is an example. Steeped like a teabag in Leftist propaganda and fear mongering, many Democrats thought nothing wrong with a president who could not form unified coherent thoughts and who was not fully in charge of his administration. Myopic party loyalty shaded the eyes of many who voted for and continued to support Biden until that “operation” called the debate opened their eyes. Similarly, the Russian Patriarch’s distorted view of Ukrainians who were prior to the invasion affiliated with the Russian Orthodox Church demonstrates that humans do not see what is plainly visible to others, that Ukrainians were not Nazis who intended to invade Russia and were not prior to the war intent on conquering Russia. Nor were LGBTQ Ukrainians seeking to undo the moral fiber of Slavs first in their own country and then in Russia. Further, the Patriarch could not see that many young Russian men would lose their lives as they were in the process of taking Ukrainian lives and perpetrating war crimes like rape and torture in an action that the Patriarch saw justified.
Olo
That there is a color only a few humans have seen is a lesson for all of us. Just as prior to the cataract surgery I could not see colors as you see them, so I might also fail to see what others see in human affairs. The gradual diminution of my eyes reversed by cataract surgery is an analog of opening up one’s perspective on all things human. You, for example, might see “olo,” and I might not even know that “olo” exists, such is the nature of “seeing.” Because all of us have eyes with blind spots that necessitate our filling in gaps with prior knowledge to complete a scene, we have, I believe a tendency to fill in perspectives similarly. If something in the practice of an ideology doesn’t make sense, we make it make sense by “filling in” excuses, rationalization, projection, and blame.
*
SCIENCE ADVANCES VOL. 11, NO. 16 Novel color via stimulation of individual photoreceptors at population scale
RSS Feed