Look at the dress below: What is the colour? Is it white and gold or is it blue and black?
This puzzle was posted on the internet in 2015 and immediately went viral. Millions participated in a quiz to find out the colour they perceived. And the outcome was approximately three-quarters of people thought the dress was white and gold, and the rest swore it was blue and black. What do you think?
The story started on the Scottish Isle of Colonsay. The bride’s mother wanted to wear the dress shown for her daughter’s wedding. She took a picture of the dress and sent it to her daughter. Unexpectedly, there was a disagreement on the colour. Some said it was white and gold, yet others declared it blue and black. And soon, the dress drama unfolded with people posting the dress on the internet.
Of course, level-headed scientists can explain this dramatic and unusual phenomenon. Their conclusion may startle some people – colour is not an independent property of matter, for example, the dress in question or the colour of a ripe banana. It is the brain that creates colour. Is it difficult to swallow this conclusion?
Most of us have attended stage performances or seen similar television shows. Did you notice the colour changes of costumes under different lighting conditions? The colour of a substance depends on many factors, including these three: 1. The ambient light, 2. The reflectivity of matter, and 3. Our retina – the colour-sensitive layer of our eyes. Ordinary people have three types of cones in their retinas which reconstitute light to form colours. I have only two – I see a very different world. Some animals see the world in black and white. The conclusion is startling – colour does not reside in a substance – it is made up in our brain.
What is more disturbing is that our brain determines what colour we should perceive even if the colour is not there as illustrated in the video on the colour of a ripe banana. (Please click on the link below.) In other words, our brain conditions what we see and filters out “reality.” Kant spelt this out ages ago when he said we see things not as they are but as what we are. Little wonder, we see the world in different ways. Perhaps, this was how tragedies such as the Russian-Ukrainian War began and why people hold on steadfastly to their perceptions.
https://www.piedmont.org/living-better/what-color-is-the-dress
I have attached another video for readers that want to pursue this drama further. Happy viewing!