It’s funny Paul. Everyone talks about escaping the dopamine economy like it’s some mystical quest, but half the time it’s just remembering you used to have a prefrontal cortex before TikTok leased it out. Dark Value is real though. The richest parts of being human never show up on a dashboard or a progress bar. They show up in curiosity, wonder, and the five quiet minutes when no algorithm is shouting your name.
If we don’t learn to love the dark again, we end up like WALL E’s chair people. Spiritually padded, intellectually horizontal, and wondering why life feels like airplane mode.
Your article makes me think that the "Dark Value" that humans inherently desire is that value in which they create, rather than consume. This value can take many forms: one may sit in front of abstract artwork and contemplate how the artist used a certain medium to convey a deeper meaning, or one may read an article and feel they have an original thought they must espouse...
That said, the essence is that the Dark Value comes from higher-order thinking or "creation" of unique ideas or interpretations. The modern world (social media in particular) compresses this natural human instinct. With a book or conversation, one is almost FORCED to use their higher-order capabilities vs. the cadence of a TikTok or IG Reels pulling you to another 15 second clip.
This consumption flywheel erodes key elements of higher-order thinking like attention, memory, and persistence, which hamstrings us from creating the Dark Value that we so desire. If you have not read a book in a decade, how are you meant to understand Dostoevsky? If you have not looked for motifs in a piece of art, how can you derive the artist's meaning? You don't have the prerequisite skills to harness the Dark Value without effort.
Even those who do not have the willpower or discipline to reject the Dopamine Economy are acutely aware of its consequences-- simply ask an everyday person if they feel fulfilled after a TikTok binge or if they feel satiated after eating a whole pizza. But they do not stop... and will not stop. My cynicism over this whole matter is that people predisposed desire Dark Value will, in large part, find it (although with some effort), while the majority of human animals engorge themselves on content.
I hear you loud and clear. But eventually how are you even defining “dark value”?? I can see and clearly sense “something” is being suppressed because its perpetually profitable for the economy.
Higher order thinking etc… so it’s like through contemplating you get to discover something transcendental? That gives you meaning? Or what.
The emptiness is real and has been always there and in fact it in itself is the gravitational pull that makes these discussions possible.
Most of us will stay sedated and in survival mode.
But question remains there… how are you even defining dark value what do i get from it?
My shot here is that this really connects with God or specifically Allah (Islam) dont want to push on this its just my belief, and it’s just my hypothesis that all roads will lead what has already been established in the Quran. I am not expert. But i always have this deep suspicion.
But again dark value? Is it somehow going to make me feel worthwhile?
Of course there is a discovery process. But where it leads is unknown to the mind perhaps.
So it really doesn’t make sense. This urge to have a “practical key takeaway” lol.
I loved this. And there is a simple way to unearth the dark matter and the unseen in our own lives and psyche: every night we descend into dreams, the anithesis of all that is visible and uni-dimensional. Dreams pull us into our depths and bring meaning that is not reliant on acquisition or on co-opting our attention. The trouble is, the world of the dream has been so de-valued in our culture that many see dreams as nonsense, or no longer have access to their dream lives. Psychedelic journeys like the one you alluded to Paul, are a fast path to opening up this radically intelligent realm. Dreaming can be an ongoing relationship with it, one that values the dark as well as the light. Here's a sampling from my Substack: https://dreamsdemystified.substack.com/p/dreaming-through-darkness-on-melancholy
Thanks Leslie, I agree that dreams have been thrown in the trash-bin in the modern world due to a scientific skepticism about subjective experience. The dreamworld is definitely worth exploring at least to some extent.
A big part is that the internet - like Instagram / tinder / YT overvalues what looks good and attractive at the expense of what you can’t see - depth, ideas, intelligence because it can’t be seen. On MBTI it’s the sensing Vs the intuition. But substack has more depth.
The difference is often just a shift in focus on the outcome you want rather than the immediate cost.
Paul, this is my first exposure to your writing. Very insightful and challenging thoughts.
As I read this, I thought of our wants and needs and the gap between. There is always discussion on keeping the gap some through various means.
It occurred to me, as I read your article that the needs or what we have are the Light Value. But if we realize that Light Value is superimposed on top of Dark Value (no gap), we will find the meaning right there with what we have and from this perspective start to see the vast Dark Value and hopefully enable one to reveal it to others for their benefit too. Just as you are trying to do. With gratitude.
Thanks for sharing Bill. I appreciate that you took the time to really read these two articles. I am a little unclear on some of your points near the end of your comment and I really want to understand. Could you try explaining the point again in another way?
