onsdag 22 oktober 2008

Susan's color percentage


by Lucia
Neutrality is a state of mind

Our investigation in the colorful piece of cloth from IKEA, was meant to get practical with the material, to take it a part into pieces and see what happens. Our idea is that Neutrality, is a state of mind and an ongoing negotiation. A negotiation of who has power to claim something as neutral. In this experiment we have the power, we decide what is neutral, and that is as accurate as anything else. If you don’t give someone else a power over the words, they don’t have that power. We know what is neutral – not them.

An endless experiment:

The cloth was neutral from the beginning; it was not vivid, not calm, but a struggle between the different basic colors. The cloth evened out and balanced the cultural codes, the history, and its own content, making itself as neutral as vacuum. Why? Do we ask ourselves as scientists, is this piece of cloth so perfect in its neutrality. We have to take it apart. We began by separating the cloth by its colors, carefully extracting each one with steady scissor-hands. Within this process we found out that parts the parts in themselves were far from neutral. Some were easy to remove, some complicated and troublesome. Some were big and some were small. Some gave us, the researchers, blisters on our hands, some didn’t. The list could go on. But in this process, made us discover and prove one thing: A neutral object as a whole is not neutral in its parts, but consists of opposites.

In the next step we took the different parts, the colors, and did several measurements and calculations with them. We weighed them, counted the minor parts, calculated the area, and the different 2D-shapes. Then psychological experiments were conducted at a selected group of skilled neutrality experts. The experiments were aimed at naming the feeling the different colors and shapes provoked. Also here there were some interesting discoveries, partly contradicting the earlier ones. An overweight of the associations made by the selected group, leaned towards unease, chaos and wildness. This is interesting, so a neutral object need not to consist of just two opposites, but of a swarm and a larger system of chaotic and seemingly incoherent parts.

After this in-depth research of the different shapes and colors, we began disassembling the pieces even further, cutting them in pieces with an average square area of 11 mm2. This process turned out to be time-consuming, but nonetheless utterly important for the research. The pieces became like molecules or atoms, each the same, but still individual. They were Individual in the sense that each one had a slightly different shape and size, but the same because they all were replaceable by any other of the same color. After this process, we were left with six piles of the necessary components for the original pattern.

The final step was to mix them to be able to create a new entirety, a new whole. All of us were silent when this important moment finally came. Carefully the small components were mixed and spread out to create a smooth surface. And to our pleasure we could see that the surface created still were neutral, as neutral as it has been in the beginning. So we could conclude that: The piece of cloth from IKEA is neutral, and becomes neutral. During the process we found out that neutrality is both a state of mind and a negotiation, a struggle, between the different parts and components of the chosen object.

måndag 20 oktober 2008

måndag 13 oktober 2008

10 Commandments of Neutrality

1. Death is neutral - not life.
2. Neutrality is impartial, doesn't favour anyone or anything.
3. Neutrality is genderless.
4. Neutrality is balance, not avarage or commodity
5. The less you know the more neutral you are.
6. Neutrality is always changing, can't be calculated.
7. Neutrality is what's left when everything else is eliminated.
8. Neutrality is always in relation to something else.
9. The prejudice of neutrality is not neutral.

10. Neutrality is a state of mind.

neutrality requires no choice.

could neutrality be close to the concept of “objectivity”?

Objectivity is both an important and very difficult concept to pin down in philosophy. While there is no universally accepted articulation of objectivity, a proposition is generally considered to be objectively true when its truth conditions are “mind-independent”—that is, not the result of any judgments made by a conscious entity. Put another way, objective truths are those which are discovered rather than created. While such formulations capture the basic intuitive idea of objectivity, neither is without controversy.

General applications


The term “objectivity” designates both a feature of scientific investigators and a feature of scientific inquiry itself. To be objective is to adhere strictly to truth-conducive methods in one’s thinking, particularly, to take into account all available information, and to avoid any form of prejudice, bias, or wishful thinking. The forms of observation and experimentation, and the canons of deductive reasoning and inductive reasoning employed by scientists practicing the verification guide scientists to be objective.
As stated earlier, the term “objective” can be applied to methods used in this process or results produced by it. For example, if a study to determine the effectiveness of a pharmaceutical drug is double-blind, randomized, and placebo controlled, the study can be called “objective” because it adheres to methods that are known to improve the reliability of its results.
Law, medicine, and almost every academic field have developed rules of evidence and guidelines for objectivity particular to their subject matter. In history, for example, objectivity is achieved through the use of the historical method and peer review of journal articles in which authors’ proposed explanations and analyses of historical events are evaluated by other experts, prior to publication.
It is a matter of dispute among experts to what degree aesthetic and ethical judgements, as well as judgements involving the interpretation of the law, can be objective. Some hold that the beauty or merit of artworks and literary works cannot be objectively decided. Others deny this. Some claim that ethical judgements are relative to an individual’s values or to the norms, mores, and folk-ways of society. Others deny this. There are impressive arguments on both sides.

Objectivity and subjectivity

Painting by Jackson Pollock

In philosophy, an objective fact means a truth that remains true everywhere, independently of human thought or feelings. For instance, it is true always and everywhere that ‘2 plus 2 equals 4’. A subjective fact is a truth that is only true in certain times, places or people. For instance, ‘That painting is beautiful’ may be true for someone who likes it, but not for everyone.
The above examples are non-controversial. There are, however, other issues considered objective by some, not all. The role of Evolution vs. Intelligent design in the formation of living organisms is a typical example. Here, there are more objective arguments to support evolution than creation. Hence, an objective person will conclude that evolution is the most objective explanation. This illustrates that the objectivity of a theory does not depend on the approval of all. Sometimes, the objective opinion is held by a minority as, for example, Copernicus and Galileo’s theories on the rotation of the Earth.

Objectivity versus neutrality

Neutrality is not synonymous with objectivity. In a controversy, an objective person will not remain neutral but will chose the side supported by the most objective arguments. Objectivity therefore requires a choice, which is often difficult and may prove to be erroneous, whereas neutrality requires no choice.


Neutral Science

Neutral Science is a term coined to describe a science where there 
is no materialistic, physical or other implicit or explicit belief system 
at the root of explanations for observations. If science, or indeed religion, 
is to find the thoughts that truly relate to the world in which we live it 
first has to explicitly remove assumtions or belief.