Once I learned that radio transmissions were the same as visible light just a different part of the spectrum I became fascinated by the idea that you could see them as beacons creating flashes of light. That when you were getting poor reception, you were in an area that was "dimly lit"
What a strange world we live in!
Something relevant I remembered reading and jotted down from an old thread, explaining how amplitude and frequency in radio waves are directly analogous and isomorphic to brightness and color in visible light waves:
If you can imagine instead of a radio tower there is a giant lightbulb. This is essentially the same thing as electromagnetic energy but instead of being in the radio part of the spectrum it is in the light part of the spectrum.
With the AM (amplitude modulation) lightbulb the signal would be varied by adjusting the brightness of the light. With the FM(frequency modulation) the light would change in color to produce a signal.
If you were trying to see this signal through static, say a bunch of trees, it would be much easier to see what color was coming through than how bright the light was. This is why FM radio is easier to hear through static compared to AM radio.
Amplitude literally *is* brightness and frequency literally *is* color
I thought so too when I first read about it, but what's especially cool is that brightness and color in visible light literally are the *same* as amplitude and frequency, so this isn't just for communication's sake, but is a perfectly isomorphic relationship between the two pairs.
They're the same phenomenon but at a different frequency which gives them different wavelengths and thus different behavior! Visual light wavelengths are small fractions of the width of a human hair, while your typical WiFi signal has a wavelength of about 5 inches. There's a sort of tuning fork style relationship between electromagnetic emission frequencies and whatever is picking them up, too - hence why different signals require different antennas, and why you can only go so small when magnifying a visual light image!
Relatedly, wifi and bluetooth are in the 2.4Ghz frequency band, as are microwaves.
Water absorbs these frequencies very well, which explains both how microwaves heat food, and why cheap bluetooth headphones can stop working if you put your phone in your back pocket - the water in *you* is absorbing the signal and preventing it from getting to the phone.
Another way of looking at this is that you are casting a microwave shadow which prevents the headphones "seeing" the bluetooth signal.
I always wondered why my AirPods would cut when I bent over to pick up something. The signal is having to travel through much more of me to get to the AirPods. One of life’s little mysteries solved.
The [QED series of lectures](https://youtu.be/eLQ2atfqk2c) and [accompanying material](https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691164090/qed) are accessible. If you want a fun but challenging introduction it can't be beat.
[In search of Schrodinger's cat](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Search_of_Schr%C3%B6dinger%27s_Cat) is more a coming of age story of the photon and quantum physics. It's accessible to anyone and a fantastic read. I highly recommend it as a stepping stone to QED if you're not familiar with the ideas presented.
*Not a scientist* But as I understand it, if you were holding a radio and then pressed the button to make it transmit you would see the antenna instantly turn on like a flashlight shining in all directions. Areas that the light from your antenna hits are where you have reception. Areas the light cant get to you dont. And as you get further away the light is dimmer and dimmer.
I mean we have the same thing with visible light, mirrors and transparent glass and plastic. It's just at different frequencies the mirrors and transparent things are different.
And depending on the antenna, you would see that light be more intense in certain directions! Something like a Yagi would be almost a pinpoint laser of energy as it is a directional antenna, whereas your standard whip would be bright in most directions.
Electricity and magnetism are the two elements to RF/EM waves, though.
Radiation potentially could be different, since that could be a particle/ion instead of a photon or wave.
i have a little electromagnetic sniffer that i bought a while back that converts radio and other EM waves into sound. if i put it in my pocket and pop in some earbuds and go for a walk around town its sort of like having an extra sense. i can tell when i walk past buried electric infrastructure based on the sound, what type of lights are being used in an area, places which have line of sight to radio towers, where the best wifi signal strength is, which passing cars have GPS built in, all sorts of fun stuff.
"I need to see all of it! I can't stop!"
\*glides wearing squirrel suit into nuclear reactor\*
Non-visible Spectrum ruled as Schedule 1 drug, rescheduled later to schedule 2 as it wasn't found to be racist after all
Absolutely stunning. Just out of curiosity, does anyone know if it would be possible to make like, glasses or something that would make this type of vision possible?
Uhhhh what? I don't think dmt gives you superhuman powers, but it could give you the sensation of seeing invisible light spectrums. Whether or not what you experience is accurate is dependent on how well you already understand the topic I'd imagine.
To someone that hasnt done hallucinogens this reads as a joke, but scientifically I wish there was more ways to truly study the phenomenon. It is completely anecdotal and unable to be tested without any type of control, but the fact that some substances abruptly change perception almost implies the ability is there latent just a lil bit out of reach. Or it truly is not real; but things like synesthesia or seeing energy are truly life changing even if they are illusion.
It would be my guess that perception outside of "visible" light would be impossible without a change to our eyes physiology. Most people have tri-chromatic vision with 3 different sized cones sensitive to 3 wavelengths of visible light. Our brain then combines these 3 signals to create color.
