Perhaps, Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe’s greatest gift to mankind came not as a poetic genius or a theatrical visionary but from his scientific observations. Absent from the university error and misconceptions, he brought forth a work, over the span of his life, which set out to reveal the nature of color as it was perceived through the sensual organ, the eye.
That work was Zur Farbenlehre, or commonly called, the “Theory of Colors” This was perhaps the most significant dialectical treaty ever conceived in one work. Goethe did not hold back his disdain for “Newtonian” science and much of his condemnation for Newton’s system is based on a rejection of its passionless cold, calculation. Even today, the men of the world do not get it, they are bound and chained to definitions of words, and number, where Goethe, soared free beyond them. He beheld color as the phenomenon of light and darkness, not as the mind reasoned it to be, but as it acted upon the organs of sense. His observations, which also included the psychological attributes of color, gave to man a comprehensive example of how color interacts with the faculties of sense and the emotions. But the world, blind even then to the senses, has rejected Goethe’s, treaty for the mathematical abstracts and formulas of Newton.
As was typical of the men of that time, all of his works possessed multiple layers of meaning. Hence, the book is about color less than it is about the dialectic nature of becoming and the never ceasing struggle between, the soul as a symbol of light and being and the spirit (dark and ceasing). Color was a mere study, but all can be held to the light and all can be held to the darkness. And what we will find in the light will appear in one manner, and what is in darkness, another, but where the two meet, there we will find the dynamic of “color”. At this point, all activity begins, being and ceasing pass and life and all its manifestations is revealed to the careful observer.
Science today is based on the rational acceptance of definitions and all these definitions are reductive to numbers and abstractions. Yet still with their instruments of magnification both outward and inward, they try to examine life by its interior workings and mechanics. Thus do they observe cellular activity, atomic and sub-atomic particles from a perspective that is incapable of comprehending them because it is a perspective completely devoid of sense. Still this does not stop them from trying to find a utilitarian use for their discoveries and science becomes a spring board to explain social phenomenon, with methods and formulas which apply there but not here. Likewise, from the same perspective, do they try to comprehend the birth, life and death of a star with mere human words!
Goethe stood grounded on the Earth, in the present moment and all of his observations and indeed his entire weltanschauung was limited to what could be comprehended from the senses.
Satyr Daemon
Gender : Posts : 37188 Join date : 2009-08-24 Age : 58 Location : Hyperborea
I am not very familiar with Goethe's theory on colours. The subject of light is one that interests me.
For me the brain interprets phenomena, according to their rate of (inter)activity. Colour is such an interpretation of a phenomenon's essence, if it has not been tampered with: covered over, manipulated, etc.
Black is the interpretation of an absence. The absence can be caused by a literal absence of a pattern, because the brain can only perceive patterns, making darkness/blackness a chaos that the brain cannot make sense of, or it can be the interpretation of an absence of perception, due to the absence of sufficient activity, representing the outer limitations of the sense organ's acuity. What the brain cannot perceive a pattern within or make sense of, it interprets as black/dark.
White light is a bit more difficult to define. For me it represents the extreme outer limit of human perception, the perceptual-event-horizon, before all becomes black. It is the limit of a human's ability to sense and to process data.
After that the vibrations, the (inter)activity may be too high or too low, to find patterns in, or there may be an absence of patterns, altogether, a void, chaos, or a uniformity of randomness. Colours represent the in-between phases. The vibrations, (inter)activities, which can be perceived, or patterns of activity that can be processed. Different colours represent different rates of activity, of fluctuation - different degrees of Flux.
So, at the upper end of vibrating speeds we have the ultraviolet, and at the lower end the infrared . Both tend towards darkness: one (ultraviolet) towards a speed of vibration that the brain cannot process or the senses organ cannot perceive detail in, and the other (infrared) towards such a low frequency that the brain cannot process, and/or the sense organ (eye) cannot perceive patterns or details in.
White light is the combination of all vibrations, sandwiched between darkness on either end. We exist, perpetually, within this ribbon of vibration we can process and perceive variations within. Our visual world is contained within these perceptual-event-horizons, produced, as I said, by a lack of patterns (chaos, randomness) or by the organism's sense organ limitations.
(Inter)activity produces temporal attrition, slowing flows down to various rates each of which the brain interprets as a particular hue - a colour. This is the light-spectrum.
We've evolved to perceive the fastest rate of (inter)activity possible, so as to gain the advantage of efficiency ...this is vision. How this outer edge of activity (inter)acts with phenomena determines the particular colours we perceive. These are not accidental nor are they superficial; not unless they've been covered, modified, or manipulated. Each coloration says something about the phenomenon being perceived - otherwise there would be no reason for life to evolve the ability to perceive them.
I believe this extreme, event-horizon rim, which we call light, represents the universal rate of expansion. As the universe expands faster, due to the slow deterioration of resistance (matter, order), all goes dark, because the mind and the sense organs exponentially lose their ability to perceive patterns within increasing uniformity, and increasing rates of (inter)activity.
