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QUALIA
What is “colour”? What do we mean when we say that an object is red and not blue? Is the colour a quality of the subject or a property of the object? Or is it an interaction between them? When we see something red or blue, what happens? Is it because there is something that can be called “redness” or “blueness” or is everything just an illusion? From Galileo onwards, Western scientists are certain that things like colours are not real, but “secondary” qualities of the universe.
Primary properties can be referred to the mass, dimension, speed of motion and so on.
“Whiteness”, “bigness”, “heaviness”… would only be secondary properties: QUALIAS.
The “blue” of an object is a property of the same object, but it is perceived by my own eyes in a different way from those of another person. Everything depends on the connection “mind-brain”. The evolution gave us a nervous system so complete to enable us to develop our five senses, among which sight. Nerves connecting the central system and the retina are able to see the light falling on such an organ. This piece of information gets to our own central nervous system, different from person to person.
Through our past experiences expectations, personal inclinations and what we perceive thanks to our retina become all something unique: the red colour I see now is the colour my brain elaborates. Red is red, but the “red” I see, what is perceived by my brain, will be different from the “red” elaborated by the eyes of a person near me.
So why don’ t we look at many “qualias” at the same time? The coloured shapes here represented are colours made bigger by a thin lamina of soapy water. Soap bubbles are full of thousands of qualia shades perceived by our own eyes. Eyes with bright and open irises reflecting inside them those colours perceived. Or maybe, in those big eyes, there is the wonder after admiring the world made of thousands of colours; such colours give shape then to our being… and in the background, a kaleidoscopic world of qualias, the stars, which are there to remind us that everything we have and enjoy on our planet is born there, inside them, distant ancestors of our personal worlds.
Dimensions: 50 x 70
Mixed painting techinque: water colour + “Pablo” painting + enamel + vitrifying paint
What is “colour”? What do we mean when we say that an object is red and not blue? Is the colour a quality of the subject or a property of the object? Or is it an interaction between them? When we see something red or blue, what happens? Is it because there is something that can be called “redness” or “blueness” or is everything just an illusion? From Galileo onwards, Western scientists are certain that things like colours are not real, but “secondary” qualities of the universe.
Primary properties can be referred to the mass, dimension, speed of motion and so on.
“Whiteness”, “bigness”, “heaviness”… would only be secondary properties: QUALIAS.
The “blue” of an object is a property of the same object, but it is perceived by my own eyes in a different way from those of another person. Everything depends on the connection “mind-brain”. The evolution gave us a nervous system so complete to enable us to develop our five senses, among which sight. Nerves connecting the central system and the retina are able to see the light falling on such an organ. This piece of information gets to our own central nervous system, different from person to person.
Through our past experiences expectations, personal inclinations and what we perceive thanks to our retina become all something unique: the red colour I see now is the colour my brain elaborates. Red is red, but the “red” I see, what is perceived by my brain, will be different from the “red” elaborated by the eyes of a person near me.
So why don’ t we look at many “qualias” at the same time? The coloured shapes here represented are colours made bigger by a thin lamina of soapy water. Soap bubbles are full of thousands of qualia shades perceived by our own eyes. Eyes with bright and open irises reflecting inside them those colours perceived. Or maybe, in those big eyes, there is the wonder after admiring the world made of thousands of colours; such colours give shape then to our being… and in the background, a kaleidoscopic world of qualias, the stars, which are there to remind us that everything we have and enjoy on our planet is born there, inside them, distant ancestors of our personal worlds.
Dimensions: 50 x 70
Mixed painting techinque: water colour + “Pablo” painting + enamel + vitrifying paint