Red and Black Make You More Attractive

Whether you like it or not, people judge you based on appearance. Color, in particular, speaks volumes.

Clothing colors can make skin look either healthy or sickly. Colors affect both the perceiver's and the wearer's psychology. The recent lab coat test experiment also supports this idea.

I recently stumbled upon this article in an evolutionary psychology journal. It provides evidence to support the theories of color/clothing psychology. You can read it for detail, but the main takeaways are:

1. Men and women wearing either black or red were perceived to be more attractive by the opposite sex. The increase in attractiveness was equal for both colors in both directions (i.e. males rating females and vice-versa). Statistically significant.

2. Men and women wearing black or red were perceived to be more attractive by the opposite sex and same sex (except in females rating females) even when the color of the clothing was unavailable to the raters (blocked out). This suggests that wearing a certain color can change the psychology of the wearer (i.e. increase attractive expressions and posture), which then raters could pick up on. Statistically significant.

So, wearing black or red will make others perceive you to be more attractive and will make you feel more attractive, which then causes you to produce attraction signals through non-verbal communication. However, there are a few caveats. Firstly, evolutionary psychology is riddled with errors and major biases so using this area of study to make claims is suspect. Also, this is a general trend and certain complexions should not wear red or black. For example, wearing black on darker skin will wash out your appearance.

Experiment with an all black outfit, which will convey power, authority, and mystery.

Pure, Unadulterated Consciousness

If I had to describe myself in a single word, 'scientist' would definitely be at the top of the list. My definition of science is simply: the search for truth. There is no reason why science and spirituality cannot interplay. For example, there is no reason why future science (in particular, quantum mechanics) cannot find evidence to support the existence of a god. Science is a mere infant. It has a long journey of growth ahead.

All major revolutionary discoveries in science grew out of the imagination of scientists who society considered a little crazy. The Roman Inquisition imprisoned Galileo for claiming that the Earth was not the center of the universe.

Well, here's another heretic with whom I enjoy exploring our collective imagination. Since the practice of ancient Buddhism, people have claimed that everything is "connected." Using obscure scientific theories, critical thought, and my own intuition and imagination, I've constructed my own model for the working universe.

My mostly unsubstantiated model of the universe looks like this: the single unifying force (i.e. the unified field theory, which Einstein spent his life trying to construct) is consciousness. The universe is a sea of consciousness that fluctuates like the tides of an ocean. Consciousness is everywhere all at once. The universe is inherently 'intelligent' and results in the arranged complexity of the physical world. Human beings are just pockets of consciousness trying to experience itself in a physical form. There is no anthropomorphic god. We are the gods because we are consciousness and consciousness is the universe.

Trippy stuff huh? There are plenty of sources and experiments I'll describe in future posts which contributed to this model. I encourage you to explore your own mental model of the universe.

We Are Stardust

“Recognize that the very molecules that make up your body, the atoms that construct the molecules, are traceable to the crucibles that were once the centers of high mass stars that exploded their chemically rich guts into the galaxy, enriching pristine gas clouds with the chemistry of life. So that we are all connected to each other biologically, to the earth chemically and to the rest of the universe atomically. That’s kinda cool! That makes me smile and I actually feel quite large at the end of that. It’s not that we are better than the universe, we are part of the universe. We are in the universe and the universe is in us.”

-Neil deGrasse Tyson