God's Flashlight
I was thinking about light the other day and how we only see a very narrow part of the spectrum (visible light). A funny thought came to mind that if we were able to see higher-energy light like x-rays, we would actually not be able to see most of the world, first because there aren't enough x-rays but second because even if there were a lot of x-rays, it'd go through most things on Earth, so we'd only see the densest matter like bone and rock. In other words, something with x-ray vision wouldn't be able to see our flesh and blood. They might think creatures like us have telepathy or telekinesis because the parts of us that connect our bones or contain our vital processes are invisible. And then something with even higher-energy vision, such as gamma rays, wouldn't be able to see us at all. The whole time we think we are living in daytime, to these creatures, it would be pitch-black night. Such a creature would likely have to be made of extremely dense matter to not only survive but actually thrive in an environment of high-energy light, where it is normal to constantly be bombarded by the likes of x-rays and gamma rays. They would likely be so dense they probably wouldn't even notice if they passed right through the softer materials they couldn't see; they'd literally walk right through us and not flinch. It gets difficult to speculate any further on such a universe from this angle. Just trying to picture a creature made of lead or mercury is too out there.
But what if we took this in the opposite direction instead? What if there were creatures that could see much lower-energy light than us? We already know that some creatures have what we dub night vision, in that when it's dark to us due to the lack of visible light, these creatures can still see, and some do this by using the infrared spectrum which is lower in energy than visible light but more abundant in their environment. The best example is the bottom of the ocean, where it's pitch-black to us, yet there are whole ecosystems of creatures that live and see in this darkness via other spectrums of light. The most interesting part is both our previous points about higher-energy creatures fit right in. Just as x-rays see through our flesh and blood, our visible light often sees right through their skins into their internal organs and probably even harms them. In fact, one of the biggest critiques of our ocean explorations is that we so carelessly shine our flashlights on all the deep sea creatures without realizing that we are literally burning their eyes out. The second point about density is also spot on. Some deep sea creatures, such as the blobfish, are actually made up of matter less dense than the water they're swimming in. Suddenly, all this speculation is becoming eerily less farfetched.
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