Q&A: The Sense of Absence
The Sense of Absence
Question
Rabbi, what is the meaning of the dispute over whether darkness is an absence or a reality? It seems to me like an ill-defined dispute.
In other words, what are the two sides’ lines of reasoning? Clearly, the Holy One, blessed be He, created the light; He programmed it so that if it is not there, there will be darkness, no? Meaning, either way, it’s some kind of creation.
I didn’t understand the two sides. Where can one look into this?
Answer
I also think this is not a very interesting question, but one can define two sides here. In our reality, it is clear that darkness is the absence of light. But one can still discuss whether a state without light is a vacuum, or whether it too is something that was created. By way of analogy: a blind person does not see darkness or a black screen in front of his eyes. He sees nothing at all. That means that darkness too is something, and not a total absence.
However, all the terminology of darkness and light consists of terms taken from our world of perception and not from reality itself, so it is difficult to speak here about darkness and light. One should speak about reality when there is no electromagnetic wave: is there nevertheless something there, or not.
Discussion on Answer
Cold and heat relate like 1 and -1?
Heat is ultimately just a measure of motion, so the less there is, the less heat there is. After all, when we go down to the freezing point of -273 Celsius, we wouldn’t say that below that there is a negative relation to heat.
Actually, the example of heat and cold sounds to me דווקא like an absence: there is a minimal heat at the minimum motion, and below that there is simply nothing.
But even when you mix darkness and light, the meaning is that there is a little light, and when you mix heat with cold there is a little heat too; I don’t see a difference.
If you think again, you’ll immediately see the difference. It really doesn’t matter at all what heat measures or what creates it. I’m talking about heat as our sensation, like color does not exist in the world, and heat does not exist in it either. Color and heat and sound are all subjective sensations of ours. And what does absolute zero have to do with it? And finally, have you ever tried mixing a little darkness into light? Lucky you. Maybe try inventing a flashlight that shines darkness. In my opinion, that has Nobel Prize potential.
That was the point: that you can’t mix heat and cold just as you can’t mix light and darkness.
I didn’t understand that you were speaking purely about a particular person’s sensation of heat. That certainly is not a separate creation from the cold that he feels.
You definitely can. I have a source of heat (a heater) and a source of cold (an air conditioner), and the effects of the two cancel each other out. I’m talking about the sensations, not the physical phenomena. But there is no source of darkness that can cancel out a source of light.
"The meaning of the dispute over whether darkness is an absence or a reality":
Once, people didn’t know what needed to be asked in order to clarify things.
They assumed they knew what darkness is, and all that remained was to clarify whether it is an absence or a reality.
They should have asked what darkness is. But they couldn’t answer that.
Maybe one more point. Cold and heat relate to each other like 1 and -1, since if you add a cold liquid to a hot liquid you get a lukewarm liquid. But if you add light to darkness you get light, not something intermediate. That is, the relation between light and darkness is like that between 1 and 0. That hints that darkness is an absence. But of course that is not necessary. It may not be the opposite of light, but it is still possible that there is something in it that is not a vacuum.