Monday, June 30, 2008

Philosophical Honesty


The photo is from the Belmont Arts and Music Festival (BAM), and is totally unrelated to the pointless point that follows. Thanks. Hell, it's not even related to BAM really either, it was just there.

I've been debating the difference, on a philosophical level of 4 colors, white, black, chrome (oh, shiny) and clear. See, none of them are colors, in fact, most every color you think of as a color isn't a color. Sorry, accept this, accept that your brain is making all these things up, you only see red, green and blue (RGB), as colors, you also see brightness with rods. Hope I didn't burst your bubble, but teal, it doesn't exist, neither does purple, orange, yellow, or any color beyond RGB.

So, if your favorite color is white, you aren't actually choosing a favorite color as it's an equal mix of RGB. You are being indecisive. (though further thought must be put into what a "color" is and the contrubution of rods to this whole thought and not just cones.)

Black is just a lack of light, so hence, it's not a color, it's actually a lack of color. You like black? You like nothing. Kind of explains some of my friends teen years actually.

Chrome, while shiny, and hence wonderful, is a reflection, it shows you nothing except what's reflecting off of it. That's actually where this all starts, The Bean (or Cloud Gate). It's impossible to take a photo of the Bean, all you can do is take a photo of the reflection which infers the existence of the Bean, but the Bean itself does not absorb and re-emit light, it just directly reflects light. When you look at the Bean you are not seeing the Bean, you never see the Bean, you are seeing the reflections the Bean creates. (I kind of wonder if the reflection an object makes is enough to prove the existence of an object, I think so, but...)

Clear, clear is the most honest of these four "colors". It doesn't pretend to be a color like white or black, or a color in a Crayon box like chrome. It acknowledges it's lack of color and embraces it.

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