The color pink, also known as magenta, does not exist from both the electromagnetic spectrum and a prism-created perfect rainbow. Instead, it is a creation of your brain. What? Yes, according to science, our minds serve us with a practical version of reality rather than the unfiltered version. For this reason, a color you see every day isn’t actually in the light. The physicist Dominik John states that “pink is something your brain invents when it encounters a gap between red and blue wavelengths.”
This concept is fundamental to the distinction between perception (how the brain processes information) and sensation (the unprocessed signals from your senses). It also provides an excellent introduction to the psychology of perception, which is the study of how humans interpret light. Additionally, it relates to more deep questions concerning Qualia, the personal, “what it feels like” aspect of experience that philosophers like Thomas Nagel study.
In terms of color and light mapping, even large scientific organizations like NASA remind us of how much still needs to be done.
Why Pink isn’t in the spectrum
A rainbow is created when white light splits through a prism and includes red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet hues. You can point to the wavelengths of blue and green, but you can’t point to “pink’s wavelength” because there isn’t one. When your eyes receive a lot of red and blue light (and little green), you will see pink or magenta. These signals are combined by your visual system to create a new experience that isn’t found in the electromagnetic spectrum alone. Your brain is organizing and “filling in” to keep everything around you visible.
It is an optical illusion. Your mind is more interested in meaningful patterns, contrasts, and objects than it is in every pixel. One well-known example is the checkerboard illusion, in which two identical squares appear to differ because of a shadow altering the background. The brain is not interested in recognizing every single wavelength; actually, it seeks to assist you in acting in the world. In this way, pink is a victory because your brain creates it to make sense of mixed light, despite the fact that physics does not list it as a single frequency.
How other “invisible” worlds prove the point
Only a small portion of the electromagnetic spectrum is visible to humans. Although they are invisible to us, radio waves, microwaves, and X-rays are still considered “light.” Some animals though, are able to detect things that humans cannot: bees can detect the polarization of light, sharks can sense electric fields, and birds can see ultraviolet patterns.
Qualia is the private feel of experience, and here’s where it comes in. Philosopher Thomas Nagel asked himself, “What is it like to be a bat?” But his argument concerned the boundaries of the explanation of inner life, not actually the animal. The bat alone is aware of the inner sensations of its world. In the same way, although your pink isn’t a wavelength “out there,” it is a felt experience that is real in our heads. The subjective reality (conscious experience) and the objective reality (particles, frequencies) are both relevant. NASA has “discovered new colors,” and It’s not surprising, we continue to learn more thanks to science.
What Pink teaches us about seeing
So, are we witnessing reality or an creation of our imagination? Both.
But knowing that know, doesn’t it make the colors even more awesome? The psychology of perception turns into a road map for figuring out how your own eyesight functions. It’s evidence that your brain is a talented artist creating a world that you can comprehend and appreciate.