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CHAPTER7TRUE COLORS

Man lives with what he sees, but he only sees what he wants to see. Try different types of people in the midst of any landscape. A philosopher will only vaguely see phenomena; a geologist, crystallized, confused, ruined and pulverized epochs; a soldier, opportunities and obstacles … They all experience a certain arrangement of colors; but each one immediately transforms them into symbols.…

PAUL VALÉRY, 1871–1945

The Grey

Eyespots are tiny light sensors. They help single-cell organisms like green algae get into position for optimal photosynthesis. Primitive biology is able to detect the intensity of light, and we can still accomplish a lot by swimming between black and white. Today, the human eye has millions of photoreceptor cells called rods. Like their eyespot forerunners, rods sense lightness. Concentrated on the periphery of the back of our eye, they have little to do with our modern color vision.

Light detection generally begins with the absorption of a photon, which causes the electron of a molecule to attain a higher, and unstable, energy level. Return from this higher energy level begins a cascading chain of electron transfers.

Alone at night in the woods, listen for clues about what nocturnal predator might be staring at you. The fear of being prey is manifest by darkness. The original experiential duality is symbolized by the Chinese ...