Moving a bit fast, here, Bill. I can see your point about having to see things from a mathematical viewpoint, but like most non-math-inclined individuals, find conceptualizing what you are introducing a bit daunting.

Let's go to pane one.

I'm going to try to bring your math jargon down to human-speak so that I can use the concepts you're introducing in a sentence. Is that okay?
Obviously, I've come to an erroneous conclusion based on my observations alone, which serves to support my assertion that those experiments were relatively pointless without some frame of reference: guidelines, what's allowed, what actually happens... that sort of thing. My observations in subtracting red from green giving me green led me to believe that my simple math approach was all that needed to be applied. 0 - 1 = 0. Wrong.

You're introducing this empirical function f.
Function f has no variables (random factors). Since it's all constants, the results are by nature always going to be reproducible. Most of Poser math has this characteristic: it's like function f.

Am I following you so far?

You introduce two variables which do NOT have the same value, and you are going to set about proving that they don't... mathematically. For this you use the function f, which passes (or contains) a parameter... either X or Y. So,

f(X) is not equal to f(Y) which proves that X is not equal to Y.

Now, we introduce WHITE. And, ya lost me. No, I can see the validity, but why WHITE? Nowhere in what I was doing was there any white. So, you obviously understand something about colours in general, some assumption about how to manipulate them and what Poser does to manipulate them, that completely escapes me.

You need to understand that when I do experiments, I'm doing it from a purely visual, non-mathematical basis. I embrace the maths here - don't get me wrong, but really, I'm going to have to do some serious digesting of the concepts that follow before any "experiments" will have any validity.
You do see - might be hard from someone with your background - how the common Poser artist would be completely baffled by nodes, though, don't you? And do you realize that in order to make this all accessible to artist, I'm going to have to take your concepts and turn each one into human-speak so that it makes sense to Those-of-Us-That-don't-Get-It?

That said, I'm keen to get my hands dirty.

Let me have a think on this, and regurgitate, then you can evaluate my interpretation to make sure I got it right. Is that okay by you, Bill?

I will print these out and read them as I get ready for bed... and thank you so much for taking the time. Please be patient with me: I'll get this yet. May take a bit of time, but I'll get it.

Monterey/Mint21.x/Win10 - Blender3.x - PP11.3(cm) - Musescore3.6.2

Wir sind gewohnt, daß die Menschen verhöhnen was sie nicht verstehen
[it is clear that humans have contempt for that which they do not understand] 

Metaphor of Chooks