In Diane Ackerman's
A Natural History of the Senses, she discusses vision and how "we often speak of "an empty sky". But the sky is never empty" (236) and :how "calm" the day is, or how "still" the night. Yet there is no stillness in the sky, or anywhere else where life and matter meet" (236). She talks about how even though we can not see things, it does not mean they don't exist. The human eye has three cones that cover red, blue, and green light which to us seems sufficient because we do not know of any other colors. We have no way to see colors that do not naturally occur to us so when we see a "blue" sky we interpret that sky to to mostly blue with maybe some pink or purple in it but overall, that sky is blue and we cannot imagine it as another color. I remember in art class once in 1st or 2nd grade our teacher challenged us to imagine or create a new color. Students attempted to mix together several colors or all the colors in an attempt to make a new color but it soon became clear that we could not find a new color because all the colors we already knew of existed. Our eyes inability to see new "colors" or interpret rays of light as something different keeps us from seeing what is not there. Though there are millions of microscopic atoms and molecules floating around in the air, we cannot possibly begin to see them with the human eye. This also brings up the conversation of other animals and what they can see. If a shrimp has triple the amount of cones that we do, how can we ever imagine to see the world like it does? we cannot even fathom what a world with so much color could possibly look like but who knows, technology may be there one day.
In Diane Ackerman's A Natural History of the Senses, she discusses vision and how "we often speak of "an empty sky". But the sky is never empty" (236) and :how "calm" the day is, or how "still" the night. Yet there is no stillness in the sky, or anywhere else where life and matter meet" (236). She talks about how even though we can not see things, it does not mean they don't exist. The human eye has three cones that cover red, blue, and green light which to us seems sufficient because we do not know of any other colors. We have no way to see colors that do not naturally occur to us so when we see a "blue" sky we interpret that sky to to mostly blue with maybe some pink or purple in it but overall, that sky is blue and we cannot imagine it as another color. I remember in art class once in 1st or 2nd grade our teacher challenged us to imagine or create a new color. Students attempted to mix together several colors or all the colors in an attempt to make a new color but it soon became clear that we could not find a new color because all the colors we already knew of existed. Our eyes inability to see new "colors" or interpret rays of light as something different keeps us from seeing what is not there. Though there are millions of microscopic atoms and molecules floating around in the air, we cannot possibly begin to see them with the human eye. This also brings up the conversation of other animals and what they can see. If a shrimp has triple the amount of cones that we do, how can we ever imagine to see the world like it does? we cannot even fathom what a world with so much color could possibly look like but who knows, technology may be there one day.
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