I had a conversation with Lee Young the other day, and we were debating on the existence of colours.
What exists? How do we define “existence”? The Oxford advanced learner’s dictionary defines it as “the state or fact of being real or living or of being present”.
Are colours real? The colours we see are actually electromagnetic waves of different wavelengths interpreted by our brain as colours. To have a better understanding of this logic, consider the statement: “Red is an electromagnetic wave.” It is known that the colour ‘red’ has a wavelength of 685nm and different wavelengths in the ‘visible light’ range within the electromagnetic spectrum is associated with different ‘colours’.
In a nutshell, colours are not real because its an outcome of how our brain interprets electromagnetic waves.
To investigate the accuracy of this argument, lets conduct a simple thought experiment.
Consider the premise: “Bush exists.”
Political aficionados will instinctively interpret the data “Bush” as the President of the United States. While those who are inclined towards the environment will think about the plant. Do you see the link? The data “Bush” represents the stimulus (Electromagnetic waves) while the interpretation of data represents the outcome (Colour). Based on the analogy given, we can deduce that colours do exist.
The notion of ‘colours’ is equivalent to how we label different objects with different names. If you are still not convinced, how do you explain the existence of the English language? I believe that we can agree that words comprises of different letters in different combinations. Thus, to challenge the existence of colours is tantamount to the denial of the existence of language itself.
Since “Bush” exists, colours exists.
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