williams@kirk.DEC (John Williams 223-3402) (08/08/84)
The discrimination of color does not resolve beyond
interpretting a single color for each point in the visual
plane. This is driven mostly by evolution meaning one can
consider higher resolution to be inefficient. This is
accomplished in much the same manner that one can determine
location if one knows the distance from three known points.
This introduces a color wheel effect where blue blends into
red via purple.
This is because your senses are object oriented. In
many species of animal, in fact, most, there is no color
reception. This is because color is of minimal importance in
the discrimination of objects. The visual center in the
brain is spatial filter intensive, and this is usually the
key to recognition. Resolution beyond a phase angle in the
color wheel is impractical. It would require an additional
depth to the retina, at a severe cost of image aberation.
The cost of perceiving color already is decreased night
vision. It is not clear to me that a greater variety of
color sensors would enhance the resolution of color
perception in the eye, not at a severe loss of visual
articulation.
Hearing has been optimized for frequency detection
as a means of object recognition as opposed to source
locating for land mammals because of the number of reflective
surfaces in the environment. For dolphins, this is not the
case, and their environment allows their species to develop
sonar.
Bearing this in mind, it seems to me that enhanced
color reception would only be practical if we evolved in a
optically reflective environment.
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