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The colours in the eye feather

The colours in the peacock tail are particularly beautiful because they are bright and

iridescent. An iridescent colour is a colour that changes with the angle of view. The

colours are not produced by pigments but by an optical effect called thin-film

interference that takes place in the barbules.4 In technical terms, the peacock has

structural colours.

In the eye pattern, the barbules appear bronze, blue, dark purple and green. Away

from the eye region, the barbules are uniformly green. The colours in the eye

feather can only be seen on the front surface of the feather because this is where

the barbules are positioned. The back of the feather is uniformly brown because the

barbs contain a brown pigment.

The eye pattern: The particular beauty of the eye pattern comes from the

rounded shapes that have a high degree of resolution. The pupil of the eye is

formed by a dark purple cardioid and the iris is formed by a blue ellipsoid. These

shapes are located within a pointed bronze ellipsoid that is surrounded by one or

two green fringes. A very important feature of the eye pattern is that it is a digital

pattern which is formed by the combined effect of many thousands of individual

barbules. Some patterns in nature are formed by natural growth mechanisms, as

with the spiral shape of the nautilus shell. However, the eye pattern in the peacock

tail requires the precise coordination of independent barbs and this cannot be

achieved by a simple growth mechanism. Barbules on adjacent barbs coordinate

perfectly with each other to produce the eye pattern.

The peafowl are forest birds that nest on the ground but roost in trees. They are terrestrial feeders.

In Hinduism, the Peacock is associated withSaraswati, a deity representing benevolence, patience,

kindness, compassion and knowledge. Similar to Saraswati, the Peacock is associated with Kwan-yin in

Asian spirituality. Kwan-yin (or Quan Yin) is also an emblem of love, compassionate watchfulness, good-

will, nurturing, and kind-heartedness. Legend tells us she chose to remain a mortal even though she

could be immortal because she wished to stay behind and aid humanity in their spiritual evolution.

No aspect of our mental life is more important to the quality and meaning of our

existence than emotions. They are what make life worth living, or sometimes ending.

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So it is not surprising that most of the great classical philosophersPlato, Aristotle,

Spinoza, Descartes, Hobbes, Humehad recognizable theories of emotion,

conceived as responses to certain sorts of events of concern to a subject, triggering

bodily changes and typically motivating characteristic behavior. What is surprising is

that in much of the twentieth-century philosophers of mind and psychologists

tended to neglect themperhaps because the sheer variety of phenomena covered

by the word emotion and its closest neighbors tends to discourage tidy theory. In

recent years, however, emotions have once again become the focus of vigorous

interest in philosophy, as well as in other branches of cognitive science. In view of

the proliferation of increasingly fruitful exchanges between researches of different

stripes, it is no longer useful to speak of the philosophy of emotion in isolation from

the approaches of other disciplines, particularly psychology, neurology, evolutionary

biology, and even economics. While it is quite impossible to do justice to those

approaches here, some sidelong glances in their direction will aim to suggest their

philosophical importance.

Basic emotion Basic opposite

Joy Sadness

Trust Disgust

Fear Anger

Surprise Anticipation

Sadness Joy

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Disgust Trust

Anger Fear

Anticipation Surprise

Human Feelings (The results of Emotions.) Feelings Opposite

Optimism Anticipation + Joy Disappointment

Love Joy + Trust Remorse

Submission Trust + Fear Contempt

Awe Fear+ Surprise Aggressiveness

Disappointment Surprise + Sadness Optimism

Remorse Sadness + Disgust Love

Contempt Disgust + Anger Submission

Aggressiveness Anger + AnticipationAwe

The Indian Peafowl orBlue Peafowl (Pavo cristatus) is a large and brightly

coloured bird of the pheasant family native to South Asia, but introduced and semi-feral in many other

parts of the world. The male, peacock, is predominantly blue with a fan-like crest of spatula-tipped wire-

like feathers and is best known for the long train made up of elongated upper-tail covert feathers which

bear colourful eyespots. These stiff and elongated feathers are raised into a fan and quivered in a display