this is stupid but it's driving me crazy

hi all.
this is my first thread and i think maybe you'll probably laugh at this and say i've probably lost the plot, i dont blame you lol. i'll take that risk

Black and white, are they one 'thing' but two 'things' at the same time?

I work the graveyard shift and i had just finished a week of these shifts early yesterday morning, when this pesky 'puzzle' popped into my head yet again, it prevents me from getting off to sleep and it drives me crazy.

Is the colour black the darkest shade of white, and is white the lightest shade of black?

i have two colours, black and white.
if i take the black colour, and begin to lighten it by mixing in lots of white, eventually if i mix in enough white i will lighten the colour black, to white.
So the lightest shade of the colour black is white?

And vice-versa. I add enough of the black colour to the white, it will eventually be 'darkened' to black.
The darkest shade of white is black?

Two totally different and opposite colours, but each one is the lightest or darkest shade of the other. Are these two opposite colours really one same colour? (driving me mad)

If i knew the answer I can stop thinking about it and get some rest.

I dont know why but this goes round and round my head when i've finished work and i'm tired, and you've really no idea the hours it keeps me awake when i need to sleep.

The answer wouldnt even be important to anything, so i dont know why it constantly goes round my head.

Of course the thought has crossed my mind that i'm going crazy. Am I?


ETA- new at this thread lark, hope i got it right where to put this.

[edit on 19-7-2010 by doobydoll]

reply to post by doobydoll


Black and white are NOT colors.

They are pigments.

The only colors are Red, Blue and Yellow..

And of course all the variations of these 3 prime colors.

For your reference,

www.colormatters.com...

[edit on 19-7-2010 by virgom129]

Black is simply an absence of reflected light. White is a full spectrum of reflected light. If you think about it all colours are just different shades of each other. So both parts of your question are correct.

If you have a red, yellow, blue, and green light and shine them all on the wall, if you focus all the colors together into one spot, you will get a white dot on the wall. I know because I've see it done. It is pretty cool.

Black is the absense of light.


Just like silence is the absence of sound.

Just like cold is the absence of heat.

Ok, to complicate things a bit, what about dark matter? Dark matter is black, but when light shines on it, it becomes transparant, not white.

So... what now?

Explanation: S&F!

Yes! Heres is why... It depends entirely on YOUR A-Priori (starting) POV (point of view). Please view my signature and I'll post the relevant bits to this thread here...

Think Globally, Act Locally, Feel Internally!

So if we view all colours as just frequency ranges up through the EMS (electromagnetic spectrum), then the Global POV would be that there is NO colours as they are OUR arbitary deliniations of the EMS UNIVERSAL field in strengths and increments that we can measure with a standard that we created for our own benefit/s! The EMS field can be and IS collapsed to a singularity when viewed 100% GLOBALLY! Infinity=100%=1

But Locality is not GLOBAL in nature and due to differences mainly to do with emergent effects opperating across the time+space fabric topology scale, biases become apparent... both quantum states still exist but orientation within the 4D local environment means that some information is currently unseen [note can still be known but requires more equipment]!

For example From the Global POV the coin is both heads and tails simultaneously...but at our local scale and using only you own two eyes and a coin the results is that you CANNOT see both the head and tail facets of the coin at the same time [not without using a mirror etc.]

The same is the case with Black and White or any other polarized local state.

Personal Disclosure: Locality is all about balancing or biasing the ratio's for our own benefit. Colour is nothing more than an agreed standard of ratio's, in this case a ratio of frequencies of various bosons/photons.

Well dark matter is something altogether different.

I don't even think the best expert really understands dark matter.

Everything we can see, the whole universe with every galaxy, is only like 1% of everything that exists. The rest of the stuff is dark matter and we can't even see it.

Personally I think everything we see we say is real, but maybe we aren't really what is real. Maybe when we die, we actually become more real and can see the dark matter. Then it will not be dark for us, but we will be with it and part of it.

Maybe it is the spirit world, the other dimensions, or the astral plane, heaven, etc.

If you look at it from a scientific perspective...black is merely the lack of light, like a black hole, nothing comes out but everything is sucked in, leaving an absence of anything for our eyes to register...the less light an object reflects the darker it will appear. On the other hand, we get white when we mix every single color together. In simple terms, one could say...


Black = Nothing
White = Everything

[edit on 19/7/10 by CHA0S]

reply to post by OmegaLogos



i think i got it.

so, the further back i stand, the more the two 'blend' as one?

but which one?
is it neither? is it both?

am i being an idiot here? is this as complicated as i'm making it?

reply to post by doobydoll


Black and white are two opposite extremes of a spectrum.

Spectrums are pretty much everywhere.

Dark/Light
Good/Bad
Small/Large
Happy/Sad
Front/Back

Spectrums are always interrelated (Duality). They connect to each other and there is usually a divide right down the middle that separates from one side to the other. But you cannot have one with the absence of its opposite. Because "we know what we mean by contrast" ~ alan watts.

