The Miracle of Color

The Miracle of Color

Philosophers have spilt a lot of ink over color. It is indeed a very interesting phenomenon of nature. Since the seventeenth century it has been called a “secondary” quality, in contrast with the “primary” qualities germane to physics—a kind of second-class citizen in the grand republic of nature. But in some respects, it is primary, or at least not secondary—perceptually speaking. Its phenomenology is certainly salient and striking. I am going to suggest that it is miraculous not humdrum, unlike the so-called primary qualities. The OED gives us “a remarkable and very welcome occurrence” and “an amazing product and achievement” for “miracle” (the secular definition).[1] It is as if God had a hand in it, clothing the world in spectacular colors. This word strikes us as apt for color but not so much for size and shape. They seem par for the course, entirely predictable, bordering on the dull; but color seems improbable, amazing, and very welcome. We are glad we see color, grateful for it. For it doesn’t seem to come with the territory, like geometry; it seems like a generous add-on, surplus to requirements, designed for our pleasure and entertainment. We rejoice in color, revel in it. We can survive without color, but life wouldn’t be so much fun without it. It feels like a gift.

What kind of product or achievement is it? We certainly didn’t create it at some point in history, say the industrial revolution; we were born with it. It comes with our eyes, free of charge. It is a product of the nervous system in some way we don’t understand. We project color onto things; they are the mind externalized, and yet clearly there. There is something miraculous about how we spread color on the world (to quote Hume). I cannot resist a well-worn metaphor: our eyes convert the water of shape into the wine of color—rather as the brain converts the water of neurons into the wine of consciousness.[2] The conversion process seems miraculous, and so does the product of the conversion. The color blue, say, is a miraculous product, a sublime work of art; not boringly geometric at all. The physical world is a magnificent machine, but it is not a thing of visual beauty qua physical (mechanistic)—not part of life’s rich pageant, one might say. This is why colors have such emotional significance to us. Just gaze at a color for a while and feel its lustrous beauty. We need color in our lives, as we need art. Colors are nature’s art, as filtered through our minds and brains. Remarkable, amazing, astonishing, and very welcome—colors sing.

Imagine if a holy man turns up in a country of the color-blind: all the inhabitants have ever seen is black and white and shades of grey. They know nothing of color. He claims divine origin and, in truth, is a very handsome and charismatic man (think Charlton Heston). He claims the ability to perform miracles. One day he promises to perform a real humdinger and indeed he does: he gives everyone color vision (don’t ask me how). I venture to suggest that everyone would be mightily impressed and instantly believe he was the Son of God; a whole new religion would be formed, Chromaticity. He might even come to the attention of the political authorities and be crucified or at least whipped publicly. Because colors are a sight to see, especially if you have never seen one before. We color-sighted people are only too accustomed to them—we take them for granted—but really, they are miraculous visions (and so realistic!). Artists love them and so do some writers, but even we philistines would miss them if there were gone (“Oh, I will never see blue again—woe is me!). We need reminding how wonderful colors are. Also, how mysterious: what are they, what creates them? They are like consciousness in this respect: so familiar and yet so fantastic. Indeed, much of the wonder of consciousness stems from its hospitability to color—the way it parades color before the mind. The two phenomena seem made for each other—like aspects of each other. They seem to constitute each other in episodes of visual perception. Some people of mystical persuasion even suggest that colors are “mirrors of the soul” and propose “color therapy”—and one can see why. Colors run deep in our psyche (they have a depth psychology). It is the same with many animals: color is part of their life, a big part. We live in a world of color (if we have vision) and feel lucky that we do. We love color. If I were to pick the most miraculous of colors, I would choose blue (or blues). Blue, I love you.

One ingredient in the concept of a miracle is that such events violate natural law. This is not an ingredient I wish to preserve, but I do think that no known law governs them. We don’t know what causes colors to exist—what the causal laws of color formation are. There is no book called The Origin of Colors like Darwin’s great book.  Colors are not like rocks in this respect. So far as we know, colors just pop into our minds from nowhere and proceed to spread themselves on the outside world. You just open your eyes and there they are, calmly laid out for all to see (if they have eyes). The product is remarkable and the process is shrouded in mystery. The miracle of color bears all the earmarks of more celebrated (alleged) miracles, and it takes a moment for it to sink in. To explain it fully would require a great leap of human thought, which may or may not ever occur. In this, too, it is very like consciousness. Of course, we know many things about color and the perception of color, as we do about consciousness; but these tend to be correlations, not accounts of essence. And the evolutionary history of color is not well understood, to put it mildly. What I want to emphasize is a basic bafflement, namely what color actually is. What are you seeing when you look at a blue patch—what is the quality we call “blue”? We are not seeing (de dicto) a minutely textured physical surface, or a disposition to appear a certain way, but a certain primitive quality, somehow imposed by the mind—which is what it is and not some other thing. It is a miracle that it is there at all, but also a mystery what it is that is there. You are acquainted with the color blue, but what is it you are acquainted with? Here we cannot rightly say, so we remain silent (though suitably awestruck). Color seems ineffable.

You might wonder whether color is unique in this respect. I surmise not, though I think it is the clearest example of something more general: the miraculous nature of secondary qualities generally. Sounds, tastes, smells, tactile qualities—they all partake of the miraculous. Take the quality of being sweet: what a remarkable and amazing and welcome thing that is! It isn’t a feature of the chemical world as such; it is projected from the tasting mind. But how, by what mechanism, according to what laws? We don’t know, and we generally don’t care, but it is really a remarkable fact of nature; and similarly for sounds, smells, and tactile feels. These are all miracles in our secular sense; and not minor miracles, but substantial ones. Nature is doing something very remarkable in manufacturing these things. If people had no sense of taste, a miracle worker who produced that sense would be hailed as the Son of God (the Gustatorian religion). Try losing your sense of taste for a while (as I have) to appreciate how miraculous it really is—how amazing and welcome. Because vision is so dominant in us, we easily focus on color, but the other senses also harbor their own mini miracles. We are all (including animals) Leonardo da Vinci’s of the sensory world.[3]

[1] See also my “The Concept of Miracle”. The present paper belongs with my “Color and Consciousness”.

[2] See my “Can We Solve the Mind-Body Problem?” for the water-wine metaphor.

[3] I think sensory qualities have not been given their due since the days of mechanism, when they were demoted to secondary status. They are actually more amazing than primary qualities, despite their absence from physics. They illustrate the interactive nature of terrestrial organisms, as primary qualities do not, these latter being more objective. Animals perceptually impose on the world as well as being imposed upon by it; they are not mere mirrors of external reality or blank slates. Colors are one of their more magnificent creations, not some sort of gratuitous afterthought or perceptual blinkers. They are miracles of nature.