eli5: Why is it impossible to imagine new colors?
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So we see all the colors that our eyes are capable of seeing. In this modern day, over the course of your life, you probably have seen close to all with different shades and what not. Some insects like bees can see in UV. We can’t though. But if we could, there would just be another color we would give a name to and added to the list. It might well be UV would look like a different blue. Same would happen if we could see infra-red. It would be just another common color. It would be interpreted by the brain as distinct from the other colors, but in the end it would just be another color. Infra-red would be a cool one to have as we could see much better at night with it. UV would change things as drastically though flowers would look a bit different for example.
It is worth noting that your brain interprets the data it gets from the eyes so that you see the colors in your mind. But whether “yellow” actually looks the same in your mind vs my mind, it would be impossible to say. There is definitely a color yellow, but what you see in your mind is a representation of the color.
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