Saga The Dark Side - Define it

Well, I pretty much follow Plagueis' view (and indeed the view of many Sith) in that I don't think there is an actual 'will of the Force.' I think there might be an aspect of the collective will of life, but of course that's a very disparate thing as every living being's will is going to be radically different from one another, so what you end up with is a very jumbled mess of psychological residue which no one should attempt to 'follow.' However, I think Jedi get the illusion there is some kind of will because Force users borrow the Force for computing space and power, in other words they unconsciously extend their consciousness (a pattern of information and activity, nothing more IMO) beyond the neuron-based computational substrate of their brains, and into the Force (which Force users perceive as one's Force signature, or 'aura').

What does this mean for the Force user? Well, it means they are sort of outsourcing an awful lot of advanced, predictive computation, and, as the Force is non-local, this unconscious extension of their minds is simultaneously attuned with pretty much everything else that is happening, everywhere... and that's why we get things like Qui-Gon ending up on Tatooine and finding the most powerful Force sensitive and putting all of his trust in Anakin winning the pod race, etc. And that's why 'following the will of the Force,' or rather following the fill of their unconscious which has done an awful lot of computation on unfathomable amounts of data collected from the Force, seems to work pretty much all of the time, until you reach the blind spots that come with dealing with another Force user who are attuned to the Force just as much as you - and then the Force is working 'against you' as much as it was 'helping you,' and you end up with Qui-Gon dying on the end of Maul's saberstaff.

But sapient beings are as much a part of the natural order of things as any other organism. Nor is nature as smooth going as many seem to think of it as; evolution by natural selection, for instance, is the single messiest, most inefficient, destructive and chaotic optimisation process anyone could dream up. What would be an example of nature making the call, and what would be an example of us making the call instead? What does it even mean for nature to make the call, given that nature does not have agency? How do sapient beings have any role beyond one we appoint ourselves? Even evolution has not crafted any role for us - individual organisms are just giant lumbering robots forged by mindless, mechanistic replicators, and thus even saying the role of biological organisms, sapient or otherwise, is to reproduce is a great misconception.

 

Yeah I think I understand... basically just a psychological network of things... but then again this doesn't seem to correlate with the premise of destiny...

I didn't say it was a 'smooth' system, merely that it works in the long run to maintain itself without any really significant setbacks... the only truly big 'blip' in the system in extinction events and even they provide for new diversity in life...

Well for instances an animal going extinct because of a shift in the ecosystem, and for instance us wiping out an animal species. Of course you could argue this is no different than any other extinction event, to which I would say that the universe we are discussing does have a sort of moral absolutes (albeit basic and scientifically based ones) which means that the sapient has some sort of moral responsibility (yes, this may be applied ourselves but it does have basis as an evolutionary response). Otherwise we would simply destroy the ecosystem, and there are evolutionary systems to prevent this... systems which, because of our intelligence, can be overrun unless reaffirmed... otherwise its just nihilism...

 

Well, destiny in the sense of fatalism, sure; all events that will happen, will happen, if that makes any sense. No free will, if that concept is even a meaningful one.

But anything beyond that? Who's to say there is such? Precognition - and prophecy, which is really nothing more than very long-term precognition - can be attributable to sufficiently accurate prediction, rather than a glimpse of destiny provided by the Force.

But it doesn't work so. The vast majority of the time, in the vast majority of cases, there are huge setbacks very early in the process, if the process even gets off the ground. There's a massive selection bias here; out of undoubtedly billions of cases, there is one example in which the 'only' setbacks were multiple extinction events that very nearly wiped out all life, and that's an insanely lucky planet.

And because of course we find ourselves living on this planet rather than a planet where there were more setbacks (because we would not exist on the latter planets), we are blinded by this observation bias and are deceived by the illusion of a self-maintaining system.

Well yes, I'd say there's no difference here. The current Holocene extinction we are causing is not the first time a new variety of life has caused a vast extinction; cyanobacteria photosynthesising for the first time wiped out nearly everything else, and essentially turned the globe into a giant snowball.

And how does the universe have any sort of moral absolutes? Morality isn't encoded in the laws of nature, and the morality we constructed has a basis as an evolutionary response only in the sense it is appropriate for our species in this particular time, and for the same reason, what we call immorality has been equally selected for, as defecting in evolutionary game theory terms - in other words, being selfish - does often pay off too. If monitor lizards were sapient, then their complex ethical constructs would no doubt be centred around murdering as many of one's own young as possible, and interestingly enough they'd perceive us as the monsters, for the fact that we don't.

