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Synesthesia (why Christianity is powder blue)
Posted on Jul. 14, 2008
Saw Kit Kittredge in the Cobble Hill Cinema. It was really cute, obviously. I drooled over the period costumes and all that jazz. And aaah that little boy who plays Stirling is just the sweetest thing, I want to scoop him up and eat him on a cracker. But that would be cannibalism. So I won't. Also Kit's dad is more adorable than a pile of adorable things, except he also happens to be over 40 with 5 kids. Life is so unfair, lol.
It's magic, today I actually have a topic to discuss instead of just posting poems or quotes! What next, managing to cook an omelet this morning all by myself without burning the eggs, the butter, the cheese, and myself? Oh wait... Hehe, my sister always warns me that I'll end up "like Betsy Ray" with only a rudimentary knowledge of culinary arts i.e. eggs, cocoa, and brownies. To which I say, pish, I don't care two cents about the feminine graces. I can survive on brown rice and lettuce just fine.
Anyway, there is this condition called Synesthesia. Tesla had it...actually, the only reason I know about it is The Prestige, that movie with Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman, in which Bale is insufferably nasty and whiny and Jackman is very very handsome despite also being slightly manic and evil. Tesla featured as a minor character and I read up about him after the film, just because I was curious. So.
It's defined as a condition in which "stimulation of one cognitive or sensory pathway leads to automatic, involuntary in a second sensory or cognitive pathway." In other words, someone with synesthesia might see the letter B as light purple or the number 81 as burnt orange. They might hear certain notes and envision certain corresponding colors or taste certain corresponding tastes.
And in case you're wondering, no, I don't actually have synesthesia. But in some ways, my brain does work that way. For example, I see 56 as a ruby red color. 1 is either soft cream or grass green, depending. Even numbers are usually cool and odd are usually warm, but there are exceptions (like 56). Actually I think 56 is my favorite number, just because it's unusually beautiful and vivid. Or 8, which is navy blue.
Probably the weirdest way I experience this correlation between different concepts and senses is in the area of worldviews/philosophies/religions. You see, when I think of Buddhism, say, I always imagine a soft mint color. Islam is a clear bright gold, Hinduism the color of a garnet, Judaism earth brown, Agnosticism heather. Reformed Christianity is burgundy, Evangelical Christianity is light baby yellow, and Christianity as a whole appears powder blue.
I think the weirdest aspect of this whole thing is the color I connect with atheism. As a Christian, I have two "brands" of atheism in my mind. The respectable rationalist or existentialist brand connected with philosophers like Hume or Sartre, and the obnoxious modern empiricist spin on atheism promoted by people like Hitchens who seem more interested in pretending Christianity is responsible for all the world's problems and mocking Jesus as a "Jewish zombie" than actually, you know, debating the existence of God. So the former kind of atheism gets dark green, like the color of pine needles. It even smells kind of like pine needles, actually. But the modern atheism is mustard yellow.
I have no idea why this happens. It can be a problem when I'm trying to be rational about a certain worldview (after all, I don't believe Islam is true or valid and actually it's a rather violent religion as a whole, but gold is such a pretty color I'm inclined to be nicer to it than other religions like Buddhism, just because green is boring.) Then again the whole mustard-yellow-atheism thing can be useful. I will never ever ever be an atheist, I am certain, partly because mustard yellow and dark green are just ugly colors.
It's more than that, too. I make specific connections between items and ideas, not just colors. Reformed Christianity is like grapes and diamonds and oak wood, while Evangelical Christianity is like pancakes and cedar wood and emeralds. Terribly confusing, but it does make for a very fun game when you're bored. "What color is Taoism? What shape? What gemstone? What historical time period? Which country? What genre of book? Which instrument?" The possibilities are endless!
Am I just wackadoodle? Does anyone else out there think like this?
*edit* AAAH I AM JUST REALLY REALLY HAPPY RIGHT NOW BECAUSE HARVARD SENT ME A LETTER ASKING ME TO APPLY. TO HARVARD. The college in Massachusetts. The smart one. I am not remotely interested in applying but it is kind of awesome to know that I did well enough on my SATs to get the letter so yayness and huzzah and good gravy and other jubilant exclamations of glee!!!!!
» End = Synesthesia (why Christianity is powder blue)
Comments from our visitors...
Untitled Comment
Posted at 6:18 PM on Jul. 14, 2008 by BlogBoy
Wow, I can't say I've ever thought like that but the whole thing is really interesting! I think I agree with some of your colors though.
Now I imagine (now that you have got me thinking this way) that a human is a dirty dark gray, not totally black, but almost there. After Jesus saves them though they are a brilliant white. Not just the shade of white that all you can see it white, but an off white with a radiance coming off the edges. :P
RYC:
You had a very relevant point so I did soem studying on the Treaty of Tripoli. I found some very interesting information about it.
1). The purpose of the treaty was to end piracy.
2). The secondary purpose was to make sure that America didn't enter into a religious war with the Muslims of Tripoli.
There are a few things that we need to realize before we say that the reason for the treaty was to promote separation of the church and state.
1). The purpose of the treaty was not to govern the relationship between church and state, but to deal with issues of piracy.
We cannot presume that everyone or anyone who voted to ratify this treaty agreed with the language of Article 11, which was arguably collateral to the treaty's purpose.
2). The translation of the Treaty of Tripoli by Barlow has been found faulty, and there is doubt whether Article 11 corresponds to anything of the same purport in the Arabic version.
