Mind and Matter (Schrödinger)

Book by Erwin Schrödinger containing the thought experiment on the yellowness of color and the oneness of mind, discussed in §19.

Extracted from this book

Claims (25)

All wholeness, not just color, may be considered ultimately as a kind of light, communicating with the transcendent realm where pure unity exists.
Boundaries and hairlines, by both separating and uniting adjacent colors, intensify the light and form larger wholes.
Color is an essential feature of reality; the unity of things (like a forest) is colored, not just structural.
Color variation (roughness) brings color to life by preventing flatness; the interaction of slightly different hues creates a shimmering unity.
Colors create light together like centers cooperating to form a larger being; the interaction intensifies each color as a center.
Dark-light contrast is essential for color to shine; without a beautiful pattern of darks and lights, the colors will always seem muddy and cannot have inner light.
Families of color, like echoes, unify the composition by creating hidden similarity among all colors.
Inner light cannot be achieved without geometric wholeness (field of centers) present; color depends on geometry.
Inner light is directly linked to the field of centers: each color exists as a center and becomes more intense through the intensification by other centers.
Inner light is objectively present in some colored things and absent in others, and can be discerned through direct comparison.
Inner light is the feeling of undivided unity, a first direct experience of the I.
Inner light provides a direct glimpse of the I.
Intensity and clarity of individual color arise from both an inherent quality and the support of the whole; making each color shine beautifully forces all colors into harmony.
Mutual embedding—putting small amounts of one color inside another—deepens unity and creates a more profound inner light.
Schrödinger's thought experiment suggests that color sensation might directly penetrate the realm of the single mind or ground, and inner light intensifies this bridge.
Sequence of linked color pairs creates a gradient-like structure that points to and intensifies the main center, giving life to the whole.
Subdued brilliance creates the calm, not-separate quality of inner light, preventing any one color from dominating and allowing the whole to melt together.
Subdued brilliance—simultaneously muted and intense—is the essence of inner light, like nature's brilliance created by interaction of subtle colors.
The eleven color properties are qualities of the ground itself, attributes of the I, as far as we can see it directly.
The eleven color properties provide the structural backbone of all color unity and inner light.
The I or ground is a real thing, something which exists in the world, perhaps attached to matter, and forms a necessary substratum to all that exists.
The inner light in the greatest color allows us to experience the great self directly — the great self seen openly.
The rule of hierarchy of color areas is almost universally followed in things with inner light; equal areas of several colors almost never occur in such works.
The student experiment demonstrates that bad geometry prevents beautiful coloring and good geometry makes inner light almost automatic.
The wholeness of geometry is intensified and brought to its maximum potential by inner light in color.

Findings (7)

Eleven color properties derived empirically, without prior reference to geometric properties, yet turned out similar
The color properties were discovered through color work and later found to parallel the fifteen geometric properties, confirming a deep connection.
Inca feather textile color proportions: 70% red, 25% yellow, 5% blue (approx 15:5:1)
Measurement of area in the Inca textile shows a strict geometric hierarchy of colors.
Japanese kimono color proportions: 75% red, 19% off-white, 4% black rings, 2% trace (approx 4:2:1)
The kimono's color areas follow a clear hierarchy, with red dominant, then off-white, then small black.
Landscape drawing coloring experiment: 10 of 10 students produced beautiful coloring
All ten students colored the 'Landscape' drawing beautifully, because its strong field of centers made inner light almost automatic.
Matisse's Arab Coffee House area distribution: 66% green, 23% white, 9% ocher, 2% black
The painting shows a perfect hierarchy of color areas.
Sun Man drawing coloring experiment: 0 of 10 students produced beautiful coloring
In Alexander's 1982 experiment, not one of ten students could color a xerox of the 'Sun Man' drawing beautifully, because its geometry lacked a field of centers.
Upham house floor: darkening the green terrazzo destroyed the inner light effect
When the green became as dark as the red, the dark-light pattern was ruined and the floor lost its inner light, until the green was bleached.

Neighborhood — ranked by edge-count

Chapters (1)

chapter

Chapter 7: Color And Inner Light
cites
The chapter from The Nature of Order, Vol. 4, exploring how color, through the phenomenon of inner light, provides a direct glimpse of the I (ground), and presenting the eleven color properties that structure that unity.

Thinkers (1)

thinker

Erwin Schrödinger
authored