Obscurity, & The Fourth Colour

Arkangel, an episode of "Black Mirror"

Obscurity
In the vision section, Diane discusses how humans may intentionally or unintentionally obscure certain things from their vision. The human eye is adept at focusing on specific things in its field of vision, however it must blur something else to achieve this focus. She writes "Because the eye loves novelty and can get used to almost any scene, even one of horror, much of life can drift into the vague background of our attention" (pg 235). This sentiment intermediately brought to mind an episode of the SciFi horror show "Black Mirror", Arkangel. In this episode, a loving ("hovercraft") mother, concerned with the safety of her child, has a device installed in the young girl's brain.

Using the device, the mother is able to see everything her daughter sees, broadcast to a tablet (another black mirror). Additionally, the device includes a filter. When it detects a cortisone spike in the girl (the stress chemical), it selectively obscures the stressful imagery from what she can see. The girl is "protected" from scary sights, such as the angry dogs on her daily walk to school, or the face of friend using curse words. However, the show demonstrates the scary side of this technology when the young girl is powerless to help her dying grandfather in cardiac arrest, because the system has made him invisible to her. I won't say any more about the episode (spoilers), but it illustrates the idea that the things we need to see are not always the things we want to see. Diane would agree with this sentiment because she emphasizes our need to wake up to the full view of life, via appreciation of art and critical thinking about the world.
 
The Fourth Colour
Another interesting discussion from this section was the description of the biology of the eye, and it's evolutionary origins. Like many of mankind's greatest innovations, the camera is modeled after biology, mimicking the way our eyes perceive light and color and recording that information. I wanted to bring up the concept of "Tetrachromacy" here because it is extremely relevant to this subject of the manner in which our eyes function. tetrachromacy is the condition of possessing four types of cones in the eye, rather than 3 as most humans do. The fourth cone makes it possible for a creature to perceive a fourth color, in this case being a sensitivity to ultra-violet light (a type of light outside spectrum of visibility for humans). While some humans do possess this fourth cone, only a handful have ever been documented as being genuinely sensitive to fluctuations in ultra violet light. Tetrachromacy is prevalent in many species across the animal kingdom, notably in goldfish. Many species of insects have four cones or - in the case of the bumblebee - have three cones, shifted down the color spectrum to encompass ultraviolet light.

Scientists believe this may make it easier for bees to detect the highest areas of pollen concentration on a flower at a glance.

I became interested in tetrachromacy after the recent release of a concept album by King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, which chronicles the story of a man on a journey to discover the fourth color. The story of the album frames the fourth cone as a spiritual doorway, allowing one to see the world "truly", and receive the power of a God. Some lyrics taken from the climactic track "The Fourth Colour" are as follows, and are pretty interesting from the perspective of a spiritual perception of vision: "I see the light, it's in my face, my brain is storing information, Now I am a god in a photon, I see through walls, I see your heat, I can see your terror, I can see the future, I believe the hyperbole, I see the fourth colour". It's interesting for me to look closely at these lyrics because I notice they all relate to specific features of ultraviolet light (seeing heat, seeing through walls). I love this album, and may reference it further in the semester because it focuses so heavily on vision and the nature of how we perceive the world.