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Old 06-18-2018, 10:08 PM   #441
malloyd
 
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Default Re: [IW] Ordinary Worlds with valuables!

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Originally Posted by Astromancer View Post
Of course, the Summer Palace was a semi-sacred space, people could be killed for trespassing. Getting good photos or rescuing art treasures would be dangerous.
So why trespass? Homeline can easily turn up some ethnic Han art historians who can turn up at the palace and present themselves to whatever minor official seems appropriate as art historians there to make drawings of the palace and its treasures. With suitably forged references from the provinces, and perhaps some modest bribes, there's no particular reason this shouldn't be allowed as long as they don't interfere with any actual Imperial business. They can even openly take photos and present copies of them (and their final catalog) to the Imperial bureaucracy. People get too hung up on secret missions.
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Old 06-19-2018, 01:51 AM   #442
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Default Re: [IW] Ordinary Worlds with valuables!

Variants of the ordinary always have their own value.

For example, the vast majority of people reading this are Trichromats - our retinas have three receptors for color. This lets us see approximately one million colors.

However, a very tiny percentage of the population are Tetrachromats - they have four receptors. As a consequence they see around ten million colors.

In our reality, these individuals are rare (and female, due to the gene causing this being in the X chromosone). But what about another reality, one where tetrachromacy is species-wide?

What would the great works of art look like? What would hanguage sound like, having to have to name two or three more rainbow colors and a huge swath of other colors? In fact, what would the sciences be like, as so many tests and analyses involve color changes?

The common artworks (the Mona Lisa, Warhol's Soup Cans, supermodel photos, etc) would look different. Anything in a visual art medium would be different and new.
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Old 06-19-2018, 02:07 AM   #443
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Default Re: [IW] Ordinary Worlds with valuables!

How many colors can the average man name right now? It isn't anywhere near millions.
I don't think it would make much of difference. But subtle differences can be quite fun for world jumpers.

As for reality, so far as I've heard, only one woman has been confirmed to be tretrachromatic.
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Old 06-19-2018, 03:52 AM   #444
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Default Re: [IW] Ordinary Worlds with valuables!

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As for reality, so far as I've heard, only one woman has been confirmed to be tretrachromatic.
I said "a very tiny percentage". And one person out of 7.5 billion is a very tiny percentage. Which does not preclude a parallel world where it is a dominant trait.
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Old 06-19-2018, 05:46 AM   #445
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Default Re: [IW] Ordinary Worlds with valuables!

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So why trespass? Homeline can easily turn up some ethnic Han art historians who can turn up at the palace and present themselves to whatever minor official seems appropriate as art historians there to make drawings of the palace and its treasures. With suitably forged references from the provinces, and perhaps some modest bribes, there's no particular reason this shouldn't be allowed as long as they don't interfere with any actual Imperial business. They can even openly take photos and present copies of them (and their final catalog) to the Imperial bureaucracy. People get too hung up on secret missions.
You are clever. Your "Keep It Simple Stupid" approach is lovely. And while the historians are getting the data, the crew assigned to ferry them back and forth get caught up in all kinds of weirdness and/or peril.
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Old 06-19-2018, 08:26 AM   #446
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Default Re: [IW] Ordinary Worlds with valuables!

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Originally Posted by Flyndaran View Post
How many colors can the average man name right now? It isn't anywhere near millions.
I don't think it would make much of difference. But subtle differences can be quite fun for world jumpers.
there is an app named "I love hue" about correctly arranging grids of colors ever so off from each other. It demonstrates lots about colors, particularly just how many we can distinguish. Its also the sort of thing that will drive you crazy when you think you've got a color pegged down and you don't.



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Originally Posted by Mysterious Dark Lord v3.2 View Post
However, a very tiny percentage of the population are Tetrachromats - they have four receptors. As a consequence they see around ten million colors.

What would the great works of art look like? What would hanguage sound like, having to have to name two or three more rainbow colors and a huge swath of other colors? In fact, what would the sciences be like, as so many tests and analyses involve color changes?

The common artworks (the Mona Lisa, Warhol's Soup Cans, supermodel photos, etc) would look different. Anything in a visual art medium would be different and new.

