Page 650 - Atlas of Creation Volume 4

we interpret as light or color are nothing more than physical events taking place in complete darkness.
Our entire bodies, including our eyes, and the whole material world we see as a three-dimensional,

brightly colored sphere, are actually contained within the brain, which alone interprets what we see in
this way. However, the interesting thing is that the eye that perceives all this and the brain that interp-
rets it are also in complete darkness. Light and color do not exist in the brain that interprets them.
Daniel C. Dennett, a professor of philosophy from Tufts University, has conducted countless expe-
riments into consciousness and the brain. He summarizes the position:

The common wisdom is that modern science has removed the color from the physical world, replacing it
with colorless electromagnetic radiation of various wavelengths. 39

In the same book, Dennett quotes from an introductory book on the brain by Ornstein and
Thompson:

“Color” as such does not exist in the world; it exists only in the eye and brain of the beholder. Objects ref-
lect many different wavelenghts of light, but these light waves themselves have no color. 40

Since color is concerned with the way in which a person perceives external light, there is no way in
which we can know whether the world we perceive is the same for any other person or not. You can

never know whether the color that someone else sees as “red” is the same red that you see. For us, the
concept of “colorful” may actually express millions of different hues altogether. Yet someone else may
see a far more limited variety of colors and yet still interpret this as a full spectrum. We have no way
of comparing our perception with that of anyone else looking at the same object.

We imagine that we are looking at the same thing. But
perhaps the things that we perceive and what another
person sees are actually completely different to one
another. Since our perception of the external world is

limited to our five senses, we cannot know whether
“blue” means the same thing for any other person, or
whether coffee tastes the same. Neither can we des-
cribe these perceptions.

Color-blindness is one of the significant pieces of
evidence that colors are formed solely in the brain.
A minor inherited genetic variation arising in the
retina is known to cause color-blindness. Many pe-

ople in this situation are unable to tell the differen-
ce between red and green. The only reason for this

Since color is related to the individual’s mode of percepti-
on, it is impossible for us to know whether or not the world
we perceive looks the same to other people. An object we
perceive as red may be a completely different shade for
someone else. There is no way of comparing their percep-
tions of “red” with our own.

648 Atlas of Creation Vol. 4