White light can be blinding, cold, unforgiving. Our physical reality often finds it too much as well, splitting it apart any chance it gets. Plants are green because such wavelengths of light help it keep a consistent vacuum on the electromagnetic energy it slurps from the sun. The sky is blue because of atmospheric particles that scatter light in slower wavelengths. The skin of an apple, a cherry, a tomato: all different ways of twisting light into hues of red. But despite attempts from the best scientists and philosophers, what color truly is, if it’s even anything tangible, remains elusive.
When it comes to the vexing problem of red or any other gradient, when we both agree that a thing is some color, is it really exactly the same as the color in your mind? Put another way, we might ask: is color even real?
