Darkness - a philosophical sight or lack thereof
ok, so there's the darkness that is night as opposed to day. This darkness is relative, because even in the darkest night, the darkest time of night, there is still some light, some glimmer of light, from the stars or the moon, or seeping around the edges of the planet (can a planet have 'edges'? That's another question). There is this darkness of this relative sort. We say it is dark, but what we mean is there is not as much light available as there is in daytime, or when the lights are turned on, so shadows become larger, much of what we would normally 'see' in the day is obscured, dim, with colors drained away, because color requires light to be reflected off a surface (yet another subject) but we call this 'darkness' to differentiate it from the light of day. And by this I mean the literal light of day.
Then there is darkness that is the true absence of light. Such as one might find in a deep cave in the earth, where sunlight cannot reach, has perhaps never reached, and without some kind of artificial light our eyes cannot 'see' anything, although things are still present. There is still an up, a down, in this imagined cave. A floor of sorts and a ceiling and walls. An enclosure. Things we could touch with our hands. If we spoke we could hear our voices reflected back at us off of this enclosure, be it small enough, or of the right shape to echo. This would be literal absolute dark; the complete absence of external or artificial light, at least as our own eyes could detect. I have heard there are cave creatures that can 'see' in these conditions. They can see heat. They can see minute differences in heat. We have instruments, gadgets that can see in the infra-red and ultra-violet spectrum, and other spectrum I know not the names of, but they could see us, as warm bodies within the cold of the cave. So can this really be considered pure darkness?
In this absence of sight, and there are those humans who live in this absence of sight all the time, right? The blind live their daily lives in 'darkness' of this sort. But does that mean their lives are bereft of experience? Does this mean that they do not know if someone else is near? That they cannot tell from which direction and distance a voice or a sound is coming? It is said the other senses become more acute when one is lost, but I believe what that really means is we start paying more attention to the senses that work.
So, in this absence of sight, when other senses are not blocked by some means or another, can it really be called pure darkness?
Sensory deprivation chambers. Let's think about that for a moment. Because it may be absolute darkness, and it may be absolute silence, but there is still the other 3 senses. And if you could cut those off and truly have none of the 5 natural senses to rely upon, does this mean that all experience would stop?
Would our mind just turn inward then? Would we begin to live in the world of dreams? Imagination? Starved for these five senses, would our brains find other senses, so long ignored and overridden by the 5 'easy' ones that they have been forgotten, stagnated, become atrophied...would those begin to make themselves apparent again? Would they 'wake up' from their long slumber? Or have they simply been unappreciated as true senses, continuing always to provide their input to our brains as 'intuition' and 'gut feelings'?
Is Love one of those senses?
Then there is darkness that is the true absence of light. Such as one might find in a deep cave in the earth, where sunlight cannot reach, has perhaps never reached, and without some kind of artificial light our eyes cannot 'see' anything, although things are still present. There is still an up, a down, in this imagined cave. A floor of sorts and a ceiling and walls. An enclosure. Things we could touch with our hands. If we spoke we could hear our voices reflected back at us off of this enclosure, be it small enough, or of the right shape to echo. This would be literal absolute dark; the complete absence of external or artificial light, at least as our own eyes could detect. I have heard there are cave creatures that can 'see' in these conditions. They can see heat. They can see minute differences in heat. We have instruments, gadgets that can see in the infra-red and ultra-violet spectrum, and other spectrum I know not the names of, but they could see us, as warm bodies within the cold of the cave. So can this really be considered pure darkness?
In this absence of sight, and there are those humans who live in this absence of sight all the time, right? The blind live their daily lives in 'darkness' of this sort. But does that mean their lives are bereft of experience? Does this mean that they do not know if someone else is near? That they cannot tell from which direction and distance a voice or a sound is coming? It is said the other senses become more acute when one is lost, but I believe what that really means is we start paying more attention to the senses that work.
So, in this absence of sight, when other senses are not blocked by some means or another, can it really be called pure darkness?
Sensory deprivation chambers. Let's think about that for a moment. Because it may be absolute darkness, and it may be absolute silence, but there is still the other 3 senses. And if you could cut those off and truly have none of the 5 natural senses to rely upon, does this mean that all experience would stop?
Would our mind just turn inward then? Would we begin to live in the world of dreams? Imagination? Starved for these five senses, would our brains find other senses, so long ignored and overridden by the 5 'easy' ones that they have been forgotten, stagnated, become atrophied...would those begin to make themselves apparent again? Would they 'wake up' from their long slumber? Or have they simply been unappreciated as true senses, continuing always to provide their input to our brains as 'intuition' and 'gut feelings'?
Is Love one of those senses?
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