> Late in his life, Claude Monet developed cataracts. As his lenses degraded, they blocked parts of the visible spectrum, and the colors he perceived grew muddy. Monet's cataracts left him struggling to paint; he complained to friends that he felt as if he saw everything in a fog. After years of failed treatments, he agreed at age 82 to have the lens of his left eye completely removed. Light could now stream through the opening unimpeded. Monet could now see familiar colors again. And he could also see colors he had never seen before. Monet began to see - and to paint - in ultraviolet.
I must admit I have never thought of Monet as a Cyborg Enhanced Superman - but that has changed today, thank you; the site itself also looks quite interesting!
I was born with cataracts in both eyes. One was removed when I was a toddler (including the lens), and the other (with better vision) was left alone until I was a teenager at which point I got an artificial lens implant. I can't see ultraviolet out of my eye without a lens as far as I can tell (or maybe I can and just never noticed).
The argument in favor of it is that Monet was an exceptional trained painter, and one specialized in colors on top of that. He might have been extra sensitive to colors compared to most humans (both in the sense of biological sensory sensitivity, as well as trained ability to perceive colors).
Color vision is encoded on the X-chromosome, right? And human tetrachromatocy depends on having two X-chromosomes with different color vision genes[0]. So wouldn't a hypothetical tetrachromatic male need to be an XX-chromosome male[1], and on top of that have one of the X-chromosomes carrying the deutanomaly, protanomaly or tritanomaly mutation, and on top of that have this mixture manifest itself as having four color receptors instead of three? Or is there another theoretical way that I'm missing?
If my educated guess is correct then "somewhat unlikely" seems like quite an understatement to me! :D
(I have protanomaly myself, and never considered that men could hypothetically be tetrachormats as well. This was a fun through exercise)
Myself, I've had ICL surgery (Implantable Collamer Lens) as vision correction in both eyes (I wasn't a good candidate for Lasik). With it includes 100% UVA/UVB blocking. It's basically a permanent contact lens implanted behind the iris and in front of the the natural lens. So, sadly, no ultrahuman UV vision for me. My only "bionic" ability is saving my natural lens and retina from UV exposure.
I dobt know if other people can see it looking at my eyes, but on certain low light conditions, I do see a subtle elongated 'X' sorta looks like a mostly transparent '>---<' at the bottom of my vision. From talking with my Doc, its a small side effect of how they fold the lense implant when they insert it to minimize the size of the incision in the cornea. I dont normally notice it, and since its on the peripheral, it is pretty easy to ignore.
It's just really really blurry. I can see colors fine, and if I zoom OSX all the way on my external screen, I can read text. If I only had that vision, I'd probably be able to move around in the world, ie walk to the store, but I'd have a hard time doing many things I take for granted.
https://www.downloadtheuniverse.com/dtu/2012/04/monets-ultra...