From: Brent Allsop (allsop@fc.hp.com)
Date: Wed Nov 29 2000 - 14:17:47 MST
<Eugene.Leitl@lrz.uni-muenchen.de>
Thanks for reporting this fascinating information!! I've
never heard of this possibility before.
Hal <hal@finney.org> commented:
> 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.
There is a huge categorical difference between having
additional colors in our color awareness and simply inverting an
otherwise subjectively similar image and it eventually seeming
normal. The article touched on this a bit by pointing out that simply
having an extra 4th receptor in the eye isn't enough for us to be
aware of an additional color. You must also have an additional
channel in the optic nerve to convey the added information to the part
of our brain where the awareness is produced (the visual cortex) and
of course the most important part of all is, one's conscious knowledge
must be enhanced to be able to produce additional quale to represent
this 4th color dimension in order to be what I would consider a full
blown subjective "tetrachromate".
I'd bet that, given what little was in this article, It is
likely that Mrs M is simply mapping the set of trichromatic color
qualia produced by most of our visual cortexes in our consciousness a
little more broadly over the tetrachromic set of information, hence
still enabling her to distinguish differences in perception better
than a trichromat, yet not really experiencing a truly subjective
tetrachromatic experience or in other words Mrs M can't really
experience any additional subjective color qualia.
Or can she!? To me that would be by far the more interresting
question in all this. Who cares what one can perceive compared to
what it is really subjectively like!? As in, will I ever be able to
say: "Oh wow, that gred (or whatever) color is fantastic and nothing
like I've ever experienced", thanks for enhancing my primary visual
cortex so it can produce this new quale in my subjective awareness!
Now can you make me a tetrachromat and wire the additional sensors
added to my eyes, through an addition chanel added to my optic nerve,
to this new quale my visual cortex can now produce in my consciousness
so I can be a subjectively full blown tetrachromat!?
And are there more than just 3 (or 4) dimensions to the qualia
possible in this physical universe so that our visual cortex can use
such enhanced awareness to be aware of data from receptors that can
pick up additional information not just between red and green, but
from outside the visible spectrum altogether!? I don't just want to
reuse the qualia I've got and map the additional spectrum my sensors
can pick up into this! I want more qualia too! If so, you'd be able
to do a lot more than just zip through the internet faster!!!
Brent Allsop
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