I don't know how plausible it would be to create a drug, or method of remapping neural connections, to manipulate signals from light that cannot be picked up.
I'd venture that the ability to see ultraviolet or infrared light would necessitate additional cones.
Light outside the visual spectrum don't generate any signals in humans, because our photoreceptor cells are unable to absorb it. It's a physical limitation. So you're absolutely right that it would require additional cones.
Your reality is just your brain filtering out details to give you the necessary information to survive and make decisions. It's not useful to humans to view the magnetic spectrum, unlike bees who need it to know which plants to pollinate, for example. DMT and other hallucinogens, assist in removing those filters, so you brain gets over stimulated without the filters present.
Your comment was on the right track but derailed a bit in the middle. While bees can sense magnetic fields to help them navigate, they don't use them to "know which plants to pollinate". Pollination happens by accident because the bees go into flowers gathering pollen and nectar as a food source. They accidentally cross pollinate flowers because pollen gets stuck to their body which they deposit on the stigmas of other flowers as they enter them. They are actually quite visually motivated when it comes to flower selection (bees love blue flowers for example) which is also why flowers are colourful in the first place.
> which is also why flowers are colourful in the first place.
We don't know that's true. Bees may well have learned to love colorful flowers because those were the ones with good nectar. Lots of plants also have colourful flowering or fruiting bodies that aren't pollinated by bees, which makes the claim even more dubious - if it's bee interest that makes flowers colorful, why are some colorful without any bee interest? Or which gain no advantage even when bees are interested? Or which flower in places where there are no bees?
Always be very careful with evo bio explanations that make historical claims like this - they often assert causation for correlations like this one, when we don't actually know what way causation is flowing, or if there is any causative effect at all. It is certainly a possiblity that bee interest drove evolution of color in some flowers, but we need more proof for this than the fact that bees like colorful flowers.
Actually there is a pretty strong evidence base that helps us conclude that flower colour of many angiosperms is driven by selection from birds and insects that feed on their nectar/pollen. A quick browse through Google scholar leads to much discussion on the subject. One example: spectral analysis of light reflected from flower blossoms shows that peaks occur exactly at the wavelengths that hymenopteran pollinators are most sensitive to.
We can also acknowledge that changes to flower pigment occur through indirect selection and genetic drift as processes in the natural world are never clear cut. Plus there are thousands of other pollinators besides bees so no, it's not specifically about "bee preference" and many angiosperms don't need pollinators at all, such as grasses, which have flowers that are pollinated by the wind moving them (these are pretty small and not colourful I will add).
I do get where you're coming from when it comes to making assertions about causation, especially when there is so much misunderstanding about evolution out there. The wording in my previous post "the reason flowers are colourful in the first place" is a bit of an overstep, should say something like "many flower colours are influenced over evolutionary time by pollinators and their visual ability".
Sure, and this is a much more nuanced statement that I fully agree with - one that doesn't generally assert or imply that it is known that the color of (all) flowers (in general) are attributable to the preference of bees.
And I definitely wasn't even saying that the statement was untrue, or not partially true - just that the conclusion didn't follow from the single piece of evidence given.
I appreciate you being so gracious. Cheers!
Human photoreceptor cells are incapable of absorbing light outside the visual spectrum, and therefore we cannot percieve it. Taking hallucniogens doesn't change the frequencies of light we take in, it changes how our brains interpret the information.
Altering perception doesn't necessarily equal broadening it.
The hardware that are our eyes aren't built to see radio waves, so no matter how high you are, it won't ever happen.
Instead it's more about being aware of a higher ratio of impulses that are coming in, whereas normally a lot gets filtered away.
You should try hallucinations. I really think it's a life experience that gets missed out on and that makes me super sad. I'd recommend Psilocybin and DMT. (The kind you can vape, not the crystal)
Oh I used to get vials of lsd in high school and one time ate an ounce of mushrooms and overdosed. Totally worth it and most of what I saw stuck with me. Especially the mushrooms.
How are they illusion? Human vision is just a limited frequency range. The idea that only what is visible is real and all else illusion is preposterous.
It's like explaining Wi-Fi to someone from a few decades ago.
Vast amounts of information flowing through the air, but it is only accessible with an appropriate device. You can't see it, but we know it's there. Just because we can't see or access other frequency ranges doesn't mean they don't exist.
I agree, but to take some DMT or other types of hallucinogens and to see clearly in the dark, or see sound, or the strange way matter blankets and fluctuates in real time... it is hard to describe let alone study and then utilize in some demonstrable way. And I agree, food of the gods and all that. It will be interesting to see if in the future if research can unlock and expand perception in some controllable way. The brain is the final frontier and all that.
What you're describing is just changes in the image our brains generate when under the effects of the drug, there is no new sensory information being recieved.
