Monday, December 14, 2009

Red & Blue

This one has been due a very long time. This is about red and blue, and all the reds and blues that make up the universe, the being and the non-being, everything we can possibly conceive.

You look at a red flower. And you tell me that it’s red. I, of course, understand. I know what red is, I have seen it elsewhere. Let me show you. Here, a red ladybug. You nod. It is red.

What if I see blue where you see red? What if the red I see is the blue that you see? What if, to me, a red rose is the same colour that the blue sky is to you? Of course I will never say that both are the same colour. The sky, to me, is not the same colour as a rose. But you have your frame of reference, and I have mine. And we cannot compare these two frames independent of a third. True, neither the sky nor this rose is the same colour as that tree. The tree is green. And in your mind, my green is called purple.

We will never know. I will compare the blue sky with a blue flower and a red rose with a ladybug. But we will never know. If you and I see the same thing. If you and I even mean the same thing when we agree so completely on something. And perhaps, we will never know, if you and I actually see and feel and mean the same thing when we disagree completely.

My red could be your blue. And we will never know.

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