Seeing is Believing - Nov 14 2022

 

Seeing is Believing

Nov 14 2022

There is the perennial question

of whether my red

is the same as yours.

In other words, the nature of reality.

Thing is, the world is not the colour we see.

Instead, it's a series of data points,

reflected light

of various frequencies

entering through the eyes

and into the brain.

Which means the earth is not a jewel

of blues and greens

and sunset reds,

it's a paint-by-number schematic

that the brain cleverly colours.

So we get beauty

and coloured light

instead of wavelengths flashing up;

numbers, super-imposed

on line drawings

on a blank canvas,

the way a cyborg would see.

Clever

because an image

is quicker to understand

and more easily remembered.

So reality

is more slippery than you'd think;

no longer fixed

and existing outside of us,

but a rendering

inside our heads.

After all, if we saw it

in ultra-violet and infrared

it would be altogether different.

Which brings me back to red.

And to when it's said

seeing is believing

and when I see it with my own eyes;

because there is no such thing

— everything is subjective,

who knows what's really out there.

Not when vision

is merely data entry.

Not when no one knows

what's really going on

in that inscrutable black box

inside your head.

The brain, playing games.

And the world

shifting shape

right before your eyes.