As humans, we all see the same world in a different way, but I was reminded today that we are mostly not willing to accept the fact that others have a different perception.
I thought it was intriguing that different people can see different colours when looking at the same image. What suprised and scared me was peoples reactions when they realised they were not seeing the same thing.
Even a simple thing, colour, breaks us into different factions who rather than saying 'That's cool, your brain is using a different filter than mine', says things like 'Are you mad? Whats wrong with you? There is NO WAY that dress is...'
How sad. Was no one else excited by the fact that we could 'see' different colours? I thought it was amazing and intriguing and nobody was wrong, but everyone was different.
So the factions started in our office when I got the #dressgate picture up on my phone screen. Golds and whites furious in one corner, black and blues stubborn as hell in the other. What I thought was a awesome (and at that point unexplained phenomenom) had within less than a minute divided the quite office into a frenzied factioned war zone.
If we can't accept a persons colour perception differs from our own, how will we accept their perceptions of all the other facets that make up our lives?
Looking around.. one of the basic skills we as a human race don't rate highly on.
There are some the big things of course: Religion, Politics, National and Cultural Identity, the smallest difference in interpretation of which is usually more that enough for people to start making factions and divisions.
Then there are the day to day things in family groups, friendship circles, at work and in departments. Do you draw a line when someone doesn't agree over the same thing. Do you put label on them (stubborn, ignorant, old fashioned) or decide not to raise the subject again because they won't agree with your perception?
I realised I'm guilty of this on a daily basis.
If I find it hard to accept people as they are and the differences in how they perceive a project, it becomes impossible or very difficult to work together in a productive way to meet our goals, or even set those goals in the first place.
The dress didn't break the internet, it highlighted something on a basic level that extends to every decision we make to set ourselves apart from other human beings. The excuses we use to deny the rights and beliefs of other human beings, the reasons we use to justify labels and judgements placed upon each other.
YES! People see colours differently, because their brains use different filters to build a report of the incoming data. Once the data is processed, it's almost impossible to change the data back to it's raw format and reprocess with a different filter. A bit like Google Analytics, where in fact once you've processed your data it IS impossible to get the raw unprocessed data back.
Hence why so few people have seen both gold and white, and later blue and black or visa versa.
If you have, you may have been even more worried by this whole affair.
DON'T PANIC. Your brain is just trying out a different perspective!
Whether the image of the dress appears to be white and gold, blue and black or something inbetween.. it doesn't really matter. The point is, we each interpret what we see in the world differently and we can use this to divide ourselves between 'us' and 'them' or use this as an important lesson in accepting our diversity.
What did you take from #dressgate?
Is there a right and a wrong way to see the image? Is your life forever factioned? Or is it a curious reminder that our brains work way harder to interpret light and colour than we ever realised?
Please share your comments below.
NewScientist has a simple explanation of how your brain filters the colours here and the Telegraph also provides insight here
