On Wednesday, August 04, 1999 3:40 PM David Lubkin <lubkin@unreasonable.com>
typed:
> I had a girlfriend long ago who said she saw auras. Since she also
> believed in the efficacy of tarot and several other seeming delusions, I
paid
> little attention. More recently, I've heard the suggestion that people
who see
> "auras" are actually seeing a colour or two into the ultraviolet.
>
> I understand that there *are* people who can see into the ultraviolet.
Does
> anyone know if anyone has compared the descriptions that test subjects
> provide of what they're seeing with the descriptions that aura-seers
> report? Are there other plausible explanations for what these people say
> they're seeing? And any pointers to subject descriptions of UV colors?
I've heard that the Japanese used people during WW2 who could see in near infrared. I don't know how true this claim is. Though there are other animals, e.g., bees, which can see in portions of the ultraviolet, I've not heard of any humans who can. I imagine it's possible and others on the list might have information on this. (Or David can do a search under "human vision" in a reputable search engine.:)
> Is there any evidence of any humans who can perceive other non-visible
> EM wavelengths (besides coarse sensing of IR)?
>
> What uses are there for non-visible EM imaging of human bodies (besides
> x-rays)? Say, is IR human imaging useful in medicine, or can it be used
> to estimate someone's emotional state?
I've seen IR used to map surface skin temperature, which is supposed to be useful in a wide range of things, from monitoring blood flow to the progress of surface tumors. However, I saw this on TV so it might have been an oversell of the concept.
> Is there any useful way to feed a broader spectrum into the brain other
than
> mapping it into the currently-visible spectrum and using the optic
machinery?
Add more wetware onto the brain and integrate it.:)
Another technique might be to more broadly map colors so, e.g., that red covers a wider range than just what we currently perceive as red. You might miss some details, but with this method, you need not add any fancy new components onto the brain.
Anyway, it's all purple to me!
Daniel Ust
http://mars.superlink.net/neptune/