Steven Wright, Doctor Comoediae*, once asked “What is the speed of dark?”

My repeat of his question has spurred debate in the Turning Stone Coffee and Policy Committee, and this morning’s meeting was abnormally contentious and unproductive.**

What IS dark? We are frequently informed of Dark Matter and how it makes up most of the known (imagine our hubris about the word “known”) cosmos/universe/space/out there.

When entering a “dark” room we turn on a light and see things. When we turn off the light we say “There is no light. I cannot see anything.” But aren’t we really seeing “dark” or Dark Matter?

It disconcerting to anyone who loves privacy that “dark” may not mean “empty”. It’s easy to imagine that dark room being empty if you’ve never been in it. But after visiting with the light on, and then turning the light off, what is in the room when you close the door? Is it or could it ever be a Schrodinger’s Cat’s situation?

Of course, it can’t be. Can it? You know what is in the room, right? You don’t need to look a second time, or repeated times like someone with OCD.

But much like Quantum Mechanics defies the Natural Laws of Physics, what if Dark Matter, Darkness, and all things unlit wander about the laws the same way?

Without any prodding or research, I see this vision of acres and acres, miles and miles, light years and light years ad infintum***, of nothing but dark something. Nothing as far as any eye can see with no borders, no end, no beginning, no prequel or sequel. Black, black, nothing everywhere.

Why? For what? And more importantly, why would we care?

Of note, every time this devil’s advocate argues the existence of God**** with a Believer, the Believer points to the Theory Of Grand Design as proof there must be a God. They have a point. The eyeball, for example, is a feat of engineering not even AI (Si?) could match in Ai’s wildest algorithmic dreams. Ai can’t make human parts.

My counter claim, always met with silence: Where did God come from?

It’s hard to wrap a normal brain around the concept of what came before the Theoretical Big Bang but whatever it may have been was dark by all accounts. Then, something happened. A committee member looking for a cheap laugh this morning suggested a large fart. As good a guess as any and, as with other guesses, completely impossible to refute.

My lifetime impression of the Big Bang was it blew the cosmos up like a big blast,  expanding freely and exponentially with no restraint, nothing to hold it back but it’s loss of inertia and force. And it will slowly fade and begin to fall back in many, many years. It created something where there was nothing. Or did it “light up something”?

But now, I wonder if it is a balloon and is pushing something out of the way, forcing a path to expansion that something dark, something completely unknown is unable to stop. For now. When The Big Balloon runs out of energy The Dark will push back and force the balloon’s collapse. Imagine a curtain opening to sunlight and then closing. There might be a whole roomful of furniture in that darkness we will never get to see. Maybe it’s heaven. Maybe hell. Maybe dark, sinister thoughts.

So. Does darkness equal nothing? Does nothing equal darkness? Is being unable to see or comprehend something mean it doesn’t exist? And if we do see it once, will we be able to see it, again?

Or will we someday learn existence is the Ultimate Russian Nesting Doll?

Time for sleep, perchance to dream.

*It’s not a misspelled word, it’s Latin.

**Except for a long whorehouse joke from a usually reticent member.

***Latin. Again.

****With a capital G only so no one is offended.