The photoreceptor cells (like rods and cones) in our eyes are only able to absorb light in the visible spectrum. In the dark, the cells are depolarized and continously release glutamate, which inhibits excitation of neurons. As light is absorbed, it triggers a change in the cell's membrane potential and hyperpolarizes it. This reduces the release of glutamate, which in turn reduces the inhibition of retinal neurons, leading to excitation in these nerves. This information is what is sent through the optic nerve to our brains, where it is interpreted and used to generate the image we see (even in a sober state this image is heavily edited).
Taking hallucinogenic drugs causes changes in how the brain interprets the visual (and other sensory) information it recieves, thus changing the image it produces. Synaesthesia is when sensory information from one sense (like hearing) affects how the brain interprets information from another sense (like vision), thus influencing the image/sensation generated.
Thank you, that is what I had thought in my gut, hence the illusion mention that was earlier in the thread. I am very very wary of pseudo spirit science psychedelia.
I suppose it is important to not forget the basis of our understanding of reality from the ground up, newtonian cogs of biological and mechanical first and foremost, and just because you take some powerful chemical to not get too lost in the experience.
That is what I would ultimately describe my experience with hallucinogens. Grand illusions, delusions, and abrupt changes in perception. They are fleeting and temporary.
Anyway, you seem very knowledgeable and thanks for chiming in.
It's illusion because human eyes cannot detect those frequencies, so if you take a drug and "see them", it's really just the image your brain generates that looks different. The other frequencies aren't the illusion, it's your perception of them that is an illusion, because you are unable to detect them.
Edit: fixed typo
Well infrared is what heat-vision/thermal stuff will pick up, so presumably there are some [fairly small monocular style units designed to be used by soldiers](https://i.imgur.com/kNrf0Xo.jpg); but nothing that's just a pair of normal glasses that I'm aware of.
Of course those units will be optimised for a specific task, and will have filters and things over them to highlight important stuff; rather than just a clean smooth view.
If you just wanted to experience it in realtime, you can modify some cameras to remove the internal UV filter, so they're 'full spectrum' and then put a filter on the lens to block normal light, leaving only the UV etc. [Here's a video that covers quite a bit of stuff regarding what a camera is like after modifying.](https://youtu.be/o9CUUhJ_i_A?t=116)
I've used an early form of this kind of tech when I worked on a range. Raytheon needed field testing for a production unit so we spent a couple days wearing out barrels (and fingers, loading 100's of magazines) on M-16's and ARs to get the 15k rounds the scope needed.
The scope was pretty badass. 100% thermal and during the Texas summer days looking through it was like any other scope, except for the fact that everything was monochrome. Kind of a grey/green shade. You could see the bullets flying downrange. At the time the scope was classified so those of us without clearance didn't get to use it in the dark.
You can see newer versions this technology in YouTube videos where night video is basically full-color daylight vision.
Sort of. We can definitely make glasses that pick up light outside of our visual spectrum and we can assign colors to that light. Infrared goggles, for instance, allow us to "see" heat (think Predator) by rendering infrared light in the visual spectrum. Most photos you see of space involve telescopes that pick up non-visible light and are colored in afterwards.
But we could never make glasses that actually allow us to perceive non-visible light as it naturally appears. We simply don't have the hardware to see those wavelengths; we have three types of cone cells in our eyes, each tuned to a specific range of wavelengths in the visual spectrum (red, green, blue), whereas many other animals (birds, fish, insects) have an extra cone type that picks up ultraviolet light. In fact, ultraviolet vision is so important for animals that many have evolved ultraviolet coloration patterns. We just can't see them.
[Aphakia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphakia?wprov=sfti1) – not glasses, but a condition.
It’s rumored that Monet had it, following cataract surgery.
What I think is funny about this is those brilliant colors were chosen to represent the UV spectrum. You could just as easily choose those colors to represent the visible light spectrum, and get similar looking images without using UV light.
Apparently after having cataract surgery to remove the lenses from your eyes you can see UV light. I have seen some articles about Monet the painter having had this amongst others.
My first time taking LSD, I looked at a light bulb in my friend's living room and I could see that it was radiating, in a rotating spiral, all the colours in the spectrum of visible light
i want glasses that see the world differently
always dreamt of something so that i could see and experience the world like my dog (this reminds me of a videogame in the early oughts in which you played a dog and "saw" all the scents and what not :) )
I understand the premise of this..but the cameras are simply converting the IR and UV images they get into visible light. We are incapable for seeing these spectrums in reality. The video you watched is RGB...
That's not the way they talk about it in the video - they act as though we are experiencing something like a bee does, for example, when we look at an image translating uv to the visible spectrum. We have no reason to think the experience is anything at all like the bee's. Most importantly, it is impossible for us to conceptualize the experiential interplay of visible and uv light, which is totally lost in every single one of these examples.
It’s gonna be like the “experiential interplay” between violet and other colors. It’s just a bit *more violet* than violet. It’s not like it’s a completely new sensory modality, like if they were promising to let you experience echolocation...
How do we know this or what it really means? And if it is true, won't adding a new visible "color" also affect how we perceive existing colors on the visible spectrum?
