What is this?
In many ways, your guess is as good as mine.
I’m a deeply curious person, and I find a lot of things interesting. I also have a vague sense that I should be doing more productive things with my time. So, as people do these days, I started a Substack.
I’m interested in modern science, ancient philosophy, and the synergies between the two. I don’t think we can separate these things from the dirty world of politics either, perhaps even more so as we languish in the depths of the Culture War. The right answers are out there, if only we had the wisdom, rationality, and humility to find them. This newsletter is my minuscule contribution to that cause.
My aim here is perhaps best summarised as the creation of Dust — the mysterious particles involved in consciousness, which are central to the plot of Philip Pullman’s excellent His Dark Materials trilogy.1
For those unfamiliar with the original source, Dust is perhaps most succinctly described by the angel Balthamos:
Dust is only a name for what happens when matter begins to understand itself. Matter loves matter. It seeks to know more about itself, and Dust is formed.
— The Amber Spyglass, ch. 2
Now, I know this is a work of fiction. I don’t think Dust is a thing any more than talking animal dæmons are. But I think it represents something that is at least very thing-like. It represents that abstract property of consciousness that makes it worth being conscious at all. It is rationality, respect and empathy; it is the source of wisdom, knowledge and joy, and we create it ourselves by understanding the world around us and the people in it.
And I think we can characterise the very real problems facing the world today — tides of misinformation, the Culture War, the so-called Meaning Crisis — as a loss of Dust, just as in the original text:
Dust came into being when living things became conscious of themselves; but it needed some feedback system to reinforce it and make it safe […]. Without something like that, it would all vanish. Thought, imagination, feeling, would all wither and blow away, leaving nothing but a brutish automatism; and that brief period when life was conscious of itself would flicker out like a candle in every one of the billions of worlds where it had burned brightly.
— The Amber Spyglass, ch. 34
So what do we do about this?
The answer comes in the last chapter of the trilogy’s final book — which is, as a whole, one of the most beautiful and heartbreaking pieces of literature produced in the English language. In order to produce that feedback mechanism, producing and safeguarding Dust…
We have to be all those difficult things like cheerful and kind and curious and patient, and we’ve got to study and think and work hard, all of us, in all our different worlds, and then we’ll build The Republic of Heaven.
— The Amber Spyglass, ch. 38
That is my mission here.
Who are you?
I’m Daniel Lawman. Except I’m not really. That’s a lazy pseudonym borne of the reality that my actual real-life job might not be entirely happy with me speaking so openly here. The hope is that by telling this one smallish lie, I’ll feel more able to write honestly about everything else.
In real life I’m a data scientist with a PhD in one of the natural sciences. I live somewhere in the United Kingdom, and I try to be a good Bayesian. I’m sure I’ll drop other breadcrumbs — advertently or otherwise — over time. Maybe tracking me down can be a fun task for you, though I’m sure you’ll find the truth very disappointing.2
In the meantime, feel free to address me however you like.
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Credits
That mountain picture I use everywhere is by Inés Álvares Fzes on Unsplash.
To find out more about the company that provides the tech for this newsletter, visit Substack.com.
This isn’t a His Dark Materials blog, honest! It’s just a nice metaphor for what I’m trying to do here, so I do hope you’ll indulge me.
Please don’t do this.
If I ever offer paid subscriptions, I expect I’ll see them as a way for you to support what I’m doing here and guilt me into doing it as consistently as possible, not as a paywall — though I’d like to offer something as a small incentive to paid subscribers, like an extra mini-post every so often or something. I’m still thinking about it. In the meantime, there’s no way to give me your money so please don’t try.
