What is Color?

What s color? Is it only something that our eyes perceive? Or is it something...more?

What is color?  Is it nothing more than light being interpreted in different ways by the eye?  Is it rendered to mere science?  I say no!  Color is much more than electrical impulses from eye to brain.  It is more than science and can not be reduced to facts and figures.  Color is life itself!  What?  You say I am crazy?!  Delusional?!  Well, I say to you, listen, pay close attention to my words.  Color is a sign of life!  You still think of me as insane?  Allow me to prove my point.  In the summer, the trees are green.  The grass is green.  Flowers bloom a myriad of colors and fill the air with their fragrance.  Yet in the fall and winter they lose their color and die.  When color is present, there is life.  When the color leaves, life goes with it.  What?  You are not convinced?  Well, indulge me another example then.  Look at the daytime.  It is bright, sunny, warm.  One can see the colors all around.  Then night falls and all the colors are gone.  Cold, dark, death.  Why are people afraid of the dark?  Because it is the absence of color, of life itself!  You require more evidence?  One more example I have, then you be the judge of whether or not I am right in what I say.  Take a human being.  When alive there is a flush, a color to the cheeks.  A sparkle in the eye.  The hint of a smile playing 'round the corners of the mouth.  A brightness in the eye as well.  Life.  When dead a human loses all those features.  Instead of flush, there is only paleness and death.  Instead of a sparkle or brightness in the eyes there is only a dullness.  Instead of a smile, there is only the rigid mask of death.  This then is what I mean when I speak of color as being life.  So now is the time!  Am I right?!  Is color more than what is perceived in our eyes and our brains?  Is it life itself?  Or do you think of me as delusional, that I am wrong and color is nothing more than we are taught to believe it is?  You decide.

Author's Note

Well? What do you think? Post your answer to the question posed in this story and a short reason why you chose your answer!

Reviews

[gorillarock]

Photons, sweet delicious photons. In the spring, a leaf blooms and reflects photons with wavelengths in the green spectrum. In the fall when it dies, it reflects photon wavelengths in the red, yellow, brown spectrum. in fact, dead leaves are more colourful than live ones! just as vibrant. colour does not necessarily indicate life. jade is a beautiful greenish colour, and a lifeless rock. a dead person can have blue lips. skeleton reflect the full spectrum of light and can be white. or yellowish brown photon wavelengths.

the emotions you feel from receiving photons are instinctive impulses based on your experiences in life. if a man in a purple shirt killed your parents in front of you as a child, you may be inclined to feel road rage while driving a purple car. thats speculation of course.

HOWEVER! although we CAN break sight down and make it seem completely magic free, the experience of colour as a human being can be spoken to. The experience of blue for me is awesome! i love blue. but this makes sense because i have blue eyes, i grew up on the Atlantic coast, playing under a blue sky and beside the blue ocean. so many fond moments have been had and now i associate blue as a good colour in my life! colours that havent fared so well... green. horrible ex-girlfriends, all with green eyes, horrible career in the army, green walls in middle school (didnt have fun there)... i'm not a big fan of green.

that went in a direction i didnt intend it to.... the fact we can see colour in itself is amazing! we have developed eyes that can actually distinguish between something like the wavelength of a light photon! HOW CRAZY IS THAT!? dogs simply see light levels, they have no concept of red, blue, black, white. Cats see a limited spectrum. so in a sense we should feel awesome that we can comprehend the beauty of the changing leaf colours of fall!

haha thank you so much for the brain food :D

[Jeremy Hiles]

Haha, yes, I had thought of that first point when I was writing, but the idea is to show people that we take for granted something as awesome as seeing color! Thank you for your reply/comments! And I am glad that it got you thinking! :D

[gorillarock]

You've successfully caused people to think about colour simply by using words and the internet :D That's an awesome thing to think about haha

[Jeremy Hiles]

Thank you for your positive feedback/responses! And thank you, it is a good feeling! :D

[JesseLKellogg]

I believe your hypothesis is lacking scientific evidence to become a thesus. Although from a Spiritual point of view, your idea is very probable. Well done.

[Jeremy Hiles]

Thanks Jesse! Well, it isn't for a paper or thesis or anything, just a thought provoking story. :) Thanks again!

[JesseLKellogg]

Thanks man. This paper helped me consider the depth of color. My comment was kind of a joke. I realized your paper was just a thought provoker. You did great!

[Jeremy Hiles]

No problem! Haha, I thought so! Thanks again!

[Dillon Flynn]

Conceptually I don't have any problems with the piece, but the writing here needs some work. I've highlighted a few areas you might want to take a look at if you do another pass at this:

"Is it rendered to mere science?" I can almost parse out what you're trying to say here, but that sentence doesn't make a lot of sense.

"Flowers bloom a myriad of colors and fill the air with their fragrance." Might want to lay off of smells since this is meant to be about color.

"You say I am crazy?" "You are not convinced?" "You require more evidence?" Pausing the piece every few sentences to do this felt forced to me.

"...you be the judge of whether or not I am right in what I say." Your sentence structure here is a bit convoluted.

If I were to give an overall suggestion, I'd say try and do a rewrite of this that's totally "clean," just present your arguments in simple English and lay off the quirky narrator voice. See if you don't like the results better. Feel free to ignore all of this, just one person's opinion.

[Jeremy Hiles]

Thank you for pointing those out, I can see where they could be a bit confusing or seem a bit convoluted. I will look it over and make some edits and see how that works. Thanks again!

[Kimberly Miller]

I agree with you. I mean, I believe we take many and most things for granted, and why can't color be one of them, you just took this and dove into depths with it! I love how well you expressed your idea and opinion, where did you get your inspiration for this?!

[Jeremy Hiles]

Thank you! Yes, I wanted to show that we take the ability to see colors for granted! I actually got the idea on the way to church last night and saw the sky changing colors before sunset. I wanted to try to explain the colors in my mind, and started thinking about what color is. And I realized how much we take color for granted and wanted to show that to others. And then came the idea for this writing!