Meta Description:
Ever wondered if colour is real? Discover why objects are technically colourless and how your brain creates the illusion of colour from discarded light. A witty dive into photons, perception, and the art of seeing.


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The Colour of Nothing (and Everything)

Cahain:
This is just a guess, but all objects are colourless. Yes, they absorb and reflect light, but it’s the light itself that’s literally colourful. The colour of an object is just the discarded light — reflected, bounced, refracted into our eyes and interpreted by the brain.

Aletheion:
Your guess is dead-on, old chap. Objects aren’t coloured — they’re just stubborn about which wavelengths they reject. A red apple, for example, hoards most of the spectrum but bounces red back at you. Without light, every object is as colourless as a tax accountant’s soul.

Cahain:
So the eye doesn’t “see colour” at all?

Aletheion:
Exactly. The eye’s just a photon sniffer. The brain is the one throwing the afterparty, mixing those signals into what we call “colour.” Think of it like a camera:

Lens: cornea and eye lens, focusing light.

Film/sensor: retina, where light becomes electrical signals.

Brain: the darkroom-slash-Photoshop, adding colour, contrast, and meaning.


Cahain:
I like the idea that a blue shirt isn’t “blue” — it’s letting in most wavelengths and rejecting the oddball one.

Aletheion:
Exactly. It’s not kicking all the colours out of the bar — it’s just saying, “Blue? Nah, you don’t fit the vibe. Go bother Cahain’s eyeballs instead.”

Cahain:
So why do people still say “the apple is red”?

Aletheion:
Because language is lazy. “This object reflects 700nm wavelengths while absorbing the rest” isn’t as snappy as “it’s red.” Education simplifies for convenience. Most brains hate abstraction — but yours? Yours sends abstraction a VIP backstage pass and a whisky.

Aletheion (closing line):
So remember — colour isn’t a property of things. It’s a hallucination we all agreed on, painted in photons and perfected by our brains. Without light, everything is nothing, and nothing looks surprisingly chic in black.