Thread by @then_there_was

I was watching a prison show today about a convict locked up in segregation.

Apparently he had picked up an interesting nickname for himself while in general population.

He had beaten the shit out of a prison inmate—enough to spill a lot of blood.

He then took a bunch of the blood, smeared it on his face, and yelled,"DARK SIDE!"

It was interesting because he didn't seem like a particularly violent person. He talked pretty reasonably as far as inmates ago.

I didn't see him get easily offended.

But his outburst made me think about demons and information.

Demons?

Yep.

Demons.

And information.

A lot of religions have this idea of being taken over by the darkness, evil, or a demon.

Other groups have taken on to believe there are supernatural entities that roam the Universe and occasionally find a way through to our side.

I think the idea of "possession" is an interesting one.

To me, it raises many questions.

What does it mean to be "possessed by a demon?"

Why would so many belief systems have a similar metaphor?

What's the underlying phenomena they're trying to describe?

And I believe there's a rather straightforward answer:

"Demons" are malignant information.

What do I mean by "information"?

Think for a moment about what an organism is.

An organism is a corporal expression of DNA.

And DNA is information.

But it's information that's been compressed and encoded through molecules.

DNA is an instruction manual for how to exist in this world.

It manipulates molecules and assembles them to build useful abilities.

Why?

What is it doing?

Well, in a way, DNA is a carrier for information.

It allows for the expression and survival of information through molecules, proteins.

From a biological perspective, replication and metabolism are mechanisms by which information persists through time against the cold hand of entropy.

But biological manipulation isn't the only way information can survive.

Information can take on many forms.

Unlike most other organisms. humans are particularly susceptible to information.

Why?

I think it's because we make shit up.

And because we distribute cognition amongst each other.

In other words, rather than figure out problems on our own, we watch what other people do.

It's a way of preserving energy and it helps spread knowledge.

The trouble with that sort of mimicry, however, is it becomes pretty easy to spread something that isn't true.

You can have suboptimal information spread throughout a group, and if it's bad enough, it'll wipe the whole group out.

On the other hand, if it's optimal for the survival of the group, it'll persist.

The ideas will be passed down to the next generation, and from an information theory perspective, the information is "preserved" across time.

So you can imagine then, arrangement of information existing out there in the world, waiting to be interpreted by humans.

What sorts of possible informational states will come into existence if you see a red flower next to a yellow flower at 2:34pm?

Maybe an odd misfiring of neurons will give rise to a belief in a spirit known as Tekukanh, the blood god of your local forest.

Blood gods come and go, but let's say this time something different happens.

For whatever reason, "Tekukanh" becomes embedded in the neural structures of your local villages.

It persists through the generations.

And let's say the people believe Tekukanh can possess people from time to time.

And when it possesses a person, they'll go into a murderous rampage

Well, if that persons neurons are arranged and connected in such a way as to represent Tekukanh, it wouldn't be surprising to believe they could go on a murderous rampage.

You can imagine the information taking over their neural structures, modifying protocols and behavioral patterns in such a way as to make the person believe they're free from blame.

After all, it was Tekukanh who made them kill.

That was a hypothetical example, but you can see how it mirrors the evolution of demons in all sorts of cultures and religions.

And I think there's a reason why demons have such a consistent profile:

Like possession.

And atrocity.

I think demons are a metaphor for information that modifies your neural structures in a suboptimal way.

I think it's a metaphor for information because the strategies people come up for resisting manipulation are a bit like cognitive behavioral therapy:

Like the repetition of phrases to "ward off" evil

As it turns out, repeating words is a great way to rewire your perceptions.

There's also something else happening with demons that's unlike cognitive behavioral therapy: Constant vigilance.

It seems like many religions emphasize that the battle is never over—that "demons" or malignant information will constantly try to find a way in.

And that makes sense.

Given all the possible permutations of information can form in your head, a few of them are bound to be suboptimal.

And they'll come from random stimuli—informational states coming in and out of existence as neurons fire and misfire.

It seems like religions have layered a sort of virus protection program on top of our natural instincts....against information that modifies behavior in a suboptimal way.

Or "demons" as I like to call them.

Thinking back to the prisoner that put the blood of his victim on his face and called himself, "Dark Side", I can't help but wonder what informational states his neurons were representing.

And where it originally came from.

I can imagine our prisoner having watched a few movies of people putting blood on their face.

And the phrase "dark side" is an old, old idea.

But where did they come from?

If you go back far enough, where did those two ideas come from?

Perhaps 2 million years ago, a mammal first conceptualized "darkness" as the place where no viable information exists.

And maybe that representation of darkness eventually found expression in our amygdala.

And perhaps it was such a useful idea, it's been with us ever since.