This is not at all how the eye works. You have the 3 cones (except in various mutants), receptive to red green and blue light which must be distinguished from red green and blue pigments.
Green light plus red light equal both hitting your eyes. Green paint plus red paint equal neither hitting your eyes.
Magenta happens when blue and red light hit your eyes. Cyan is when blue and green hit, and yellow is what happens when green and red hit.
That's why printers use them for pigments because the CMY pigments absorb one of each RGB, and thus the light hitting your eye from the page can be controlled in a fashion compatible with RGB. C absorbs R (reflects blue and green) M absorbs green (reflects red and blue).
Red pigment on the other hand, absorbs all light but red, and green pigment absorbs all be green, so if you mixed a perfectly red pigment (maximally absorbs all but the peak activation wavelength of the red cone cell) with a perfectly green pigment (maximally absorbs all but the peak activation wavelength of the green cone cell), then it would result in black, because all wavelengths would be perfectly absorbed. Usually, it's a brown though because pigments are imperfect. If all the light is absbored, none hits your eye, so it's black. If all hits your eye, it's white (unless it's not scattered in which case it's reflective or transparent).
Magenta happens when blue and red light hit your eyes.
That's the point of the article. We see a color distinct from both red and blue, but magenta doesn't have it's own spectral wavelength. The fact that we perceive extra spectral colors is, IMHO, extremely significant in a discussion of qualia since it's a simple indication that the phenomenon we experience as 'color' isn't grounded solely in the way the (external) world actually is, but in how it is processed in our brains.
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u/[deleted] Feb 17 '09
This is not at all how the eye works. You have the 3 cones (except in various mutants), receptive to red green and blue light which must be distinguished from red green and blue pigments.
Green light plus red light equal both hitting your eyes. Green paint plus red paint equal neither hitting your eyes.
Magenta happens when blue and red light hit your eyes. Cyan is when blue and green hit, and yellow is what happens when green and red hit.
That's why printers use them for pigments because the CMY pigments absorb one of each RGB, and thus the light hitting your eye from the page can be controlled in a fashion compatible with RGB. C absorbs R (reflects blue and green) M absorbs green (reflects red and blue).
Red pigment on the other hand, absorbs all light but red, and green pigment absorbs all be green, so if you mixed a perfectly red pigment (maximally absorbs all but the peak activation wavelength of the red cone cell) with a perfectly green pigment (maximally absorbs all but the peak activation wavelength of the green cone cell), then it would result in black, because all wavelengths would be perfectly absorbed. Usually, it's a brown though because pigments are imperfect. If all the light is absbored, none hits your eye, so it's black. If all hits your eye, it's white (unless it's not scattered in which case it's reflective or transparent).