Light and dark.
What do those words make you think of or feel? Good and evil? Security and menacing? Work and play?
In the Raiders of Light series, one of the main themes is that light—driver of life, source of sight, etc.—in effect is a record of all things it has ever touched. Imagine a river of photons and electrons flowing through space, carrying with them the memory of every other atom they’ve passed through and around, ignorant of time and immune to aging. Granted, this is just a romantic imagining of scientific ideas, but I find the concept really engaging.
Sometimes, science and mathematics encourage fanciful musing. The Transactional interpretation of quantum mechanics (TIQM) proposed by John G. Cramer is an example. While I don’t claim to be a physicist or to deeply understand Cramer’s argument, my interpretation is:
- Fundamentally, light is the result of photons passing between two electrons (the “sender” emits the photon as light, which the receiver absorbs as energy)
- For two electrons to “transact” a photon, they must first agree (call and response)
- The electrons exist at different “ends of time” (meaning these transactions of light/energy are occurring across all time)
There’s a lot of storytelling fuel in those three bullets. Beginning and end—different from past and present, which are just points along a continuum—are not only connected but calling out to one another, beckoning. Adding to that, light’s journey is happening across all eras of time and in less than an instant.
On a more sentimental level…
Our future selves are waiting for our past selves to arrive. Via light’s journey, our deeds are made visible, our thoughts are preserved, and our memories are carried forward in the darkness. For as long as the light persists.
Are the stories of our lives written by the light or have they always existed in the dark? If the latter, is the light producing a flawed reflection of reality as it passes through?
In the second post on this topic, I’ll be digging into how the theme of darkness plays into Lucas’s tale.