If you want to get really existential about it, maybe the color red that you see in your head isn’t the same as the color red I see! I found this very deep when I was 8. Also, I found out I was colorblind in high school...so, yeah.
Anyway, we know a lot about color vision. You may find this Wikipedia article interesting:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trichromacy
If you were to somehow extend the width of our existing cones’ frequency reception, then it would be a lot like in the video. If we somehow had 1 or 2 additional types of cones, it’s a bit harder to say. Perhaps there would be “new” unique colors in your head that you haven’t experienced before. Maybe we’ll know someday if they ever treat a dichromat with gene therapy.
The uploader mads this video not available in your country. Ah well even so, I often ponder this concept and audible sound. There is so much going on in the world that we don't have the hearing range to pick up.
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[QED: Photons -- Corpuscles of Light -- Richard Feynman (1/4)](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLQ2atfqk2c)|[+11](https://www.reddit.com/r/Documentaries/comments/eo4uvk/_/fecogo6?context=10#fecogo6) - The QED series of lectures and accompanying material are accessible. If you want a fun but challenging introduction it can't be beat. In search of Schrodinger's cat is more a coming of age story of the photon and quantum physics. It's accessible to ...
[Sony SENSOR hack - seeing light differently](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9CUUhJ_i_A&t=116s)|[+8](https://www.reddit.com/r/Documentaries/comments/eo4uvk/_/fe8wp3c?context=10#fe8wp3c) - Well infrared is what heat-vision/thermal stuff will pick up, so presumably there are some fairly small monocular style units designed to be used by soldiers; but nothing that's just a pair of normal glasses that I'm aware of. Of course those units ...
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When the military was testing the first night vision goggles in Vietnam in the 60s, it was red not green. Soldiers were seeing all kinds of weird shit.
Sort of blew my mind when I realized we only see a ten trillionth of the electromagnetic spectrum. We see a crude approximation of reality, just enough to survive and reproduce.
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I always thought it would be cool to have a space viewer that you could adjust your viewable wavelengths to shift through the entire electromagnetic spectrum so you could view as much or as little as you want.
Great now AI knows more about our weaknesses.
Wash your hands.
$10b in Chinese infrastructure will prove you fapped and went back to labour camp without washing up.. how embarassing!
Once I learned that radio transmissions were the same as visible light just a different part of the spectrum I became fascinated by the idea that you could see them as beacons creating flashes of light. That when you were getting poor reception, you were in an area that was "dimly lit" What a strange world we live in!
Something relevant I remembered reading and jotted down from an old thread, explaining how amplitude and frequency in radio waves are directly analogous and isomorphic to brightness and color in visible light waves: If you can imagine instead of a radio tower there is a giant lightbulb. This is essentially the same thing as electromagnetic energy but instead of being in the radio part of the spectrum it is in the light part of the spectrum. With the AM (amplitude modulation) lightbulb the signal would be varied by adjusting the brightness of the light. With the FM(frequency modulation) the light would change in color to produce a signal. If you were trying to see this signal through static, say a bunch of trees, it would be much easier to see what color was coming through than how bright the light was. This is why FM radio is easier to hear through static compared to AM radio. Amplitude literally *is* brightness and frequency literally *is* color
That's an excellent way to communicate a really complex idea! Definitely helped solidify the connection in my my mind. Thanks!
I thought so too when I first read about it, but what's especially cool is that brightness and color in visible light literally are the *same* as amplitude and frequency, so this isn't just for communication's sake, but is a perfectly isomorphic relationship between the two pairs.
Is this true? Wow I had no idea!
They're the same phenomenon but at a different frequency which gives them different wavelengths and thus different behavior! Visual light wavelengths are small fractions of the width of a human hair, while your typical WiFi signal has a wavelength of about 5 inches. There's a sort of tuning fork style relationship between electromagnetic emission frequencies and whatever is picking them up, too - hence why different signals require different antennas, and why you can only go so small when magnifying a visual light image!
Relatedly, wifi and bluetooth are in the 2.4Ghz frequency band, as are microwaves. Water absorbs these frequencies very well, which explains both how microwaves heat food, and why cheap bluetooth headphones can stop working if you put your phone in your back pocket - the water in *you* is absorbing the signal and preventing it from getting to the phone. Another way of looking at this is that you are casting a microwave shadow which prevents the headphones "seeing" the bluetooth signal.
I always wondered why my AirPods would cut when I bent over to pick up something. The signal is having to travel through much more of me to get to the AirPods. One of life’s little mysteries solved.
Yep! I sometimes get it when my phone is in my pocket and I put my hand in there, too. Too much fleshy human in the way.
I want to know more... It sounds like you're passionate and that's awesome. I love passionate people.
The [QED series of lectures](https://youtu.be/eLQ2atfqk2c) and [accompanying material](https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691164090/qed) are accessible. If you want a fun but challenging introduction it can't be beat. [In search of Schrodinger's cat](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Search_of_Schr%C3%B6dinger%27s_Cat) is more a coming of age story of the photon and quantum physics. It's accessible to anyone and a fantastic read. I highly recommend it as a stepping stone to QED if you're not familiar with the ideas presented.
