Monday, May 7, 2007

Renaming my conjecture

In this blog I had conjectured that the eigenhues perceived by two different individuals are exact. This conjecture cannot be either proved or disproved without the hard problem itself getting solved. I think that this conjecture (if it turns out to be true) would be a fundamentally important result that I wish to give it another name. I am calling it the "no tinted glasses conjecture" instead of "Shankar's color perception conjecture" after shedding my ego considerably. The new name actually conveys the meaning of the conjecture more deeply and dramatically.

For this not only implies that two normal individuals cannot have colors grossly inverted, but actually goes on to say the colors match to fine precision. Anyone who wears tinted sunglasses will initially notice the difference but will get used to it in no time. So two individuals who wear green and red tinted glasses would still "pass" according to the inverted spectrum principle, so an argument can be made that all individuals have this amount of hue variation to begin with. But my conjecture states that there is absolutely no variation whatsoever between individuals perceiving eigenhues due to direct stimulation of the neurons that are the "final link".

Again, I wish to caution that actual vision is subject to variations right from the lens and the cone and rod cells in humans, so the colors may not match. Indeed, in my own experience, seeing with only my left eye results in a slightly bluer (and cooler) sight compared to seeing with my right eye, though this is barely notiecable. Please refer to the earlier blog for a more detailed explanation.