Is darkness a non-physical property?

Magical Realist

Magical Realist

Valued Senior Member
If it isn't and it's physical, then what's it made of? Can it be measured? Does it occupy space? What is its velocity?

If it is and it's non-physical, how can we perceive it? CAN we see darkness? How can a shadow carry information about its object?

Bonus question: Is a mirror in a totally dark room reflecting the darkness in front of it or is it showing the darkness inside of it?

Follow up question: Is cold a non-physical property?
 
Last edited:
Magical Realist said:
If it isn't and it's physical, then what's it made of? Can it be measured? Does it occupy space? What is its velocity?

If it is and it's non-physical, how can we perceive it? CAN we see darkness? How can a shadow carry information about its object?

Bonus question: Is a mirror in a totally dark room reflecting the darkness in front of it or is it showing the darkness inside of it?

Follow up question: Is cold a non-physical property?
Click to expand...
As Spike Miligan once said, "Who turned on the dark?"
 
Magical Realist said:
If it isn't and it's physical, then what's it made of? Can it be measured? Does it occupy space? What is its velocity?
Click to expand...
Darkness falls fast in the tropics.

Seriously, darkness is the absence of light. I.e. an abstract concept. Philosophers warn us about assigning too much reality to abstractions - they call it reification.
 
Magical Realist said:
Is darkness a non-physical property? [...] Follow up question: Is cold a non-physical property?
Click to expand...

Dark and coldness as featured in physics would putatively get them classified as physical.

Dark [visual system, circadian rhythm contexts] and cold [thermoreception, homeostasis contexts] as featured in biology would perhaps get them categorized as biological.

And dark as the purely subjective experience or private [empty] manifestation itself, and cold as the purely subjective experience or private feeling itself (both made distinct from the applicable physiological connections and processes leading up to them) -- is just whatever discipline would want to claim them in that context. Psychology? Cognitive science? Maybe even consigned wholly to philosophy of mind?
_
 
An interesting quality of darkness is that it is scale invariant. IOW, no matter how big you go, to the darkness between stars, or how small you go, to the darkness between photons, the darkness remains the same. This makes it similar to the vacuum, which is also scale invariant. Or a fractal..

Up or down. Inside or out. Nothing changes about darkness because there is nothing there to change.
 
Last edited:
Magical Realist said:
An interesting quality of darkness is that it is scale invariant. IOW, no matter how big you go, to the darkness between stars, or how small you go, to the darkness between photons, the darkness remains the same. This makes it similar to the vacuum, which is also scale invariant. Or a fractal..

Up or down. Inside or out. Nothing changes about darkness because there is nothing there to change.
Click to expand...
The dark is not a thing, it is an absence of something. We do not consider an absence of other objects or phenomena a thing.
 
Pinball1970 said:
The dark is not a thing, it is an absence of something. We do not consider an absence of other objects or phenomena a thing.
Click to expand...
I would say it is not a physical thing to be sure. But it is an example of something non-physical nonetheless. Too bad science doesn't study non-physical things. It might learn something.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top