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Comment by gatherhunterer | Hacker News Reader

You misunderstand. Any trichromat could see those colors as well, they would just need to be much closer to the object in order to distinguish them. You are still thinking about them seeing more colors. They see more detail in color. Detail is not a matter of visibility but one of perspective. With a closer perspective you could see those colors as well.

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I don't think that's true. Deuteranopic dichromats can't distinguish red and green by looking more closely.

Dichromatism is a disorder. Our brains expect a trichromatic signal and when it only receives dichromatic information the hues are “repeated” because a cone (usually the one responsible for green) is not available. In people with green-weak color blindness this makes green look like a “weak” reddish hue. Tetrachromats’ brains are still expecting a trichromatic signal but they get more information than is expected. That means that the image contains more information or detail but the colors are not nee colors.

What if trichromatism is also a disorder, that afflicts the vast majority of humans?

That’s not how brains or vision work. The brain is not “hard-coded” for trichromatism. Were that the case we would not be trichromats in the first place.

Our brains are rather complicated, interesting things- and probably do something like wire themselves up to whatever "sensors" are available.

> Any trichromat could see those colors as well, they would just need to be much closer to the object in order to distinguish them.

That’s patent nonsense.

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