 

We know from Lucas that there is free will and destiny... at least in his universe...

Fair point, I'll grant you this... but it is a natural system non-the-less which, in the broadest sense, is still self-maintaining...

I'm simply going to say that I don't believe in Nihilism, simply because our evolutionary need to survive means that we must apply the notion that we must preserve the natural order... otherwise our species would perish...

 

The darkside, though, can surely only be psychological. By which I mean the idea of a dichotomy between aspects of nature is exactly that, an idea. It is the imposition of intellect upon the universe within which that intellect exists. 'Death' and 'entropy', 'life' and 'growth' are simply labels given to events perceived as being just that (events), whereas they are simply a part of a continuum of process (so that the death of one entity is in fact an aspect of life and sustenance for (a)nother(s), where entropy is releasing energy for growth in another aspect)

The question 'what is the darkside' is no more answerable than 'what is the universe', except on a pyschological level - ie, what is meant by the darkside.

Also...I always love to see the argument that selfishness is simply a reversion to out 'natural' state; as if compassion and empathy are (must be) in some way unnatural. How has that come about? How have we evolved in the natural universe such that we have obtained an unnatural state?

 

But I will simply say that free will itself is, in the logical positivist or logical empiricist sense, literally meaningless, so it's not something Lucas can say exists or not, in his universe or not. It's akin to him saying "gjgjjrrkk" exists in his universe - it's hardly relevant in terms of discussion.

Adding the word 'evolutionary' to 'need to survive' doesn't really mean anything, to be frank. Evolution does not care for the natural order, nor does it optimise in any way. There isn't any inherent purpose, to survive, or to preserve, or otherwise; evolution is a blind, dumb force. It doesn't have a 'long view' in the sense of instilling notions that will help preserve the natural order, as evolution does not occur on the level of species, groups or even individual organisms - all evolution occurs on the level of the replicators, i.e. genes. Only what makes genes more likely to survive or perish, not the species, counts for anything in evolutionary terms.

 

....except that perhaps not everyone is arguing in a 'logical positivist' or 'logical empiricist' context. Relevance in terms of discussion cannot, surely, be imposed by the philosophical conceptions one individual brings to the discussion.

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Also...I always love to see the argument that selfishness is simply a reversion to our 'natural' state; as if compassion and empathy are (must be) in some way unnatural. How has that come about? How have we evolved in the natural universe such that we have obtained an unnatural state? - which I only know because it was quoted by two other posters, my memory isn't that great Just to point out also that TheAvengerButton seems to have had a similar, perhaps more alarming, occurrence on the​

OT Force vs. PT Prophecy thread.​

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Mod note: The second paragraph of this post by only one kenobi went missing in action due to some technical issue. I have edited the paragraph back in for future reference. Subsequent posts quote the incomplete response. Thanks.​

 

Indeed. Selfishness, compassion, empathy... Language, music, computers... How are any of these less or more natural than the other? The very concept of a 'natural state' to which we could revert to is confusing to me. How can an organism, which is of nature, evolve - a process of nature - into an unnatural state? That seems nonsensical to me.

 

This isn't context specific, nor much to do with the philosophical conceptions of one individual.

Merely the observation that the term 'free will' describes a 'floating' concept, in the sense that it is attached to and defined in relation to many other abstract concepts, but it isn't empirically 'grounded' - it is neither falsifiable nor verifiable. I could point to a fatalist reality in which everything, including one's decisions and thoughts, are entirely set in stone from the beginning, and there'd be no empirically observable difference between agents within this reality and an agent that could be described in a supposedly non-fatalist (if such a thing is possible) reality as having free will.

 

But surely all that you've pointed out is that one conception (let us call it fatalism) is empirically, observably no different to another conception (let us call it contingent agency). So, while you argue that 'contingent agency' only is not empirically grounded, that is also true of 'fatalism' - because there is no difference; neither can be verified or falsified.

What I would say is that, while there can indeed be an intellectual conception of fatalism I don't think there can really be any truly held belief in it; by which I mean to say that, if truly you believed in fatalsim then why wou;d you bother to search for the right words to express your opinion on that? There is also the uncomfortable corollary of that conception which is; that each discussion that occurs, including this one, must have existed in some notional sense within the 'beginning' of the universe - also that the words we write would actually have no meaning, for a meaning would require that the recipient of those meanings is effected in some way by them, which would require that the recipient take a meaning from the coded inscription of writing - but there is (in a logical positivist or logical empirical sense) not any observable notion of meaning.