Sure, I will try to rephrase. It's just another perspective that I got from reading your excellent piece. It was similar to brainstorming ideas.
If I followed your thought process or what occurred to me while reading your article was that if these names we use such as truth, the Divine, or Dark Value are reality then Light Value or matter is just a small subset of reality. Dark Value unlike dark matter is reality and every where.
I read your article with the analogy as presenting Dark and Light Value as two separate concepts and a gap between. You discuss how one manages the gap with one's wisdom, to find meaning and purpose, which I agree.
In your article you used dark matter as an analogy for Dark Value, I thought of Dark Value, truth or reality as underlining everything.
For most of our human perspective we need to and live in this Light Value or material world, but if we are able to pause and relax our narrow perspectives and look deeper inside ourselves or as you note, at our meaning or purpose of life, we see what was always there, a life that can be more holistic or meaningful. In other words there is no gap, reality, Dark Value was always present. The meaning, the Divine, the Dark Value is there just waiting for us to see, accept and enjoy it.
I hope this explanation helps you understand what I was thinking. We may be saying the same thing two different ways or I didn't fully comprehend your piece. Thanks again for your articles.
It was a great read and it really made me want to explore the dark value. Though, it would have been great if you had mentioned some practical ways to escape the dopamine chasing or mentioned some particular areas to explore
So interesting to even compare this to the classic trope of good vs evil within the arts. On one side there is the good that has the ability to help often good looking and is what individuals seek to be themselves. On the other there's the dark side although it might be perceived as just evil but the deeper you dig and question why it is they turned out that way you discover what values in an individual should be looked at most. As a follow up I find it particularly interesting that in fiction the villains are often the most complex to look at and interesting due to their journey through life that constantly shifts.
These are just some thoughts I had after reading this piece, really enjoyed your perspective on the dopamine dependency that society is trying to impose on us.
I resonate with this and I live the similarity you highlighted (better highdarkened) between the real, intangible, values we have in life with the dark matter in space. It's undeniable that we tend to focus our attention more on what's visible and easy than on what's intangible and articulated. The strong man, the beautiful car, are good examples of what material things really are: appearances. And you are right saying that a lot of such material things are appealing due to some ancestral, innate, instincts that we bring ourselves with since birth. That's what makes me think about instinct, thought and judgement. Judgement and thinking is the only real value we can control and use to make better choices, that then translate to a better and more meaningful life. Satisfying our instincts for the sake of feeling good and surviving is just as living as animals, nothing more. At this point, it doesn't matter if one lives in a cage or not, the result is unique: destroying the wonderful and stunning potential that every human being owns, intrinsically, waiting for a miracle (I don't have other words to describe it nowadays) to bloom.
I love this idea “Judgement and thinking is the only real value we can control and use to make better choices, that then translate to a better and more meaningful life”. This really resonated with me.
Very good! I enjoyed your article very much. You may like Stephen Davis, Hacking the Hologram. He uses the hologram analogy to explain life, the hologram being “The Field” in physics, or in this case, the dark matter from which everything originates.
The Dark Value analogy was very clever. It is reminiscent of Iain McGilchrist’s hemisphere hypothesis. If you haven’t read The Master and His Emissary, you really should.
The Dark Value idea hits hard because it exposes what the modern attention economy has quietly stolen from us. Dopamine isn’t just a neurotransmitter anymore—it’s a commercial product. Entire industries are built on keeping us overstimulated, distracted, and incapable of engaging with anything that doesn’t deliver an immediate hit.
Your WALL‑E comparison isn’t hyperbole; it’s a forecast. We’re only a generation away from that outcome if we keep optimising our lives around micro‑rewards instead of meaningful effort.
What makes Dark Value so confronting is that it demands the one thing the Dopamine Economy has systematically eroded: the ability to sit with difficulty, ambiguity, and slow‑burn payoff. Sustained attention used to be a basic human skill. Now it’s almost a countercultural act.
Your idea actually makes me think of John Vervaeke when he quotes Erich Fromm on the having vs. being mode.
When you talk about how, especially in the U.S., we only value what we can perceive, I see that as being stuck in the “having” mode:
I have to have something.
I even have to see something in order to value it.
But being mode is different. It’s about being someone of character, of virtue. Those are abstract qualities(not an exhaustive list!). I think they live in that “dark matter” space you describe: real, shaping everything, but hard to see directly.
Secondly, I believe our minds and bodies are inherently lazy. We have been programmed from an evolutionary standpoint to conserve energy by any means necessary, especially when there is a reward deficiency. So given our natural tendency to lean towards whatever gives us the highest reward for the lowest energy exertion, the light value systems / consumerism / capitalism work wonders on us, and we forget or ignore the dark value because why bother with hard thing when easy thing exist!
