X-Message-Number: 15863 Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2001 20:14:53 -0800 From: Natasha Vita-More <> Subject: Re: What is Color? (I don't have the post Dave Pizer sent to the list regarding color, so if my reply is far from center, just cast it to the wind.) "What is color?" This is a very large question and it can be studied from just about any angle possible. I'm sure you've done the google shuffle on scientific explanations and the relationship between light waves and brain activity. What'smissing is often the physical/emotional act of experiencing. Memetic engineering requires a type of mental associative handshake. To get the mental handshake, we need to develop a common experience or associative reference point of understanding. It's an arduous, but satisfying, task to encourage people to think outside the cloister of death, and its difficult to see them slip back into prescribed ways of thinking. Getting people to accept that what appears to be a continuous line with 90-degree angles and looks like a square -- does not actually touch at the corners. The blank stare and quick dismissal that we often receive when explaining why a neuro suspension is a far more advantageous alternative to a hole in the ground usually stems from a language problem. When a visual association is established, our internal framework has fused a concept and imprints it. The fixed neural structures for reference not only pertain to language, they also pertain to concept, which both are driven by perceptual input. While a person can point to an object which is the color blue, for example, and say "That's blue" his reference neither describes the object nor what blue is. Blue, while clearly a hue and a portion of the visible spectrum found between green and indigo can evoke an emotion in people by its radiant energy with wavelengths of approximately 450 to 490 nanometers. Blue also has an imprinted visual association - a picture, such as "blue sky" or "feeling blue or gloomy," or better "blue lagoon with tropical fish." Color, once registered from light to the eye and into the brain, affects our emotions. We sense it and we feel it, drawn to or repelled by it because we "sense" and we are respond to ideas because of our associations with language and how associations with words affect our consciousness - or the baseline of our values. Natasha http://www.natasha.cc Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=15863