 

Before Vergere was "Sithified" I think she said it best, in Destiny's Way:

Destiny's Way, p182-184
"It was my observation that on your last visit, you were angry with me. You believed that I had deliberately harmed your apprentice - which was accurate - though your anger was moderated somewhat when I explained my motivations."
"That's true," Luke admitted.
"Now, my question is, was that anger dark? Was it an evil passion that possessed you, such that the dark side might have taken you as a consequence?"
Luke chose his thoughts carefully. "It could have been. If I had used that anger to strike out at you, or harm you, particularly through the Force, then it would have been a dark passion."
"Young Master, it is my contention that the anger you experienced was natural and useful. I caused deliberate harm - pain and anguish and suffering, over a period of weeks - to a young man for whom you had accepted responsibility and for whom you felt a measure of love. Naturally you felt anger. Naturally you wanted to break my thin little neck. It is absolutely natural, when you discover that a person has inflicted deliberate pain on a helpless victim, to feel angry for that person. It is equally as natural an emotion as to feel compassion for the victim."
Vergere fell silent, and Luke let the silence build.
After a moment, Vergere bobbed her head. "Very well, young Master. You are correct when you said that if you had entered my cell and struck out at me through the Force, that such an action would have been dark. But you didn't. Instead your anger prompted you to speak to me and find out the reasons for my actions. To that extent, your anger was not only natural but useful. It led to understanding on both our parts."
She paused. "I'm about to ask you a rhetorical question. You need not answer."
"Thank you for the warning."
"My rhetorical question is: why wasn't your anger dark? And my answer is: because you understood it. You understood the cause of the emotion, and therefore it did not seize power over you."
Luke thought for a moment. "It is your contention, then," he said, "that to understand an emotion is to prevent its being dark."
"Unreasoning passion is the province of darkness," Vergere said. "But an understood emotion is not unreasoning. That is why the route to mastery is through self-knowledge." Her tilted eyes widened. "It's not possible to suppress all emotion, nor is it desirable. An emotionless person is no more than a machine. But to understand the origin and nature of one's feelings, that is possible."
"When Darth Vader and the Emperor held me prisoner," Luke said, "they kept urging me to surrender to my anger."
"Your anger was a natural response to your captivity, and they wished to make use of it. They wished to fan your anger into a burning rage that would allow the darkness to enter. But anyunreasoning passion would do. When anger becomes rage, fear becomes terror, love becomes obsession, self-esteem becomes vainglory, then a natural and useful emotion becomes an unreasoning compulsion and the darkness is."
"I let the dark side take me," Luke said. "I cut off my father's hand."
"Ahhh." Vergere nodded. "Now I understand much."
"When my rage took control, I felt invincible. I felt complete. I felt free."
Vergere nodded again. "When you are in the grip of an irresistible compulsion, it is then that you feel most like yourself. But in reality it was you who were passive then. You let the feeling control you."

 

Yes but what I mean by that isn't whether or not the dark side is a superfical construct of human interpretation of the universe... but rather is it something that exists only within our minds (as in the 'energy') or is it something which exists outside of our minds. For example is the dark side a description of our psychology or is it something more... So what is meant by the Dark Side... which I thought was obvious but anyway...

No read my earlier post actually. I describe 'empathy', etc, as parts of our instinctual state (which I describe as natural)... what I mean by 'unnatrual' state is something which exists on a distinctly human level... in the same way buildings aren't natural, although technically they are... It is merely a distinction.

Fair point... I meant survival mechanism. So that is why sapients have a need to not disrupt the natural order...

Except we are looking at the universe as an extra party so we can be told whether or not free will exists within this particular universe whether or not it exists in our own...



Anyway what is the Dark Side as described by the Jedi...?

 

I would explain the dark side like this....

Everything is different, but the same... things are more moderner than before... bigger, and yet smaller... it's computers... San Dimas High School football rules!

 

Yup Bill and Ted were the epitome of the Light and Dark side. One had blonde hair and the other black. 'Nuff said.

"Wyld Stallyns" doodlooodlooodlooooo!!!!

 

It's not a belief system. It's a part of the Force, as Lucas has described it. The balance plotline of the PT involves its growth. In AOTC it is said to cloud Jedi perception. The Living Force is two-sided in Lucas' view.