This is one I've thought about before, although its only in the context of aliens. The added complexity is enormous. They add one or two more rainbow colors, but they get a bunch of colors that don't occur in nature most of the time. Somewhere around three additional hues the equivalent of purple or orange in distinctiveness.



The art is unlikely to look exceptional to us. It will probably work, except that a number of works will be very bland color-wise. They will be able to tell the difference, but we really won't.



a couple of agents from that world would be fun though, depending on where you stick the fourth spectrum.



Also, it allows some interesting plots where you can tell centrum agents because you're both color-blind.



I think the opposite world, where everyone is color blind but out-timers, will actually provide better art. They'll have a smaller reliance on color, and they've had to be more creative with the same color scheme.



Its also a lot funner when the secret agents are the only ones who can tell the difference between green and red. Imagine what that does for secret communications.
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Old 06-19-2018, 08:27 AM   #447
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Default Re: [IW] Ordinary Worlds with valuables!

Tetrachromatics can see 100 million colors (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrachromacy). It is estimated that 2% of women have that ability, it is just very, very hard for researchers to test for colors that they cannot see (especially since color terminology is inexact). It is additionally confusing because significant proportions of the population can see more colors than 1 million due to having more sensitive rods (which can assist in color vision during low light and shadowy conditions) or other factors. Trichromatics seem to be the average for humans, with color experiences ranging from 0 colors to 100 million colors.
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Old 06-19-2018, 09:09 AM   #448
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Default Re: [IW] Ordinary Worlds with valuables!

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The art is unlikely to look exceptional to us. It will probably work, except that a number of works will be very bland color-wise. They will be able to tell the difference, but we really won't.
Some of it is a little off, but generally images with "close" colors next to each other aren't all that interesting to start with, so I don't think much will look bland. Lots of stuff is fine - the spectra of the whatsits haven't changed after all - natural colored things continue to look "right" in the same way they always did, just maybe not right in the same way to both groups. Paintings where colors are approximated (which they all are after all) look slightly wrong in slightly different ways, but we tolerate those approximations already. The place you start to see issues is with *reproductions* - stuff with colors produced by combinations of fairly narrow spectral colors that are supposed to add up to other colors - things colored with a mixture of dyes, which includes 4 color printing, or, especially, stuff displayed on screens with colored phosphors. Those will look totally wrong, like psychedelic versions of the thing the are said to be images of.
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Old 06-19-2018, 12:02 PM   #449
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Default Re: [IW] Ordinary Worlds with valuables!

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Originally Posted by ericthered View Post
there is an app named "I love hue" about correctly arranging grids of colors ever so off from each other. It demonstrates lots about colors, particularly just how many we can distinguish. Its also the sort of thing that will drive you crazy when you think you've got a color pegged down and you don't.
...
It's literally the only type of vision test where I perform better than average. My lifemate always gets 100% on them though.

Most of color perception is about experience and assumption regarding lighting conditions and surroundings as the blue/gold dress illustrates.

Same thing for hearing as the more recent Laurel/yanny illusion shows.

Same physical stimuli but different perceptions.
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Old 06-19-2018, 02:05 PM   #450
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Default Re: [IW] Ordinary Worlds with valuables!

Art from a color-blind world is likely to really annoy trichromatics, just as art by trichromatics is likely to really annoy tetrachromatics, on a regular basis.

My father was pretty darn colour blind and picked the most garish paisley fabrics if not restrained, because "clashing" colours didn't clash for him - or at least many didn't. He genuinely thought that muddy green and fluorescent fuschia went together, because to him they were both pretty muddy colours.

Or, looking at this another way - that fantastic electric hunter orange? Deer can't see that. It's just not a colour that stands out against greenery to them. Deer-like aliens might accidentally use electric hunter orange when they meant to use green - so when trying to paint a landscape the mid-"green" they might pick might accidentally be electric hunter orange. [1]

Similar colours are very frequently placed together in arts and crafts of all kinds, and in interior decorating.

[1] I keep hammering on "electric hunter orange" because to us monkeys it's EYE SEARING. And to deer it's roughly dirt or tree colored.
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