But because they are dependent upon each other, they are equally the same, only because of their dependence, not their value. This creates a unity of difference (nonduality)

It is a universal thought in some eastern mysticism.

Originally posted by extmai
Ok, to complicate things a bit, what about dark matter? Dark matter is black, but when light shines on it, it becomes transparant, not white.

Would you care to provide some links for that? I wasn't aware that dark matter had even been discovered other than theoretically, let alone its properties when light is shining on it.

reply to post by Frakkerface


You're right. Perhaps he means anti-matter. But I don't know...that's still probably wrong...

Hi, S+F for a very interesting thread .

It's funny you should mention this because not long ago I came across an article in a magazine called New Dawn. The article was called 'The Tao of Colours: The Dynamic Interplay of Light and Darkness' by Doug Marsh.

Seeing this thread just reminded me about it. It's a very interesting article and it was great to read, the only thing is I can't link to it or anything like that because it's not available unless you buy the magazine on the website or at a newsagency (newsstand). So yeah, not that helpful.

So anyway, I thought I'd look up some of the things the author of the article talked about. One of the things he talked about was 'The Theory of Colours' by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Wikipedia

Basically the information in this post just adds on to what juveous has said.

Excerpt from Wiki article:

For Goethe, light is "the simplest most undivided most homogenous being that we know. Confronting it is the darkness" (Letter to Jacobi). Unlike his contemporaries, Goethe didn't see darkness as an absence of light, but rather as polar to and interacting with light; colour resulted from this interaction of light and shadow.

emphasis mine

also:

Modern natural science sees darkness as a complete nothingness. According to this view, the light which streams into a dark space has no resistance from the darkness to overcome. Goethe pictures to himself that light and darkness relate to each other like the north and south pole of a magnet. The darkness can weaken the light in its working power. Conversely, the light can limit the energy of the darkness. In both cases color arises.
—Steiner, 1897

I'm no expert on this sort of thing, but this information seems relevant to the OP so I thought I'd share .

my thinking:

black has two extremes. black is one extreme, white is the other extreme.

white has the very same. white is one extreme of white, black the other.

each of the two have the very same extremes as each other, yet the two are different to each other.

how weird is that?

anyway, thanks guys for you taking the time to read and post

(ETA thanks juveous it applies to everything, yes i got it. finally lol.)

[edit on 19-7-2010 by doobydoll]

reply to post by doobydoll


I think Pryde87 answered it as good or better than I think I could.
rather than a color or a pigment just light and the abscence of it.
Or when I hit a wall I know I can't get over I chuck it into the "someday I will know bin" but for now my brain is just too primitive to comprehend such matters.
In truth I believe ignorance is bliss.
Normal sheeple worry about the color of their cell phones or will their favorite show be on next week.
These are all simple things to answer, or fix.
We truthers are presented with questions that we may never even come close to a truth, that can be a heavy burden as we do carry the weight of the world. Theoretically anyway.
Hope you get your answer and some sleep.
Or I can continue to drone here until you get bored and inevitably fall asleep.


[edit on 19-7-2010 by g146541]

I have yet to see where anyone posted these words.......

YIN/YANG

okay well I can play

you see our eyes receive light reflected off of whatever we are looking at so

since color what our brains tell us we are seeing ,is determined by reflected light any object reflects all the colors it isn't

so say we are looking at an orange , it's orange, but that's because an orange is actually blue and is reflecting back to us it's opposite , orange

so we have never actually seen anything we see only the light reflected back to us as the opposite of it's true color

a color negative is the truth

we have to invert it to see the pretend version of the reality we function in

Originally posted by juveous
reply to post by doobydoll

 

Black and white are two opposite extremes of a spectrum.

Spectrums are pretty much everywhere.

Dark/Light
Good/Bad
Small/Large
Happy/Sad
Front/Back

You missed the main one I use for this discussion all the time

HOT/COLD

Since we are in the metaphysical section I will take a stab.

We (humans) are antennas for energy.

Color, as noted earlier in the thread, is part of a spectrum that our water bags can process.

Black would be the low end of the vibratory spectrum and everything below that.

White would be the top end of that spectrum and too much energy to view beyond our current capabilities.

There is no reason to believe that the frequency stop at either end of the spectrum.

Think of a horse with blinders on. Once the blinders are removed, the horse can see beyond the limiters.


Humans know of other spectrums that can be viewed with instruments. UV, XRay, Magnetics, etc;

Originally posted by doobydoll
i have two colours, black and white.
if i take the black colour, and begin to lighten it by mixing in lots of white, eventually if i mix in enough white i will lighten the colour black, to white.
So the lightest shade of the colour black is white?

And vice-versa. I add enough of the black colour to the white, it will eventually be 'darkened' to black.
The darkest shade of white is black?

Ultimately, you can't take white and add black to it and wind up with pure black, no matter how long you do it and how much black you add. There will always be the initial bit of white in there, no matter how diluted it is.