From: hal@finney.org
Date: Wed Nov 29 2000 - 12:09:58 MST
You may not have to wait for genetic engineering and to be (re)born a
woman in order to benefit from extra-channel color perception. I wrote a
few months ago about a patent by cypherpunk Raph Levien which accomplishes
much the same thing using special glasses. Here is the description,
from http://www.delphion.com/details?&pn=US05218386
The present invention is directed towards a method
and apparatus for permitting human perception of more of the
spectrophotometric values which define the color of an observed
object. In accordance with one embodiment of the present invention,
a first optical filter is provided having a spectral response
curve that selectively admits portions of three bands of light,
corresponding to red, green, and blue. The optical filter would be
worn over one eye (say, the left eye). The right eye would observe
color through a similar optical filter, but with different portions
of the three bands admitted.
The two eyes perceive two different shifts in
the color of an object relative to the perception of the color of the
object by the unaided eye. These shifts are dependent on properties
of the spectrophotometric color of the object which are not visible
to the unaided eye. Therefore, the eye is capable of an expanded
perception of color compared to the unaided eye, because each eye
sees different colors of the same scene. This expanded perception
is analogous to the added dimension of depth perception because each
eye sees perspectives of the same scene.
It would take some time to get used to your two eyes seeing different
colors, but perhaps it would eventually become unconscious. There were
famous experiments back in the 60s in which people wore special glasses
that turned the visual image upside down! After a few days they got used
to it and everything looked normal. Then when they took the glasses off
they had to adjust again. If people can adapt to such a radical change
as this, then incorporating some extra color information ought to be easy.
Hal
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