In 1931 Hunter Miller completed a commission by the United States government to analyze United States's treaties and to explain how they function and what they mean in terms of the United States's legal position in relationship with the rest of the world. According to Hunter Miller's notes, "the Barlow translation is at best a poor attempt at a paraphrase or summary of the sense of the Arabic" and "Article 11... does not exist at all."
After comparing the United States's version by Barlow with the Arabic and even the Italian version, Miller continues by claiming that:
The Arabic text which is between Articles 10 and 12 is in form a letter, crude and flamboyant and withal quite unimportant, from the Dey of Algiers to the Pasha of Tripoli. How that script came to be written and to be regarded, as in the Barlow translation, as Article 11 of the treaty as there written, is a mystery and seemingly must remain so. Nothing in the diplomatic correspondence of the time throws any light whatever on the point.
From this, Miller concludes: "A further and perhaps equal mystery is the fact that since 1797 the Barlow translation has been trustfully and universally accepted as the just equivalent of the Arabic... yet evidence of the erroneous character of the Barlow translation has been in the archives of the Department of State since perhaps 1800 or thereabouts...
(Some of this was quoted from Wikipedia.)
Eric
Now I imagine (now that you have got me thinking this way) that a human is a dirty dark gray, not totally black, but almost there. After Jesus saves them though they are a brilliant white. Not just the shade of white that all you can see it white, but an off white with a radiance coming off the edges. :P
RYC:
You had a very relevant point so I did soem studying on the Treaty of Tripoli. I found some very interesting information about it.
1). The purpose of the treaty was to end piracy.
2). The secondary purpose was to make sure that America didn't enter into a religious war with the Muslims of Tripoli.
There are a few things that we need to realize before we say that the reason for the treaty was to promote separation of the church and state.
1). The purpose of the treaty was not to govern the relationship between church and state, but to deal with issues of piracy.
We cannot presume that everyone or anyone who voted to ratify this treaty agreed with the language of Article 11, which was arguably collateral to the treaty's purpose.
2). The translation of the Treaty of Tripoli by Barlow has been found faulty, and there is doubt whether Article 11 corresponds to anything of the same purport in the Arabic version.
In 1931 Hunter Miller completed a commission by the United States government to analyze United States's treaties and to explain how they function and what they mean in terms of the United States's legal position in relationship with the rest of the world. According to Hunter Miller's notes, "the Barlow translation is at best a poor attempt at a paraphrase or summary of the sense of the Arabic" and "Article 11... does not exist at all."
After comparing the United States's version by Barlow with the Arabic and even the Italian version, Miller continues by claiming that:
The Arabic text which is between Articles 10 and 12 is in form a letter, crude and flamboyant and withal quite unimportant, from the Dey of Algiers to the Pasha of Tripoli. How that script came to be written and to be regarded, as in the Barlow translation, as Article 11 of the treaty as there written, is a mystery and seemingly must remain so. Nothing in the diplomatic correspondence of the time throws any light whatever on the point.
From this, Miller concludes: "A further and perhaps equal mystery is the fact that since 1797 the Barlow translation has been trustfully and universally accepted as the just equivalent of the Arabic... yet evidence of the erroneous character of the Barlow translation has been in the archives of the Department of State since perhaps 1800 or thereabouts...
(Some of this was quoted from Wikipedia.)
Eric
Untitled Comment
Posted at 6:31 PM on Jul. 14, 2008 by BlogBoy
One more thing. Joel Barlow was from Liberal Religion “Liberal religion is a religious tradition which embraces the theological diversity of a congregation rather than respecting any single creed, authority, or writing.”
This means that he didn’t support the US as a Christian nation in the first place! He had great motives to mistranslate the treaty.
Eric
This means that he didn’t support the US as a Christian nation in the first place! He had great motives to mistranslate the treaty.
Eric
Untitled Comment
Posted at 2:04 PM on Jul. 15, 2008 by theseptemberproject
oh I totally understand.
I always think of things in terms of smells.
sometimes colors but usually smells.
like once I had this yarn that was orange and white...
and I swore it smelled like an orange creamsicle.
really.
I always think of things in terms of smells.
sometimes colors but usually smells.
like once I had this yarn that was orange and white...
and I swore it smelled like an orange creamsicle.
really.
Untitled Comment
Posted at 12:11 PM on Jul. 17, 2008 by theseptemberproject
that's great about Harvard. :D
oh and I was going to get a Canon Powershot but I didn't...I got a Panasonic Lumix. It has a LCD screen. :D
I actually bleached my under layers, streaked the strand on the left side of my face (every time I get highlights I always do that strand) and under my bangs so when I pull them back you can see the bleached parts. :D
the under layers didn't turn out quite as light as I would have liked...but the strand and my bangs did. weird huh?
oh and I was going to get a Canon Powershot but I didn't...I got a Panasonic Lumix. It has a LCD screen. :D
I actually bleached my under layers, streaked the strand on the left side of my face (every time I get highlights I always do that strand) and under my bangs so when I pull them back you can see the bleached parts. :D
the under layers didn't turn out quite as light as I would have liked...but the strand and my bangs did. weird huh?
Untitled Comment
Posted at 11:48 PM on Jul. 17, 2008 by BlogBoy
Hmm, good point about the Treaty. I'm not sure exactly why that happened. You may want to watch this video though, it explains the subject more adequately then I can. http://beta.coralridge.org/medialibrary/default.aspx?mediaID=4070
Eric
Eric