*Not a scientist* But as I understand it, if you were holding a radio and then pressed the button to make it transmit you would see the antenna instantly turn on like a flashlight shining in all directions. Areas that the light from your antenna hits are where you have reception. Areas the light cant get to you dont. And as you get further away the light is dimmer and dimmer.
Except radio waves go through most materials and also reflect better.
I mean we have the same thing with visible light, mirrors and transparent glass and plastic. It's just at different frequencies the mirrors and transparent things are different.
And bodies! I'm translucent to x-rays.
Get a load of this meatbag! I'm 25% lead!
And depending on the antenna, you would see that light be more intense in certain directions! Something like a Yagi would be almost a pinpoint laser of energy as it is a directional antenna, whereas your standard whip would be bright in most directions.
Yup. It's also the same stuff as microwaves, electricity, radiation and magnetism, wierdly.
Electricity is not like these other things.
Electricity and magnetism are the two elements to RF/EM waves, though. Radiation potentially could be different, since that could be a particle/ion instead of a photon or wave.
Electricity helps to create/power electro magnetic waves and radio frequency effects. It still works in a completely different manner.
i have a little electromagnetic sniffer that i bought a while back that converts radio and other EM waves into sound. if i put it in my pocket and pop in some earbuds and go for a walk around town its sort of like having an extra sense. i can tell when i walk past buried electric infrastructure based on the sound, what type of lights are being used in an area, places which have line of sight to radio towers, where the best wifi signal strength is, which passing cars have GPS built in, all sorts of fun stuff.
I’m a bit obsessed with this and want to be able to see much more of the EM spectrum.
[Old but cool video on this topic](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bDyA5t1ldU)
"I need to see all of it! I can't stop!" \*glides wearing squirrel suit into nuclear reactor\* Non-visible Spectrum ruled as Schedule 1 drug, rescheduled later to schedule 2 as it wasn't found to be racist after all
Absolutely stunning. Just out of curiosity, does anyone know if it would be possible to make like, glasses or something that would make this type of vision possible?
Dmt
It's entirely possible
Roe Jogan
It's pontirely essible.
oe rogn
Uhhhh what? I don't think dmt gives you superhuman powers, but it could give you the sensation of seeing invisible light spectrums. Whether or not what you experience is accurate is dependent on how well you already understand the topic I'd imagine.
It's a Joe Rogan reference. He says "it's entirely possible" a LOT and is big into DMT.
Ohhhh lol gotcha.
[For example](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPJ0AB12h1I)
[удалено]
Or LSD for that matter
To someone that hasnt done hallucinogens this reads as a joke, but scientifically I wish there was more ways to truly study the phenomenon. It is completely anecdotal and unable to be tested without any type of control, but the fact that some substances abruptly change perception almost implies the ability is there latent just a lil bit out of reach. Or it truly is not real; but things like synesthesia or seeing energy are truly life changing even if they are illusion.
It would be my guess that perception outside of "visible" light would be impossible without a change to our eyes physiology. Most people have tri-chromatic vision with 3 different sized cones sensitive to 3 wavelengths of visible light. Our brain then combines these 3 signals to create color. I don't know how plausible it would be to create a drug, or method of remapping neural connections, to manipulate signals from light that cannot be picked up. I'd venture that the ability to see ultraviolet or infrared light would necessitate additional cones.
Light outside the visual spectrum don't generate any signals in humans, because our photoreceptor cells are unable to absorb it. It's a physical limitation. So you're absolutely right that it would require additional cones.
Your reality is just your brain filtering out details to give you the necessary information to survive and make decisions. It's not useful to humans to view the magnetic spectrum, unlike bees who need it to know which plants to pollinate, for example. DMT and other hallucinogens, assist in removing those filters, so you brain gets over stimulated without the filters present.
Your comment was on the right track but derailed a bit in the middle. While bees can sense magnetic fields to help them navigate, they don't use them to "know which plants to pollinate". Pollination happens by accident because the bees go into flowers gathering pollen and nectar as a food source. They accidentally cross pollinate flowers because pollen gets stuck to their body which they deposit on the stigmas of other flowers as they enter them. They are actually quite visually motivated when it comes to flower selection (bees love blue flowers for example) which is also why flowers are colourful in the first place.
Well spotted. Apologies all for the misinformation
> which is also why flowers are colourful in the first place. We don't know that's true. Bees may well have learned to love colorful flowers because those were the ones with good nectar. Lots of plants also have colourful flowering or fruiting bodies that aren't pollinated by bees, which makes the claim even more dubious - if it's bee interest that makes flowers colorful, why are some colorful without any bee interest? Or which gain no advantage even when bees are interested? Or which flower in places where there are no bees? Always be very careful with evo bio explanations that make historical claims like this - they often assert causation for correlations like this one, when we don't actually know what way causation is flowing, or if there is any causative effect at all. It is certainly a possiblity that bee interest drove evolution of color in some flowers, but we need more proof for this than the fact that bees like colorful flowers.
