In Search of Secrets

The master spoke: “It is said the sentence ‘snow is white’ is true, if and only if snow is white. This we have already discussed. But it is a separate question whether snow is, in fact, white. So what color is snow?”

The student, having re-learned the child’s art of giving simple answers to simple questions, replied: “White, of course!”

The master smiled. “Oh? And are you certain of that belief?”

“As you’ve taught me, I cannot be absolutely certain of anything,” said the student. “But I am humanly certain, yes.”

“And if I say that snow is not white?” inquired the master.

“Holding to true beliefs in the face of authority is an old lesson, master. My answer is unchanged.”

“Well and good,” said the master. “But what if I offered more than mere authority?  What if I showed you that snow is not white?”

This question did not seem simple, so the student paused to think before answering.

“If you could actually do that,” they replied, “I would be very interested. But I do not expect it to happen.”

Wordlessly, the master rose and walked outside, beckoning the student to follow. It was winter, and it just so happened that a fresh layer of snow had covered the ground the night before. The master pointed to a patch of snow down the hill, upon which some animal had recently urinated. “Snow is yellow,” the master said, for the snow there was indeed yellow.

The student began to speak, but the master held up a hand to silence them, then led them to a snow fort some of the younger adepts had built that morning.  The two of them stuck their heads inside, and the master said, “Snow is blue,” for the light shining through the walls was, in fact, a muted blue.

Finally, the master pulled a microscope from their pocket and, using a chilled pair of tweezers, placed a single perfect snowflake under the lens, beckoning the student to look. The student did so and beheld a fantastic crystal, transparent yet scintillating with rainbow. The master said, “Snow is all colors and no color,” and surely that was the only description that properly fit.

“Now you have seen,” said the master, “So I ask you again, what color is snow?”

The student, feeling rather stupid, hesitated. They began: “Well…it depends on how you see it, I suppose…or where you see it…I mean, the context–” but they were interrupted by a big, white, wet, and very cold snowball to the face, which the master had been concealing.

In that moment, the student was enlightened.