This is a strong and generous piece. You articulate the flattening effect of attention capture with real care, and the distinction you draw between immediately legible value and harder-to-access value is important and timely. The metaphor work does real lifting, especially in naming what gets lost when stimulation becomes the primary proxy for meaning.
One question I’m left with: how do you distinguish depth from intensity in the wake of an altered state? In other words, what constraints help separate durable value from amplified salience over time?
I ask because the diagnosis feels right, and the intuition is sharp — the remaining challenge seems less about seeing into the dark, and more about how we test what we bring back from it.
It’s funny Paul. Everyone talks about escaping the dopamine economy like it’s some mystical quest, but half the time it’s just remembering you used to have a prefrontal cortex before TikTok leased it out. Dark Value is real though. The richest parts of being human never show up on a dashboard or a progress bar. They show up in curiosity, wonder, and the five quiet minutes when no algorithm is shouting your name.
If we don’t learn to love the dark again, we end up like WALL E’s chair people. Spiritually padded, intellectually horizontal, and wondering why life feels like airplane mode.
“Airplane mode”. This is really a great analogy to a spoon-fed world!
Your article makes me think that the "Dark Value" that humans inherently desire is that value in which they create, rather than consume. This value can take many forms: one may sit in front of abstract artwork and contemplate how the artist used a certain medium to convey a deeper meaning, or one may read an article and feel they have an original thought they must espouse...
That said, the essence is that the Dark Value comes from higher-order thinking or "creation" of unique ideas or interpretations. The modern world (social media in particular) compresses this natural human instinct. With a book or conversation, one is almost FORCED to use their higher-order capabilities vs. the cadence of a TikTok or IG Reels pulling you to another 15 second clip.
This consumption flywheel erodes key elements of higher-order thinking like attention, memory, and persistence, which hamstrings us from creating the Dark Value that we so desire. If you have not read a book in a decade, how are you meant to understand Dostoevsky? If you have not looked for motifs in a piece of art, how can you derive the artist's meaning? You don't have the prerequisite skills to harness the Dark Value without effort.
Even those who do not have the willpower or discipline to reject the Dopamine Economy are acutely aware of its consequences-- simply ask an everyday person if they feel fulfilled after a TikTok binge or if they feel satiated after eating a whole pizza. But they do not stop... and will not stop. My cynicism over this whole matter is that people predisposed desire Dark Value will, in large part, find it (although with some effort), while the majority of human animals engorge themselves on content.
This basically summarized the main point of my article. Spot on.
I hear you loud and clear. But eventually how are you even defining “dark value”?? I can see and clearly sense “something” is being suppressed because its perpetually profitable for the economy.
Higher order thinking etc… so it’s like through contemplating you get to discover something transcendental? That gives you meaning? Or what.
The emptiness is real and has been always there and in fact it in itself is the gravitational pull that makes these discussions possible.
Most of us will stay sedated and in survival mode.
But question remains there… how are you even defining dark value what do i get from it?
My shot here is that this really connects with God or specifically Allah (Islam) dont want to push on this its just my belief, and it’s just my hypothesis that all roads will lead what has already been established in the Quran. I am not expert. But i always have this deep suspicion.
But again dark value? Is it somehow going to make me feel worthwhile?
Of course there is a discovery process. But where it leads is unknown to the mind perhaps.
So it really doesn’t make sense. This urge to have a “practical key takeaway” lol.
I loved this. And there is a simple way to unearth the dark matter and the unseen in our own lives and psyche: every night we descend into dreams, the anithesis of all that is visible and uni-dimensional. Dreams pull us into our depths and bring meaning that is not reliant on acquisition or on co-opting our attention. The trouble is, the world of the dream has been so de-valued in our culture that many see dreams as nonsense, or no longer have access to their dream lives. Psychedelic journeys like the one you alluded to Paul, are a fast path to opening up this radically intelligent realm. Dreaming can be an ongoing relationship with it, one that values the dark as well as the light. Here's a sampling from my Substack: https://dreamsdemystified.substack.com/p/dreaming-through-darkness-on-melancholy
Thanks Leslie, I agree that dreams have been thrown in the trash-bin in the modern world due to a scientific skepticism about subjective experience. The dreamworld is definitely worth exploring at least to some extent.
A big part is that the internet - like Instagram / tinder / YT overvalues what looks good and attractive at the expense of what you can’t see - depth, ideas, intelligence because it can’t be seen. On MBTI it’s the sensing Vs the intuition. But substack has more depth.