_________________ γνῶθι σεαυτόν μηδέν άγαν
Last edited by Satyr on Mon Nov 25, 2013 9:24 pm; edited 1 time in total
Anfang
Gender : Posts : 3989 Join date : 2013-01-23 Age : 40 Location : Castra Alpine Grug
So, at the upper end of vibrating speeds we have the infrared, and at the lower end the ultraviolet.
Violet: Wavelength about 380-450 nm, Frequency about 668-789 THz Red: Wavelength about 620-750 nm, Frequency about 400-484 THz
The higher the frequency, the speed of vibration, the 'harder' the light. It is more destructive to organic bonds and structures - thinking about UV light and sunburns.
Green plants are quite important, especially for a herbivore - this could be a good reason why our spectrum of colour perception has developed in that area. In general a lot of organic structures reflect light in that part of the spectrum.
Photons which are collected with our eyes are quite limited in the amount so it's important for an organism to balance various aspects. A fine colour perception can provide a lot of information on the objects which surround us. At the same time it's beneficial to have a lot of frames per second so we can pinpoint the exact location of an object when in motion. Otherwise things would look blurry when they move. To measure contrast is another important feature, especially during the night time. That's why nocturnal animals are good at perceiving contrast while they have weaker colour-vision.
Ephemeron
Gender : Posts : 37 Join date : 2012-09-22 Location : down here
I am not very familiar with Goethe's theory on colours. The subject of light is one that interests me.
Briefly and to paraphrase his own motive, he “did not try to explain the phenomenon, but “to place the object within the sphere of nature and free it from the load of mathematics”.
Quote :
For me the brain interprets phenomena, according to their rate of (inter)activity. Colour is such an interpretation of a phenomenon's essence, if it has not been tampered with: covered over, manipulated, etc.
For Goethe, the (inter) activity, was the mingling of light and darkness. Not as an interpretation but as the very phenomenon itself. But what light and darkness were, he did not go into much detail in his work. He only referred to them as brightness and shadow he does not speculate any further. He was also a bottom up observer but he understood too that once a law was obtained, one must descend again into the particular to test its effect. A general law which affected colors varied in its effects in other manifestations. Each particular object remained particular because of this. The modern use of mathematical and physical laws to level all other phenomena was an error. But he never tried to rationalize existence at all, this was never a need of his and this is where his inner strength originated.
To Goethe, the brain and the eye were inter active, vision was the means by which the object was linked to the subject. The eye perceived an object because it had a nature like the object. Reason, rationalism these were the doors by which life was slowly smothered. Your observations are perfectly rational, the need to understand the world, to make sense of it, is a need of the mind, not the eye. The world, to the senses, always appears unintelligible, irrational, random, chaotic and absurd because it is. So we create a reality that appears otherwise, complimentary. The great object that Goethe sought through his life was to perceive the objects as they appeared without the manipulation of the mind, words or number. To live in the phenomenon itself rather than somewhere outside it.
Satyr Daemon
Gender : Posts : 37188 Join date : 2009-08-24 Age : 58 Location : Hyperborea
I am not very familiar with Goethe's theory on colours. The subject of light is one that interests me.
Briefly and to paraphrase his own motive, he “did not try to explain the phenomenon, but “to place the object within the sphere of nature and free it from the load of mathematics”.
Quote :
For me the brain interprets phenomena, according to their rate of (inter)activity. Colour is such an interpretation of a phenomenon's essence, if it has not been tampered with: covered over, manipulated, etc.
For Goethe, the (inter) activity, was the mingling of light and darkness. Not as an interpretation but as the very phenomenon itself. But what light and darkness were, he did not go into much detail in his work. He only referred to them as brightness and shadow he does not speculate any further. He was also a bottom up observer but he understood too that once a law was obtained, one must descend again into the particular to test its effect. A general law which affected colors varied in its effects in other manifestations. Each particular object remained particular because of this. The modern use of mathematical and physical laws to level all other phenomena was an error. But he never tried to rationalize existence at all, this was never a need of his and this is where his inner strength originated.
To Goethe, the brain and the eye were inter active, vision was the means by which the object was linked to the subject. The eye perceived an object because it had a nature like the object. Reason, rationalism these were the doors by which life was slowly smothered. Your observations are perfectly rational, the need to understand the world, to make sense of it, is a need of the mind, not the eye. The world, to the senses, always appears unintelligible, irrational, random, chaotic and absurd because it is. So we create a reality that appears otherwise, complimentary. The great object that Goethe sought through his life was to perceive the objects as they appeared without the manipulation of the mind, words or number. To live in the phenomenon itself rather than somewhere outside it.
Yes, he was an organic philosopher. I share his desire to go beyond the word the number, to the phenomenon the word and number refer to. I also wish to put it within the context o metaphysics, harmonizing it with physics.
_________________ γνῶθι σεαυτόν μηδέν άγαν
Anfang
Gender : Posts : 3989 Join date : 2013-01-23 Age : 40 Location : Castra Alpine Grug
