Have you ever thought about what life would be like for people who saw everything as if looking through a blue-tinged lens?
For these people, everything in the world would be a shade of blue. Their car would be a shade of blue. The sky would only be distinguishable from the ground by its shade of blue. In the mirror, they would see their skin, teeth, eyes as shades of blue. Others might be able to distinguish people by the colour of their skin, but for them all people would be different shades of the one colour.
The rest of the world might associate emotions with certain colours, but for the blue people those associations would be meaningless. What does a phrase 'green with envy' mean to a person who can only see blue? How can a person who can only see blue understand a phrase like 'red hot'? How would they feel when they heard other people saying they were 'feeling blue'?
Thinking more deeply about this predicament raises another question: Would only being able to see the colour blue also inhibit the range of feelings available? Blue is seen as a soothing colour, while red tends to inflame the senses. These are genetic predispositions, ingrained in our being. So would a person who could only see blue appear calmer than other people? Would they be less quick to anger? More introspective?
If seeing in shades of blue did affect the way they reacted to the world, would it also affect their emotions? Someone who struggles to feel the fiery emotions that come tinged in red might struggle to feel the same passions as other people. How could they understand anger? How could they understand love? Other metaphors might take the place of colours. We can still burn with love without seeing the red fire. But, washed and immersed in a cold blue universe, would love still burn as strong?
You might say that the blue people would be just like those born without sight. A blind person learns to rely on other senses. Those who never know sight can still feel love, anger, jealousy, pain, hatred, excitement, amusement, arousal. The strength of these feelings is undiminished for the lack of visual metaphors. But those who see the world in tinges of blue aren't lacking in a sense—they are being deceived by a sense. They don't have a hole in their universe. Their universe