georgeheath
Iron
- Joined
- Apr 17, 2025
- Posts
- 3
- Reputation
- 14
Unlike other traits, like height or hand size, it’s not so clear what evolutionary advantage the color of a person’s eyes provides. Yet, it seems like lighter hues (blue, green, gray) are more attractive than darker ones (brown), right? Not to mention how widespread colored irises are, despite the genes which cause them only appearing relatively recent in human history, somewhere around 6-10,000 years ago. So what gives? Well, there a good reason for this, and it’s actually quite simple. No technical jargon, I’ll walk you through this step-by-step and do my best to motivate the intuition here.
Okay, so our preference for light eyes essentially comes down to expression. Obviously, humans are social creatures— we cooperate with others because being in a group provides us power, safety, stability, and access to resources, as well as mates.
But you might start to notice the potential for a problem here, and it arises from the fact that cooperation always requires communication. I need to know at some level what you’re thinking, what you believe and what you desire if I want to work with you towards a common goal. Yet, the mind is inherently private. Even if I opened up your brain and checked for these mental states, I would never find them.
Consider for a moment why this is, perhaps first by reflecting on what I’m actually doing in this scenario. Well, I am literally looking at your brain, right? What I’m seeing is the light which has reflected off of your brain and reached my eyes, just as it does for whatever you’re looking at. Notice how there’s always this intermediary physical step, that the limitation here lies in the fact that we are just one slice of reality— the sensory and emotional stuff our brain creates. So, if we aren’t born knowing that other minds exist (or anything else, for that matter), then how is it that we ever go about learning this? Well, the solution here lies in bodily expression. Let me break this down.
Among the first realizations we make in life is the existence of our bodies. In short, this is just a label for the causal pattern you recognize between vision and proprioception (touch)— when your body moves, you feel it. Notice that it’s only this second sensory layer which distinguishes your body from any random object in your visual field. When a cup falls, or a bird shoots across the sky, you don’t feel anything unless it interacts with your body.
By extension, this also applies to other bodies (like mine). However, because you have already recognized your own body, you’re now able to draw on past experience and infer that I feel too. This goes far beyond proprioception, consider a scenario where you’ve developed a strategy of directing your eyes upwards when thinking hard (to clear the visual field, reduce distractions). If one day you saw me doing this, you might then think to yourself: “hm, that thing kind of looks like me. Hey, isn’t that like, the thing I do? When I’m thinking… is that thing thinking too?”.
So, I hope you can see now how we recognize other minds, at least at a rudimentary level. I’ve taken the time to explain all of this, because I want to really emphasize just how critical being able to discern each other’s mental states is to our survival. Which leads us directly to eye color— lighter irises highlight the pupil, providing more information about where a person is looking. This is the same reason why our sclera has evolved to be white, it makes it easier to discern where the center of our vision (the highest resolution area) is. I should add that vision is the primary sense, as it provides the most information, and composes the majority of thought (because of its inherent spatial quality, which is the only way to we can represent time). You can even notice this by simply considering what it would be like to lose your sight. Yes, losing your taste or smell would suck, but going blind would be devastating. it’s unlikely you would survive very long without significant aid from others.
This is also why people with lighter eyes often appear more intelligent. Not because the color somehow affects their mind, but rather reveals it to others. Not to mention, we can only care about the states of others if we’re aware of them. It’s much more difficult for us to empathize with a person missing their eyes, and this bleeds into how we think about other species. Consider the two dragonfly images (I’ll post in a comment below), notice how the one with the pupils exudes sentience and even a little bit of personality, while the other is closer to a rock or a tree— perhaps even a little uncanny or repulsive.
Okay, so our preference for light eyes essentially comes down to expression. Obviously, humans are social creatures— we cooperate with others because being in a group provides us power, safety, stability, and access to resources, as well as mates.
But you might start to notice the potential for a problem here, and it arises from the fact that cooperation always requires communication. I need to know at some level what you’re thinking, what you believe and what you desire if I want to work with you towards a common goal. Yet, the mind is inherently private. Even if I opened up your brain and checked for these mental states, I would never find them.
Consider for a moment why this is, perhaps first by reflecting on what I’m actually doing in this scenario. Well, I am literally looking at your brain, right? What I’m seeing is the light which has reflected off of your brain and reached my eyes, just as it does for whatever you’re looking at. Notice how there’s always this intermediary physical step, that the limitation here lies in the fact that we are just one slice of reality— the sensory and emotional stuff our brain creates. So, if we aren’t born knowing that other minds exist (or anything else, for that matter), then how is it that we ever go about learning this? Well, the solution here lies in bodily expression. Let me break this down.
Among the first realizations we make in life is the existence of our bodies. In short, this is just a label for the causal pattern you recognize between vision and proprioception (touch)— when your body moves, you feel it. Notice that it’s only this second sensory layer which distinguishes your body from any random object in your visual field. When a cup falls, or a bird shoots across the sky, you don’t feel anything unless it interacts with your body.
By extension, this also applies to other bodies (like mine). However, because you have already recognized your own body, you’re now able to draw on past experience and infer that I feel too. This goes far beyond proprioception, consider a scenario where you’ve developed a strategy of directing your eyes upwards when thinking hard (to clear the visual field, reduce distractions). If one day you saw me doing this, you might then think to yourself: “hm, that thing kind of looks like me. Hey, isn’t that like, the thing I do? When I’m thinking… is that thing thinking too?”.
So, I hope you can see now how we recognize other minds, at least at a rudimentary level. I’ve taken the time to explain all of this, because I want to really emphasize just how critical being able to discern each other’s mental states is to our survival. Which leads us directly to eye color— lighter irises highlight the pupil, providing more information about where a person is looking. This is the same reason why our sclera has evolved to be white, it makes it easier to discern where the center of our vision (the highest resolution area) is. I should add that vision is the primary sense, as it provides the most information, and composes the majority of thought (because of its inherent spatial quality, which is the only way to we can represent time). You can even notice this by simply considering what it would be like to lose your sight. Yes, losing your taste or smell would suck, but going blind would be devastating. it’s unlikely you would survive very long without significant aid from others.
This is also why people with lighter eyes often appear more intelligent. Not because the color somehow affects their mind, but rather reveals it to others. Not to mention, we can only care about the states of others if we’re aware of them. It’s much more difficult for us to empathize with a person missing their eyes, and this bleeds into how we think about other species. Consider the two dragonfly images (I’ll post in a comment below), notice how the one with the pupils exudes sentience and even a little bit of personality, while the other is closer to a rock or a tree— perhaps even a little uncanny or repulsive.
