V. Vemuri, Pleasanton, CA
Can animals see colors like we do? Deer see only shades of gray. We can tell this by looking at the concentration of rods and cones on their retinas. But many animals do see in color, but the colors they see are different. Unlike us, some animals can see infrared.
This may sound like philosophy, but what we see is not really what it is. When we see a red apple and say that "the apple is red," nothing can be further from the truth. A red apple only appears to be "red." When sunlight falls on an apple, the fruit absorbs all the colors in the sunlight and reflects only the red color. It is this reflected color that reaches our eyes and we think that the apple is red. In reality, the apple is everything, but red.
There are people who maintain that the color we see is nothing but a pigment of our imagination. A physicist might argue that red is nothing but photons moving at a specific wavelength. But neither photons nor wavelength are red. Somehow when light hits our retina and the signal transferred to the brain, we claim we saw red. Laws of physics, in collusion with the mystical brain function, create this illusion, this maya, and makes us think that we are seeing red. Now we can ask the paradoxical question, "if no human eye is around to interpret it, is the apple red?"
Color is one of those things that defy description. We can compare red with the color of a brick, but such comparisons are always circular. If I say that a brick is of the color of fresh blood, what color is blood? Brick red, of course! Color is really a mental experience. Scientists have a word for the subjective quality of mental experience, such as the redness of red: qualia.
One possible way of proving that we all see the same red when we see a red apple is to do brain scans on different people and verify that the electrical patterns thus created are identical. The problem is that today's brain scan technology is very crude.
The story of the color of leaves is even more fascinating. One of the breathtaking sites I have ever seen is the color of autumn leaves in the northeastern United States. From September through November, as the days become shorter and cooler, the leaves of deciduous trees gradually lose their green and begin to display a kaleidoscopic panorama of dizzyingly bright colors. Where do these colors come from? Indeed, these are the natural colors of the leaves. During summer, trees actively produce chlorophyll - the pigment that gives the leaves their green color. Chlorophyll is also essential for photosynthesis. As the summer draws to a close and the winds of winter begin to blow, trees start their preparation for winter by pulling the nutrients back into their trunks. This is a tree's version of hibernation. Undernourished leaves stop producing chlorophyll and photosynthesis ceases. As the influence of chlorophyll recedes the natural color of the leaves bursts forth. The result is a symphonic display of breathtaking colors. In some places, it feels like the entire landscape is on fire!
Most people can distinguish somewhere between 150 to 200 colors, except of course those with color blindness. In spite of this, only a few of these colors have names in any language. Japanese language does not have a word for blue, until very recently. Their word aoi can stand for a whole range of colors from green to blue to violet. In Telugu paccha stands for both green and yellow. To make the distinction clear they use the prefix aaku (leaf) with paccha when they mean green, and the prefix pasupu (turmeric) when they mean yellow.
Color also seems to have an influence on moods. Greenrooms in theaters are painted green because they seem to relax the actors before they come on to the stage. Yellow seems to produce a stimulating effect. Red excites people, so it is used universally to indicate danger. Bullfighters wave a red cloth in front of the bull, to excite it. Blue, the color of the skies, is believed to have a calming influence. Lord Rama and Lord Krishna are traditionally depicted in blue. In the West, male babies are dressed in blue and girls in pink.
Matching colors is an important ingredient in dressing for success. There are color consultants who, for a fee, can advise you on color coordination of your office, wardrobe, advertisement slogans, and the like.
While we are on the subject of color, let us talk about skin color too, a topic, I am sure, has an appeal to Indians. The extent of pigmentation of the body is determined by enzymes. For example, we know that when the amino acid tyrosine is combined with oxygen it forms a series of dark-colored compounds called melanins; and this reaction takes place in the presence of an enzyme. We know that these melanins give color to the eyes, hair and skin. If the relevant enzyme is absent in a person, due to an error in heredity, the reaction doesn't take place and no melanin is produced. People with this hereditary error are called albinos and they have snow-white hair, unpigmented pink eyes, and a pale skin that wouldn't tan.
Unlike albinos, the rest of us have varying degrees of skin pigmentation which in turn is responsible for our varying shades of skin color. Indeed, both Negroes, with a jet black skin color and Scandinavians with an extremely fair skin, blond hair and blue eyes, have the same pigments; the only difference is in the quantity of melanin present in their bodies. In dark skinned people, the enzyme that produces melanin is over active. Beauty, based on skin color, is surely skin deep.
It is within scientific plausibility that the activity of the enzyme that controls melanin production can be inhibited. Then melanin production slows down and skin color lightens. Conversely, if a white person wants a slightly darker skin, melanin production can be accelerated. Lightening the skin color by this type of high-tech manipulation would be immensely popular in India where there is such a high premium for a lighter skin color.
Before we jump on initiating a national effort to lighten skin color, let us remember that there might be a cloud beside this silver lining. Evolution favors darker skin color among people living in hotter climates because melanin blocks harmful ultraviolet rays in sunlight. Lighter-skinned people subjected to a constant bombardment of the harmful ultraviolet rays in sunlight are more apt to get skin cancer than darker people. So take your pick. Do you wish to be fair skinned and face the danger of getting skin cancer or dark skinned and face its social consequences?
Draker people have other advantages. It is known to be a fact that people with dark eyes have faster reaction times than those with light-colored eyes. Apparantly, the extra pigment in the darker eyes speeds transmission of nerve impulses from the eye to the brain. This means people with darker eyes would be better at sports activities requiring good hand-eye coordination.
The animal kingdom uses colors too to its advantage. Nature is their color consultant. Animals use colors both for survival and propagation of their species. Insects, the experts at the survival game, are especially good at camouflage. Fifty years ago, the Peppered Moth of England sported a salt-and-pepper gray coat to match the shade of tree bark where it inhabited. Over a mere fifty-year period, the tree trunks in the moth's habitat turned black due to the pollutants in the nearby industries. To match this change, the moth's coat evolved into a soot black color!
With this diversity of colors and the diversity in the eyes that see these colors, one must begin to wonder, "is it possible that we all see different things, even from the same "point of view"? We know for sure that animals do not see exactly what we see. People with color blindness do not see what the rest of us see. There is reason to believe that great artists became great possibly because they saw something different than what others saw. There is reason to believe that some of van Gogh's stylistic quirks in his impressionistic paintings, such as coronas around street lamps, are not so much due to his style, but due to a defect in his vision. He painted what he saw! Next time when you bump into another individual with a point of view different from yours, it would be wise to pause and think before rushing to argue your case. See the point?