The study of darkness · 8:16am Dec 31st, 2020
I’ve been thinking recently about what kinds of mathematical models could possibly be suitable for describing consciousness, and I noticed that intuitions for darkness, not brightness, lend themselves more naturally to studies.
There seems to be a common underlying factor between (1) how people develop run-away fears of the dark and (2) how the stars only come out at night. It feels vaguely like there’s some conservation of perception involved so that when our five senses have less to report, we naturally amplify whatever remains, and somehow the process can evoke fear or beauty. It feels analogous to how antagonists tend to simplify the world and play up the parts they still see. When their simplifications lead to a powerful drive, it feels natural to ask whether the antagonist saw monsters or stars when they turned off the lights. Similarly, when a protagonist takes in the darkness after a light in them dies out, it feels natural to ask whether it’s a beast or a hero that will reveal itself, though we often find that they’re two sides of the same coin.
I see darkness as a bridge from the reality of a situation to the way we color it, and it’s one of many. In some sense, the emergence of darkness forces us to decide how we feel about a thing. There’s more than one way to walk that bridge, and the way we do so defines what we’ll see on the other side.
I got you your favorite: math!
This is a sketch of how I approach such questions in very abstract terms:
- I already have some intuition for darkness as a bridge, i.e., a contained space between two landmarks. If I can characterize all such landmarks between which darkness can lie, then I can figure out how to think about all the different kinds of darkness and the different ways one can walk it. With a good representation, I can think about darkness more concretely.
- Once I can think about darkness concretely, I can more precisely describe how I think about various sections of the bridge. By seeing how the various descriptions can piece together, I can understand how the underlying bridge might piece together.
- Once I know what it takes to piece together a bridge, I can consider how different bridges might be built, and I can figure out how darkness in a few places can imply— or lead to— darkness in other places.
Find a good representation to enable good descriptions, figure out what the structure of the descriptions say about the structure of the underlying concept, and finally think through how various instantiations of the concept interact with one another. After that, category theory polymerase binds to the site to kick off the process of ingesting the concept into the broader body of knowledge. [/bad joke]
On occasion, Fluttershy occupies herself by studying the evolution of mathematics using conceptual tools from microbiology.
I want to clarify that I’m only interested in cases where darkness leads to some powerful motivation, whether that’s fear, courage, awe, or something else. For now at least, I’m less interested in cases where darkness leads either to no change or to apathy.
When I think of a thing getting dark, I imagine that the thing is getting somehow diminished. I heuristically describe getting dark by answering four questions. These four questions help me understand the kinds of diminishments involved.
- What’s shrinking? A group of friends, a character’s potential, a ruler’s control. When something shrinks, things either come closer together or risk falling off.
- What’s dimming? Light, warmth, noise, affection, bonds. When something dims, the objects in it are characterized less by the surrounding light and more by their intrinsic properties, like shape and glow. Where those intrinsic properties are weak, objects disappear. Where they’re strong, objects are revealed. Where an object’s reflections contrast with its intrinsic properties, it starts to look very different.
- What’s decaying? Foundations, ability, faith, a shared identity. When a thing decays, everything built on top of it is at risk of toppling.
- What’s acquiescing? A ruler to demands, a character to necessity, a community to chaos. When something acquiesces, it becomes less defined by its own boundaries.
These questions solve two problems. First, they give me a way to think concretely about getting dark. They tell me what’s involved, what’s changing, and what might power an emotional charge. Second, they help me understand the structure of whatever it is that’s getting dark. The extent to which the answers to these four questions are intertwined defines that structure, and that in turn gives me more mental tools for getting a more holistic picture. Suppose the fact that a ruler acquiesces to demands indicates the extent to which a ruler’s power dims. Now instead of just asking what boundaries have been violated, we can also ask what intrinsic traits of the ruler’s subordinates might be revealed as a result.
A nice thing about the four questions above is that they’re emotionally neutral. Whatever it is that’s shrinking, dimming, decaying, or acquiescing, it’s entirely up to the narrative and its focus to define how that will be interpreted. In other words, when something gets dark, it doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Shrinking is a chance for things to come together. Dimming is a chance to reveal what’s more fundamental. Decaying is a chance to topple bad things, maybe permanently. Acquiescing is a chance to explore beyond previous boundaries. The story is free to determine whether we gaze at monsters or stars in the darkness. That’s nice because that’s the original intuition that led to this investigation, so it’s some indication that the intuition is at least a little self-consistent.
