Are atoms coloured?

Q1: Are the colours that you see all around you in the world located on the surface of objects? (e.g. Is the yellow of a plastic duck on its outer surface?)

Q2: Can atoms be coloured?

Q3: Where, precisely, is the blue of the sky located?
Ÿ (And also the black of deep space?)

Q4: Can you see transparency?
Ÿ And, equivalently in the auditory mode of sensing, can you hear silence?

Q5: Does a tomato remain red when it is closed away in the fridge?
Ÿ this is the equivalent regarding colour of a question which Zen Buddhists ask about sound. Namely, when a tree crashes to the ground in a forest with no-one present does it still make a noise? Similar questions for smell and taste might be does a baking cake still smell good when the kitchen is empty and does a sweet retain its flavour when it remains in its wrapper? But what would be an equivalent question for touch? (Is there one?)

Q1: Are the colours that you see all around you in the world located on the surface of objects? (e.g. Is the yellow of a plastic duck on its outer surface?)

Q2: Can atoms be coloured?

Q3: Where, precisely, is the blue of the sky located?
Ÿ (And also the black of deep space?)

Q4: Can you see transparency?
Ÿ And, equivalently in the auditory mode of sensing, can you hear silence?

Q5: Does a tomato remain red when it is closed away in the fridge?
Ÿ this is the equivalent regarding colour of a question which Zen Buddhists ask about sound. Namely, when a tree crashes to the ground in a forest with no-one present does it still make a noise? Similar questions for smell and taste might be does a baking cake still smell good when the kitchen is empty and does a sweet retain its flavour when it remains in its wrapper? But what would be an equivalent question for touch? (Is there one?)

Q6: In simple terms, over the course of evolution animals developed from single cellular beings similar to amoeba through worms and chimpanzees to humans. During this process sensation and sensory abilities must also have been evolving. Which of your own senses seem the most primitive and which the most sophisticated? Does this mean that the former must have appeared early in evolution and hence be present among all man’s evolutionary kin?


Q7: At all times when you are awake you can feel the entirety of your own body space (unless part of it is anaesthetised). Is this feeling a simple sensation like warmth and touch and pain or is it something more special as some might claim like a soul?
Ÿ In either case is it possible that plants, for example trees, feel their ‘body space’ too (‘have souls’ )?

Q8: How does free-will work in practice in controlling your actions?
For example, you are walking along a footpath and up ahead you see that it divides. In your experience how do you find yourself choosing the direction in which you will continue? Do you make:
1. A distinct decision definitely a good few seconds in advance of striding off in the chosen direction?
2. A decision simultaneously with your body steering in that direction - almost as if your body does the deciding for you?
3. The decision is developed almost from the moment you catch sight of the divergence and the action of your body physically steering crystallises and ‘sets’ it.
Ÿ Also consider the same set of questions regarding actions at very different scales - from the micro such as deciding to bend a finger to the macro such as choosing you’re A-Levels.

Q9: Normally your breathing is involuntary and you remain unaware of it. In order to take control of it (for example to conduct a breathing exercise) you need to make yourself aware of it. This suggests that establishing voluntary control over the movements of parts of your body requires or is coincident with gaining awareness of them. A related example may be that if one of your limbs is anaesthetised and so made numb this has the side-effect of reducing the range and fineness of movements you can make with it.
If, then, in order to exert full free will over part of your body you need to be able to feel it are free will and consciousness just one and the same thing?

Q10: In words it is possible to draw certain analogies between one thing and another. Examples of analogies are time flows like a river and money is like a lubricant which oils the wheels of industry. Are some concepts potentially more analogically connectable than others in this way? Which ones?
Ÿ Is it possible to draw an analogy between any one thing and any one other (e.g. even an ice-cream and an oil refinery?). Or are there limits to analogising?

Q11: There are many different types of words and terms in language. For example there are nouns , verbs, adjectives and pronouns; there are abstract words and concrete ones. Which kind of terms are the most primitive? Might they have been the first to evolve in human speech?

Q12: Words, we say, carry meaning. Could it also be the case that objects and events carry meaning ?
Ÿ For example, it might be said that once the sun carried meaning within those cultures which worshipped it as a god. But what about ordinary, everyday objects in our society today? In the absence of any ritual do they possess any kind of inherent meaning?
Ÿ And do works of art like paintings and music and dance carry meaning too? Is it a special kind of meaning or intensity of meaning - and is this what makes them art?
Ÿ If a dance can possess meaning then can an event like a football match do so also? (it seems to among the crowd of fans watching.) If so, what is it about 22 men kicking an inflated leather sphere between two sets of wooden posts on a field of grass that generates such intense meaning on the part of the observers?

Q13: Churchill said that democracy is the least bad form of government. In what ways is it short of being perfect? What could to be done to improve it?

Q14: The philosopher Bertrand Russell once proposed the formation of a parallel police force to be uniformed in white. It is
the job of the regular police to seek out evidence of a suspect’s guilt. Russell’s ‘white police’ would provide a balance to this by searching for evidence of his or her innocence. If you were given the opportunity of designing a new force of men and women in society (wearing any colour uniform of your choice ) along the lines of the police force or fire brigade what would you have them do?

Q15: It has been said that philosophers only play with words. Is it possible though that progress could be made in thought by playing with words?

Q16: Why do we say ham instead of what it really is, ‘dead pig‘? (And beef in place of ‘dead cow’)
Ÿ Does it matter?
(especially in a modern age when few people witness the termination of animal life which is involved in the creation of their meat.)

Q17: It might be said that partly as a result of pre-packaging etc. the majority of people who eat meat nowadays are not aware of the loss of life which has gone into it. If you were a member of the government what new requirements would you institute in law in order to restore the true meaning of meat?Is the dilution in the meaning of meat an unique thing or one example of a wider loss