 

I don't see how you explain Darth Vader whilst only seeing the Dark Side as some people being the jerks they simply are. He goes from hugging Obi-Wan to hating him, going to Mace Windu with evidence of Palpatine being Sith Lord to butchering children, trying to save Padme to choking her, all in one day. How blind is the Jedi Council if that's just what Anakin can be like?

 

Or Dooku for that matter. Once one of the most respected Jedi Masters, now a warmonger and a murderer. And he doesn't have a "raised as a slave, so already too angry to make a good Jedi" backstory the way Anakin does.

Then of course you've got TCW fallen Jedi characters like Pong Krell and Barriss Offee.

The notion that "the power of the Dark Side can warp a character, turning a good person into a bad one" does have merit, to me.

 

The question is, of course, if there's any inherent meaningfulness or logical coherence in anything at all...

There are no intentions in nature. There isn't any purpose behind anything, other than those we give ourselves. A honest deterministic view of nature wouldn't "disprove" the Jedi view or the Sith view - it would just make those views completely subjective, which they obviously are.

 

In Darth Plagueis Palpatine believes that the dark side has a will, for whatever that's worth. This concept also appears in the Tales of the Jedi Companion.

 

Which darkside of the Force should we explain? The darkside as it can be understood only from the OT? Or one of the myriad conceptions and re-conceptions of whatever the flip the darkside might be today, perhaps, within the conceptual and narrative mess that is the 'saga'?

 

I didn't see the PT try to redefine the dark side. The fanbase, however, is clearly a different story.

 

"You don't the power of the Dark Side. I MUST obey my master." makes me feel OT comes down on the side the Dark Side conciously wanting Vader to stay bad.

 

His Master is, surely, the Emperor - not 'the darkside'

 

The Sith are often referred to as servants of the dark side. According to Tarkin the Sith "have the dark side to answer to".

 

Yep, that's exactly my thinking. Because there is no empirically observable difference, then George Lucas weighing in and saying there is free will in his universe makes, in a very literal way, no difference at all, and thus loses relevance in a discussion about the definition of the dark side.

I do disagree that meaning requires a recipient of those meanings being affected in the sense that the state of reality itself changes from whatever it was inevitably going to be, however, because that is not what affect or change entails. When a scientist states that an oxygen atom changes its state, for instance, he is not saying that this change is any different from what the pre-existing state of reality would have inevitably resulted in, not even in a many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics.

Furthermore, simply because two conceptions entail no different empirical predictions or observations than the other doesn't mean both are of equal weightiness. For example, alchemists believed that phlogiston caused fire - we could oversimply their minds by drawing a little node labeled "phlogiston," and an arrow from this node to their sensory experience of a crackling campfire - but this belief yielded no advance predictions; the link from phlogiston to experience was always configured after the experience, rather than constraining the experience in advance. Should a science textbook include both a section on our current understanding of fire and a section on phlogiston? Well, obviously not, it should only award the former a section, as the latter makes more assumptions and assumes more causes than the minimum necessary to find the cause for fire - it doesn't predict anything empirically different than the former explanation, merely unnecessarily tacks on the concept of "phlogiston." Now, it is the contention of any logical positivist that "phlogiston" thus has no meaning, but that really doesn't make any difference as to the conclusion that adding a section on "phlogiston" to a science textbook adds no value beyond perhaps an interesting footnote on historical ignorance.

Of course we can, but that's not quite what I'm saying. There's a difference between the existence versus non-existence of "flgjgjfjfjdj," and saying that the latter word has no meaning or relevance; sure, Lucas can say "flgjgjfjfjdj" exists in his universe, and I will accept that as canon, but that won't have any bearing on, say, a discussion about the definition of the dark side, since "flgjgjfjfjdj" doesn't describe different information - there are no new predictions or observations about reality made by stating "flgjgjfjfjdj" exists, in the Star Wars universe or otherwise.

True, but there's a great difference in, say, the subjective opinion of a biologist from the University of Corellia that there is a space slug in the Hoth system and that said space slug is a giant gastropod, and the subjecive opinion of a Jedi that one should follow the currents of life. One is empirically grounded, the other is incredibly murky, vague, incoherent, perhaps devoid of any meaning whatsoever. If anyone came up with a definition for the "currents of life" that makes some new empirical predictions about reality, then sure, that's something I could then argue about, but if not... Well then I can't say anything, beyond asking "what do you even mean?"