The rest is an afterthought. The four questions characterize one side of the bridge— the part that’s getting dark— and the other side is entirely characterized by the emotions that can result. The way the answers intertwine defines half the structure of the bridge, and the other half is defined by the structure of emotions (for which I have no interesting intuition). Since I don’t care that much about the emotion side of the bridge, the relationship between bridges is defined entirely by how various answers to the four questions are intertwined. Category theory polymerase can do its thing now to complete the process so we can… (wait for it…) consume the darkness.
(Oh gods, that was a bad joke.)
Anyway. Thanks for reading my rambles. Cheers to a brighter New Year.
I didn’t write this post to understand stories. I wrote it to understand people. Analogies of darkness seem to be pervasive in how people define their situation, their personality, their motivations, and their morals. Given that constraint, I figured it was worth seeing what flexibility there is to make people more driven by beauty than by run-away fears.
I'm not sure I fully understand (and I don't think I get that bad joke at the end, to the extent I'm not sure I'm even seeing what the joke is), but interesting.
And happy new year. :)
5425374
Ah, and thanks for the further information, and thoughts. :)
5425405
Thanks, Reese, and Happy New Year to you too. I was pretty tempted to not post this one, but the topic was nagging me for days, and I don't think I would have been able to think through it if I hadn't tried writing this out. It felt wrong not to post it. Maybe one day I'll come back to this and find a better way to explain it.
5425418
Well, I'm glad it helped you think through it, and thanks for posting the thoughts, again. :)
(Even if you don't find a better way to explain it -- though, if you do, please feel free to post that too. :D)
I think I've always known this, yet never before thought about how to use it.
Whoa. You've been thinking about this a lot. I'm gonna have to read this more than once.
It would be great if you could give example texts that do the things you talk about.
(Also, even if category theory holds the secrets of the universe, you're just gonna confuse people with it, even with jokes.)
I don't think "darkness" is what you're really getting at. More like metaphorical darkness, or a general sensory loss of contrast: darkness, brightness, silence, or stasis. But turning down the volume on one sense doesn't highlight any particular thing; it highlights the other senses. Darkening or brightening a scene obscures everything visual, and highlights sounds. Rapid motion obscures shape.
When you say darkness forces us to decide how we feel about a thing, you seem to be talking about highlighting. When you say darkness diminishes a thing, you seem to be talking about darkness.
5431422
I'm trying to find the commonality between the metaphorical darkness and the general sensory darkness. On the metaphorical side, here are a few examples:
On the sensory side, you listed (visual) darkness, silence, stasis, and (I infer) blurring. To that, I'd add fading and obscuring.
I agree with the first sentence but disagree with the second. To be clear about the relationships between terms:
I'm not sure if that's easier or harder to understand. It's certainly harder to read. If we skip the "emotional force" requirement, the term darkness becomes broad enough to cover all kinds of sensory darkness, but it ends up creating kinds of metaphorical darkness that don't feel dark at all.
5431398
I see examples all over the place. Maybe I should collate them into a separate post along with explanations.
Writing this blog post actually helped me understand the opposite of darkness better too. "Brightness" puts into a single framework notions like:
Which makes a bit more explicit the intuitive connection between shining a light on something and order.
5431398
You're right, and I know you're right, but the post is incomplete without that "joke." I should have left it as a comment to my future self rather than putting it in-line with the rest of the post. At some point later in the year, I suspect I'll come back to this, and I suspect that "joke" will jog my memory on several topics.
Also, it was more of a microbiology joke than a category theory joke
. It's a reference to the role RNAP plays in protein synthesis. The process meshes well with the way I think about how concepts become concrete, and this post in particular feels like a good case study (for my future self) to investigate that intuition.
5433690
Six months later...
This is, in fact, exactly what happened, and it's exactly what I'm doing now. Back then, I had too much other stuff to think about, so I had to put the topic aside. Now, it's a little more within my ability to "digest" the thoughts behind this blog post.
A popular aphorism from when I was in high school: “there is no such thing as light. There is only the absence of darkness (and darkness is flammable)”
5431398
RE: conservation of preception
That’s also one of the tenants of most schools of meditation. Why do they require you to sit still in a quiet room with your eyes closed (or stare at a candle)? It’s only when the external sense-doors are shut that the signal from the interior can be noted.