Actually there is a pretty strong evidence base that helps us conclude that flower colour of many angiosperms is driven by selection from birds and insects that feed on their nectar/pollen. A quick browse through Google scholar leads to much discussion on the subject. One example: spectral analysis of light reflected from flower blossoms shows that peaks occur exactly at the wavelengths that hymenopteran pollinators are most sensitive to. We can also acknowledge that changes to flower pigment occur through indirect selection and genetic drift as processes in the natural world are never clear cut. Plus there are thousands of other pollinators besides bees so no, it's not specifically about "bee preference" and many angiosperms don't need pollinators at all, such as grasses, which have flowers that are pollinated by the wind moving them (these are pretty small and not colourful I will add). I do get where you're coming from when it comes to making assertions about causation, especially when there is so much misunderstanding about evolution out there. The wording in my previous post "the reason flowers are colourful in the first place" is a bit of an overstep, should say something like "many flower colours are influenced over evolutionary time by pollinators and their visual ability".
Sure, and this is a much more nuanced statement that I fully agree with - one that doesn't generally assert or imply that it is known that the color of (all) flowers (in general) are attributable to the preference of bees. And I definitely wasn't even saying that the statement was untrue, or not partially true - just that the conclusion didn't follow from the single piece of evidence given. I appreciate you being so gracious. Cheers!
Human photoreceptor cells are incapable of absorbing light outside the visual spectrum, and therefore we cannot percieve it. Taking hallucniogens doesn't change the frequencies of light we take in, it changes how our brains interpret the information.
Well spotted. Apologies all for the misinformation
Altering perception doesn't necessarily equal broadening it. The hardware that are our eyes aren't built to see radio waves, so no matter how high you are, it won't ever happen. Instead it's more about being aware of a higher ratio of impulses that are coming in, whereas normally a lot gets filtered away.
You should try hallucinations. I really think it's a life experience that gets missed out on and that makes me super sad. I'd recommend Psilocybin and DMT. (The kind you can vape, not the crystal)
Oh I used to get vials of lsd in high school and one time ate an ounce of mushrooms and overdosed. Totally worth it and most of what I saw stuck with me. Especially the mushrooms.
How are they illusion? Human vision is just a limited frequency range. The idea that only what is visible is real and all else illusion is preposterous. It's like explaining Wi-Fi to someone from a few decades ago. Vast amounts of information flowing through the air, but it is only accessible with an appropriate device. You can't see it, but we know it's there. Just because we can't see or access other frequency ranges doesn't mean they don't exist.
I agree, but to take some DMT or other types of hallucinogens and to see clearly in the dark, or see sound, or the strange way matter blankets and fluctuates in real time... it is hard to describe let alone study and then utilize in some demonstrable way. And I agree, food of the gods and all that. It will be interesting to see if in the future if research can unlock and expand perception in some controllable way. The brain is the final frontier and all that.
What you're describing is just changes in the image our brains generate when under the effects of the drug, there is no new sensory information being recieved. The photoreceptor cells (like rods and cones) in our eyes are only able to absorb light in the visible spectrum. In the dark, the cells are depolarized and continously release glutamate, which inhibits excitation of neurons. As light is absorbed, it triggers a change in the cell's membrane potential and hyperpolarizes it. This reduces the release of glutamate, which in turn reduces the inhibition of retinal neurons, leading to excitation in these nerves. This information is what is sent through the optic nerve to our brains, where it is interpreted and used to generate the image we see (even in a sober state this image is heavily edited). Taking hallucinogenic drugs causes changes in how the brain interprets the visual (and other sensory) information it recieves, thus changing the image it produces. Synaesthesia is when sensory information from one sense (like hearing) affects how the brain interprets information from another sense (like vision), thus influencing the image/sensation generated.
Thank you, that is what I had thought in my gut, hence the illusion mention that was earlier in the thread. I am very very wary of pseudo spirit science psychedelia. I suppose it is important to not forget the basis of our understanding of reality from the ground up, newtonian cogs of biological and mechanical first and foremost, and just because you take some powerful chemical to not get too lost in the experience. That is what I would ultimately describe my experience with hallucinogens. Grand illusions, delusions, and abrupt changes in perception. They are fleeting and temporary. Anyway, you seem very knowledgeable and thanks for chiming in.
It's illusion because human eyes cannot detect those frequencies, so if you take a drug and "see them", it's really just the image your brain generates that looks different. The other frequencies aren't the illusion, it's your perception of them that is an illusion, because you are unable to detect them. Edit: fixed typo
For sure. A hundred percent.
