So let’s say this Alien eyes see on the infrared level, he would see normal RGB like you and I, but could be still know there is colors there? What reason is there for the alien to discover there is colors there?
I think I can’t imagine how we discover something that we don’t see, or mostly that there is something that I don’t know
“Color” is really just a conversion of certain wavelengths into something our brains can differentiate. However this theoretical alien differentiates between wavelengths of light would probably be different than us, just like we’re different than some other organisms on earth. If their method of differentiation is entirely different than “colors” we may not be able to conceptualize it, and they may not be able to conceptualize colors.
But just as an example, maybe they “feel” or “taste” different wavelengths of light instead of seeing them. We might be able to say, “hey, that light that you taste as sweet, we see as red”.
In their language they might have a way to describe that wavelength of light, just as we have a way to describe it, but our ability to really understand that description may not overlap.
Read the book Hail Mary by Andy Weir. He explores the alieness of an alien really well and this was one of the hurdles to understanding between the two protagonists.
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We routinely take photos in other frequency ranges. It’s easy enough to find infrared photographs, made easier since not only is there film that exposes IR, but digital cameras are naturally sensitive to it so you just need to change out some filters. But you know, astrophotography often uses different frequency ranges, since a lot of stellar phenomena emit different kinds of radiation.
The bigger question is, would an alien without eyes at all be aware of electromagnetic radiation? And conversely, what phenomena are there that would be obvious to aliens but we just don’t know about, because out sensory organs don’t predispose us to being aware of them?
I remember the OnePlus 8 phone having a filter that accidentally showing what was behind a plastic object because of the frequency of the pictures it was taking, and I remember seeing Neyle deGrasse explaining how they changed pictures of space which gave us those great colors
Light is an electromagnetic wave. Humans don’t naturally perceive most of the electromagnetic spectrum: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_spectrum
So, your theoretical primitive alien without technology wouldn’t know, but one with sufficient technology level would know. Assuming that it’s not an ignorant one.
So the reasoning behind would be: Hey our Space eyes are wave receiver>Hey, there is more waves then that> Hey thrrr is this part that shows this thing that I can see but alien on the planet earth would be able to see 🤔?
If they evolved to perceive certain wavelengths, they will see those wavelengths. The wavelengths that they haven’t evolved to see could be observed using specialized tech.
The electromagnetic spectrum is huge. Aliens could see things that we call radio waves, they could see what microwaves, or anything else above ultraviolet or below infrared. They could also not see anything at all, there are plenty of blind animals on earth, and even the non blind ones there’s a huge difference in which wavelengths we see. A bee sees into the ultraviolet whereas a dog is essentially colorblind.
But here’s the important part, even if an alien could understand there’s colors, just like we understand there’s other waves outside our visible spectrum, they would not get to see them. Even when we take infrared pictures we color them with the colors we know so our brain can understand them. To give you a more radical example we associate radio waves with sounds, because we transmit sounds in a very crude manner on them (so much so that there have been reported instances of people who have metal fillings in their teeth actually being able to hear radio), but radio is no different than color, if our sun was different we might have evolved differently and would see radio and communicate using colors.
