How come we perceive sunlight as essentially being invisible until we split it down into seperate wavelengths?

Question

We don’t see light until it’s reflected off something and depending on what the thing is, it absorbs some wavelengths and not others and that’s how we perceive colours. But why? How come we just don’t see all light all the time (when exposed to it)?

In: Physics

Answer 1

Obviously we can only see the light that is reflected into our eyes, but as far as your premise goes, I don’t know if it’s true that we don’t perceive light that’s “not reflected”. Think about how we see brightness and darkness of colors based on what we perceive to be in shadows or not, doesn’t that dispel your idea?