Why White is Black and Black is White – The Paradox of Color
Sometimes the smallest or simplest little thing you learn can profoundly alter your view of the world. Learning about the paradox of color was one of those things for me. It comes down to the question of “black or white.”
One of our simplest and most powerful metaphors is “black or white.” We use this term to represent absolutes – absolute distinction between one thing and another, and absolute clarity. It is our most basic cultural aphorism for decision. We love this metaphor and resort to it – and the thought process behind it - whenever things are most stressful… when the crisis is upon us, when the risks are greatest. It is in these times that we as individuals and we as a people seek absolutes. There are excellent and logical reasons for this. Generally in times of crisis we have an exaggerated perception of immediacy; and our resistance to complexity is heightened. Too many variables. Too much happening at once. Too many threats. Too many choices. In these circumstances we cherish anything that seems to defuse threat, to simplify the problem, to narrow the choices, and which can bring us through the crisis to safety quickly. The starkness and apparent simplicity of “black or white” is extremely attractive and awfully comforting in times of trial.
If you do not know about the paradox of color, it can best be understood as the relationship between light itself and the properties of materials that reflect light. It is most often described in terms of a prism (like a rainbow) and pigment (like paint). We perceive the color of light based on its wavelength. Longer wavelengths are towards the red end of the spectrum while shorter wavelengths are towards the violet end of the spectrum… the good ol’ ROYGBIV we all learned in elementary school.
The problem is, where are black and white in the rainbow? We perceive these colors as we perceive all the other colors, but philosophers and other people with too much time on their hands were very quick to notice that white and black were missing from the rainbow. Why was this so – what made these two particular colors so very special and so very different from the other colors?
It was noticed that the color white could be created by leeching all pigment from a medium, while the color black could be created by combining all the pigments together. It was from this sort of observational and experimental work that we arrived at the perception of black and white as two opposite things. One – white – was the absence of all color, while the other – black – was the presence of all colors. This helped shape some of our cultural bias about these two most special colors: White took on an aura of purity, something unsullied and unspoiled by anything else, while black took on the aura of something thoroughly mixed up and corrupt.
However, something continued to bother certain people with WAY too much time on their hands, and began to lead to further investigation into the real nature of color. Questions were asked… like, “How come you can still see black when there is no light, but you can’t see white when there is no light? In fact, why is everything black – even things that are white - when there is no light? Further, why does something look red in the firelight, but white in the full light of day?” After several thousand years of pondering these troubling imponderables, people with way, way, way too much time on their hands concluded that color was actually a property of light. The real kicker experiment was of course the prism experiment (most often attributed to Newton, but in fact documented by dozens of scientists for centuries, particularly in the Arab world, before Sir Isaac published his conclusions), whereby it was demonstrated that all colors of light were actually components of white light.
This meant that white was in fact what had once been considered black – it was the mixing of all colors together – while black was in fact what had once been considered white – the absence of all colors. This was very troubling to people because both conclusions, both way of looking at things, were observationally and experimentally true. Mix all colors together and you get black. Take all colors away, and you get white. Mix all light together and you get white, take all light away and you get black. How to reconcile this paradox?
The leap of understanding that made this seeming contradiction not a paradox at all is the really, really cool thing – the thing that changed my perception of the world as much as anything else I have ever learned.
The reason Newton – deservedly – receives most of the credit for his observations on the nature of light is he solved the paradox. The only way black could be white and white could be black was if light itself was a material substance which was sometimes absorbed and sometimes repelled by other material substances. He concluded that red materials absorbed all wavelengths of light except red. The red light was repelled, or reflected, by the material. Likewise blue, and yellow, and orange, and violet, etc.
So, in reality, white materials were white because they rejected or repelled all (white) light; black materials were black because they accepted or absorbed all (white) light. Thus, somewhere within the black material was all white light, and inside the white material was no light whatsoever… This led directly to atomic theory, and to our modern understanding of the universe in which we live. That is cool – but much as I love physics, the science wasn’t the cool part.
For me the profound part was that black was black because it absorbed and contained within it all white; while white was white because it repelled all white and therefore contained only black. To me, this meant nothing in our universe could ever be black OR white. Everything is black AND white – depending on whether you are looking at it from the outside or from the inside. Even more importantly – the only way we can actually learn this kind of truth is by challenging received wisdom, and asking why when something just doesn’t quite add up.
