Friday, January 8, 2016

Murdering a Dress

I want to combine two popular/compelling internet events: 1) The debate of what color "The Dress" is, and 2) the Steven Avery trial that is the subject of Making a Murderer docuseries.

What the two have in common is simply the complete polarity of opinions despite equal stimuli. The dress debate was if the colors were Gold and white, or Black and Blue. The actual dress was a tint in the range of black and blue. But the photo was clearly gold and white to me and many people. When seen in a different photo I can clearly see it is black and blue. But in the controversial photo I clearly saw a tint of white and gold. I don't mean popcorn white and Aztec gold, but a tint in the range of gold and white. Just like the real dress is in the range of black and blue. There are many shades of black and blue and gold and white. off-white, greyish black. etc. Many many shades, but in general I could polarize the picture into gold and white. But the dress is actually not remotely gold and white. The dress only appeared white and gold to me. This was an optical illusion that caused a divide in opinions that captivated people and is still being studied. This demonstrates the infinite range of experiences and how humanity is still learning about our own perceptive abilities/sensitivities. 

This is not to be confused with preference such as with the new Star Wars movie. Some people love it and some people hate it. But at least we can all agree on the color and shape of the principal characters as they appear to us.

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