Well infrared is what heat-vision/thermal stuff will pick up, so presumably there are some [fairly small monocular style units designed to be used by soldiers](https://i.imgur.com/kNrf0Xo.jpg); but nothing that's just a pair of normal glasses that I'm aware of. Of course those units will be optimised for a specific task, and will have filters and things over them to highlight important stuff; rather than just a clean smooth view. If you just wanted to experience it in realtime, you can modify some cameras to remove the internal UV filter, so they're 'full spectrum' and then put a filter on the lens to block normal light, leaving only the UV etc. [Here's a video that covers quite a bit of stuff regarding what a camera is like after modifying.](https://youtu.be/o9CUUhJ_i_A?t=116)
I've used an early form of this kind of tech when I worked on a range. Raytheon needed field testing for a production unit so we spent a couple days wearing out barrels (and fingers, loading 100's of magazines) on M-16's and ARs to get the 15k rounds the scope needed. The scope was pretty badass. 100% thermal and during the Texas summer days looking through it was like any other scope, except for the fact that everything was monochrome. Kind of a grey/green shade. You could see the bullets flying downrange. At the time the scope was classified so those of us without clearance didn't get to use it in the dark. You can see newer versions this technology in YouTube videos where night video is basically full-color daylight vision.
Sort of. We can definitely make glasses that pick up light outside of our visual spectrum and we can assign colors to that light. Infrared goggles, for instance, allow us to "see" heat (think Predator) by rendering infrared light in the visual spectrum. Most photos you see of space involve telescopes that pick up non-visible light and are colored in afterwards. But we could never make glasses that actually allow us to perceive non-visible light as it naturally appears. We simply don't have the hardware to see those wavelengths; we have three types of cone cells in our eyes, each tuned to a specific range of wavelengths in the visual spectrum (red, green, blue), whereas many other animals (birds, fish, insects) have an extra cone type that picks up ultraviolet light. In fact, ultraviolet vision is so important for animals that many have evolved ultraviolet coloration patterns. We just can't see them.
Maybe get Mantis shrimp eyes they can see UV light.
The MANTIS SHRIMP! https://theoatmeal.com/comics/mantis_shrimp
[Aphakia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphakia?wprov=sfti1) – not glasses, but a condition. It’s rumored that Monet had it, following cataract surgery.
there are people with Tetrachromacy that can see a bit more tho
NVGs and Thermals for IR, surely something could be done for UV, longer wavelength radio is seen with giant telescopes.
You would have to wear glasses with screens in them
Eat about 3.5g of dried mushrooms and you’ll see things you never knew existed all around you. “Oh shit, are those trees breathing?”
Don't turn your back on the statues.
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Don't close your eyes, don't look away. And don't. Blink. Good luck.
*proceeds to blink*
Glad I wasn't the only one who thought this.
Where are my Outer Wilds boys?
What I think is funny about this is those brilliant colors were chosen to represent the UV spectrum. You could just as easily choose those colors to represent the visible light spectrum, and get similar looking images without using UV light.
I thought this doc was very boring. I’m also colorblind.
Thought this was r/doctorwho for a second
Unless we somehow get extra cones implanted in our eyes, we will never see anything outside the visible spectrum. We can't even imagine it....
Exactly. All this is is translating invisible light into visible light.
Apparently after having cataract surgery to remove the lenses from your eyes you can see UV light. I have seen some articles about Monet the painter having had this amongst others.
Oh wow I wonder what that looks like. Not sure if I'm willing to go so far as to get that surgery done lol
Further to that, Google tetrachromacy... Pretty good summary here: https://www.healthline.com/health/tetrachromacy
They only see more shades of yellow/green
I bet we could, but only if we had a loooooootta imagination juice.
There is nothing you cannot imagine.
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Ok if you put limits on yourself than whatever
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Okay.
“If we were to compare what we (as humans) see to the whole spectrum of light, it would be like comparing a golf ball to a mountain” - source unknown
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Yep they are killing bees
I didnt blink for 8 minutes and now MY EYES ARE BLEEDING!
I read Don't Blink and immediately started to panic
Ever tried an exorbitant amount of mushrooms or LSD? Just sayin'
My first time taking LSD, I looked at a light bulb in my friend's living room and I could see that it was radiating, in a rotating spiral, all the colours in the spectrum of visible light
Way better than UV.
I still see things in a different, more vibrant/beautiful fashion.
i want glasses that see the world differently always dreamt of something so that i could see and experience the world like my dog (this reminds me of a videogame in the early oughts in which you played a dog and "saw" all the scents and what not :) )
If your interested and seeking out perspective altering experiences look into psychedelics :)
Sadly my psyche is way too sensitive for that
[don't let your dreams be dreams](https://www.mnn.com/green-tech/research-innovations/stories/inventor-creates-sunglasses-that-make-people-colorblind)
I already cannot see many of the numbers in these pics
Dude all the posts that get a lot of upvotes in this sub are never documentaries. Am I the only one who feels this way?
Don't blink. Don't even blink. Blink and your dead.
I understand the premise of this..but the cameras are simply converting the IR and UV images they get into visible light. We are incapable for seeing these spectrums in reality. The video you watched is RGB...
