It would explain why some people see a certain shade of what I would consider yellow, but they say it's orange. And no, I'm not talking about colorblind people. Does any of this make sense? I don't really know how to explain it... Anyway, there's no way to know for sure if this theory is true or not. I don't really think there's any way to test it, but it's something to think about.
This mystery may even go deeper than we thought it did. Looking back at ancient people and their languages, the color blue was the last one to be be given a name in almost every culture. If they didn't have a name for it, did they just not see it? How is it possible not to see a color that exists if you're not colorblind? Were these people blind to certain colors, and then later on, evolution changed the color spectrum that the people in these cultures were able to see? Believe it or not, this has actually been tested. Jules Davidoff used the Namibian Himba tribe to see if this hypothesis is true. This tribe does not have a word for the color blue. These people were shown a bunch of sea-green squares, but one of the squares was actually a light turquoise blue color. Many of them could not figure out which square was different, and many of them took a long time to figure it out. However, this tribe has many different colors to describe different shades of green in their language, so they were shown a group of a bunch of green squares, but one of the squares was a shade of green that was very slighly different from the rest. Most people around the world can't notice the outlier, while the people of this tribe were able to locate it. Davidoff's findings were that it seems that people do not see a color if they do not have a word to describe that color. It seems strange to think that is possible. I mean, if we couldn't see it, then how did we, all of a sudden, start seeing it one day in order to give it a name? If his findings are true, though, then think of how many more colors might be out there in the world that we can't see, because we don't know they exist and don't have a word for them!
As a matter of fact, there have been reports of some people being born with a genetic mutation, which allows them to see colors so much more vividly than the rest of the world can. Also, these people seem to even see more shades and tints of colors than most other people can. We might see a leaf and see only one color, but they might see tons of different colors in the leaf - maybe shades/tints of the same color, or maybe different colors in general. Isn't that incredible? And it would be so hard for someone to figure out that he/she is one of these people, because how do you know that what you've seen your whole life and are used to is something different than what other people see? To you, that's normal. Although, I have heard this mutation only affects women, so if that's true, then sorry, men!
What stinks is that these studies are really hard to conduct. It's really hard to tell what other people are able to see. Scientists have done their best to come up with studies to assist us in understanding the world views of other people, but it's likely that we will never know what exactly every other person around us is seeing. And that doesn't just go for color.
Post Thought:
So here I am, about 4 and a half years after I posted this entry, posting an addition to the entry. Here lately, a picture of a dress has gone viral. Now, this dress has had some major controversy, simply because some people say the dress is white and gold, while other people say it is blue and black. The picture is posted below. You decide what colors you believe the dress is. Personally, I don't take either of these sides, as I see blue and gold. What is the reason everyone is seeing different colors when they see a picture of this dress? Well, there may be a biological explanation. Scientists say different people have different perspectives when it comes to colors they see. Get the full explanation here: http://www.wired.com/2015/02/science-one-agrees-color-dress/. This is exactly the kind of thing I was asking when I wrote this blog entry. Apparently, depending on your brain, and depending on your personal lifestyle (i.e. whether you're a morning person vs. a night owl,) you may see different colors than other people see when both are looking at the same thing.
By the way, if you want to know the true color of the dress, check out this clip of the latest episode of the Ellen Show: http://ellentube.com/videos/0_efg1d66y.
This is the original picture of the dress. You decide what colors it is. But I can guarantee you'll argue to no end about it with your friends and family.
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