Showerthoughts

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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. A showerthought should offer a unique perspective on an ordinary part of life.

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When you say something is “red” it’s actually every color except red since red is the color being reflected off the object. (discuss.tchncs.de)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/showerthoughts

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What’s your new favorite color now???

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[–] fubo 34 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

You see the colors you do because —

As an ape and a mammal, you have eyes that have evolved to make distinctions among those colors, e.g. to tell red fruit from green leaves, or orange tigers from brown horses.
The earth's atmosphere is mostly transparent to those colors (frequencies of light). Chemicals that are opaque to those colors tend to get burned off from the atmosphere by sunlight.
The sun emits most of its energy in those frequencies. This both ① burns off the opaque chemicals in the atmosphere, and ② means those colors are the best for an animal to use to see things.

Your eye was not "designed" to see red, but being able to see red is a good trick for an ape that sometimes eats red fruit or red meat.

The earth's atmosphere was not "designed" to be transparent to certain colors of light, but any chemical that isn't transparent to a frequency of light will absorb energy from it and thus tend to burn off.

The sun was not "designed" for us to see by, but using the available light to see is a great trick for animals of all kinds.

[–] 4am 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

In other words:

eyes that worked well in those color frequencies we know as “visible light” were able to find food and dodge danger better.
Those creatures lived longer and had babies who shared those traits
eyes that were more sensitive to other frequencies couldn’t work as well due to the environment they existed in, and as a result didn’t survive as well.
Not as many of them left to mate (hell, could have had a hard time even finding a mate!)

This is how natural selection optimizes life traits. It takes hundreds of thousands of generations for profound effects to emerge. You’re currently at the bleeding edge of life tech. Enjoy the details!

[–] fubo 6 points 1 year ago

Eyes have evolved in several separate animal lineages. You, a bee, an octopus, and a box-jellyfish all have eyes, but their most recent common ancestors did not have eyes. Your eyes are different in many ways from those other species', but they all have to make use of sunlight filtered through a nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere and water. So it's unsurprising that they end up with some similar "design" features.