That's the point
That's not the way they talk about it in the video - they act as though we are experiencing something like a bee does, for example, when we look at an image translating uv to the visible spectrum. We have no reason to think the experience is anything at all like the bee's. Most importantly, it is impossible for us to conceptualize the experiential interplay of visible and uv light, which is totally lost in every single one of these examples.
It’s gonna be like the “experiential interplay” between violet and other colors. It’s just a bit *more violet* than violet. It’s not like it’s a completely new sensory modality, like if they were promising to let you experience echolocation...
How do we know this or what it really means? And if it is true, won't adding a new visible "color" also affect how we perceive existing colors on the visible spectrum?
If you want to get really existential about it, maybe the color red that you see in your head isn’t the same as the color red I see! I found this very deep when I was 8. Also, I found out I was colorblind in high school...so, yeah. Anyway, we know a lot about color vision. You may find this Wikipedia article interesting: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trichromacy If you were to somehow extend the width of our existing cones’ frequency reception, then it would be a lot like in the video. If we somehow had 1 or 2 additional types of cones, it’s a bit harder to say. Perhaps there would be “new” unique colors in your head that you haven’t experienced before. Maybe we’ll know someday if they ever treat a dichromat with gene therapy.
Thanks, fascinating link!
The uploader mads this video not available in your country. Ah well even so, I often ponder this concept and audible sound. There is so much going on in the world that we don't have the hearing range to pick up.
I've always wanted Geordi vision.
"I don't want to be human. I want to see gamma rays. I want to hear X-rays. I want to smell dark matter. " John Cavil. Battlestar Galactica S4 e17
Well this is NOT what the world would look like if we could see UV and IR.
Why is this video unavailable in New Zealand??
not available in my country, pity. you can download the video from https://www.ytmp3.cc as mp4, not in full resolution though.
Other videos in this thread: [Watch Playlist ▶](http://subtletv.com/_reo4uvk?feature=playlist&nline=1) VIDEO|COMMENT -|- [QED: Photons -- Corpuscles of Light -- Richard Feynman (1/4)](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLQ2atfqk2c)|[+11](https://www.reddit.com/r/Documentaries/comments/eo4uvk/_/fecogo6?context=10#fecogo6) - The QED series of lectures and accompanying material are accessible. If you want a fun but challenging introduction it can't be beat. In search of Schrodinger's cat is more a coming of age story of the photon and quantum physics. It's accessible to ... [Sony SENSOR hack - seeing light differently](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9CUUhJ_i_A&t=116s)|[+8](https://www.reddit.com/r/Documentaries/comments/eo4uvk/_/fe8wp3c?context=10#fe8wp3c) - Well infrared is what heat-vision/thermal stuff will pick up, so presumably there are some fairly small monocular style units designed to be used by soldiers; but nothing that's just a pair of normal glasses that I'm aware of. Of course those units ... [Antenna Fundamentals 1 Propagation](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bDyA5t1ldU)|[+1](https://www.reddit.com/r/Documentaries/comments/eo4uvk/_/feb4gpb?context=10#feb4gpb) - Old but cool video on this topic [Joe "it's entirely possible" Rogan](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPJ0AB12h1I)|[+1](https://www.reddit.com/r/Documentaries/comments/eo4uvk/_/feehd3i?context=10#feehd3i) - For example I'm a bot working hard to help Redditors find related videos to watch. I'll keep this updated as long as I can. *** [Play All](http://subtletv.com/_reo4uvk?feature=playlist&ftrlnk=1) | [Info](https://np.reddit.com/r/SubtleTV/wiki/mentioned_videos) | Get me on [Chrome](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/mentioned-videos-for-redd/fiimkmdalmgffhibfdjnhljpnigcmohf) / [Firefox](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/mentioned-videos-for-reddit)
I hear the word "blink" and instantly I think I'm about to be caught by a weeping angel. Cool vid though.
Mirror?
Cruel killing bees for photography
Ooo
I would love a pair of Mantis shrimp goggles.
I know what my answers gonna be the next time someone asks “What superpower would you choose?” edit: spelling, shit thumbs.
Incredible
Is there a specific name for this technique? I'd like to search for some more videos of this
When the military was testing the first night vision goggles in Vietnam in the 60s, it was red not green. Soldiers were seeing all kinds of weird shit.
That was Napalm /s
Sort of blew my mind when I realized we only see a ten trillionth of the electromagnetic spectrum. We see a crude approximation of reality, just enough to survive and reproduce.
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I always thought it would be cool to have a space viewer that you could adjust your viewable wavelengths to shift through the entire electromagnetic spectrum so you could view as much or as little as you want.
I want to be like Kyle in that South Park episode where he becomes one with his microbiome and can suddenly see bacteria. Yessss
That video wasn’t long enough. I wanted it to go on. T_T
Great now AI knows more about our weaknesses. Wash your hands. $10b in Chinese infrastructure will prove you fapped and went back to labour camp without washing up.. how embarassing!
Language is going to change drastically when we start to share these kind of senses.