The difference is often just a shift in focus on the outcome you want rather than the immediate cost.
I didn't know sensing and intuition in MBTI has sth relatabale to light and dark value here. I will read more about this. Thank you
Btw I am an INFJ
Paul, this is my first exposure to your writing. Very insightful and challenging thoughts.
As I read this, I thought of our wants and needs and the gap between. There is always discussion on keeping the gap some through various means.
It occurred to me, as I read your article that the needs or what we have are the Light Value. But if we realize that Light Value is superimposed on top of Dark Value (no gap), we will find the meaning right there with what we have and from this perspective start to see the vast Dark Value and hopefully enable one to reveal it to others for their benefit too. Just as you are trying to do. With gratitude.
Thanks for sharing Bill. I appreciate that you took the time to really read these two articles. I am a little unclear on some of your points near the end of your comment and I really want to understand. Could you try explaining the point again in another way?
Hi Paul.
Sure, I will try to rephrase. It's just another perspective that I got from reading your excellent piece. It was similar to brainstorming ideas.
If I followed your thought process or what occurred to me while reading your article was that if these names we use such as truth, the Divine, or Dark Value are reality then Light Value or matter is just a small subset of reality. Dark Value unlike dark matter is reality and every where.
I read your article with the analogy as presenting Dark and Light Value as two separate concepts and a gap between. You discuss how one manages the gap with one's wisdom, to find meaning and purpose, which I agree.
In your article you used dark matter as an analogy for Dark Value, I thought of Dark Value, truth or reality as underlining everything.
For most of our human perspective we need to and live in this Light Value or material world, but if we are able to pause and relax our narrow perspectives and look deeper inside ourselves or as you note, at our meaning or purpose of life, we see what was always there, a life that can be more holistic or meaningful. In other words there is no gap, reality, Dark Value was always present. The meaning, the Divine, the Dark Value is there just waiting for us to see, accept and enjoy it.
I hope this explanation helps you understand what I was thinking. We may be saying the same thing two different ways or I didn't fully comprehend your piece. Thanks again for your articles.
It was a great read!
Thanks for reading my work! 🙏
It was a great read and it really made me want to explore the dark value. Though, it would have been great if you had mentioned some practical ways to escape the dopamine chasing or mentioned some particular areas to explore
This is a good point Saad. Long story short I am building some ways out of this here ln substack.
This is so precious, thank you
Thanks Kenzy
So interesting to even compare this to the classic trope of good vs evil within the arts. On one side there is the good that has the ability to help often good looking and is what individuals seek to be themselves. On the other there's the dark side although it might be perceived as just evil but the deeper you dig and question why it is they turned out that way you discover what values in an individual should be looked at most. As a follow up I find it particularly interesting that in fiction the villains are often the most complex to look at and interesting due to their journey through life that constantly shifts.
These are just some thoughts I had after reading this piece, really enjoyed your perspective on the dopamine dependency that society is trying to impose on us.
Thanks for sharing this and reading my work. 🙏
I hear people talk about “negativity bias”, which I think provides some scientific backing for your thoughts here.
I resonate with this and I live the similarity you highlighted (better highdarkened) between the real, intangible, values we have in life with the dark matter in space. It's undeniable that we tend to focus our attention more on what's visible and easy than on what's intangible and articulated. The strong man, the beautiful car, are good examples of what material things really are: appearances. And you are right saying that a lot of such material things are appealing due to some ancestral, innate, instincts that we bring ourselves with since birth. That's what makes me think about instinct, thought and judgement. Judgement and thinking is the only real value we can control and use to make better choices, that then translate to a better and more meaningful life. Satisfying our instincts for the sake of feeling good and surviving is just as living as animals, nothing more. At this point, it doesn't matter if one lives in a cage or not, the result is unique: destroying the wonderful and stunning potential that every human being owns, intrinsically, waiting for a miracle (I don't have other words to describe it nowadays) to bloom.
I love this idea “Judgement and thinking is the only real value we can control and use to make better choices, that then translate to a better and more meaningful life”. This really resonated with me.
Very good! I enjoyed your article very much. You may like Stephen Davis, Hacking the Hologram. He uses the hologram analogy to explain life, the hologram being “The Field” in physics, or in this case, the dark matter from which everything originates.
Thank you for your work and effort!
Thanks Terry!
The Dark Value analogy was very clever. It is reminiscent of Iain McGilchrist’s hemisphere hypothesis. If you haven’t read The Master and His Emissary, you really should.
Thanks Jacob. I will check this out!
The Dark Value idea hits hard because it exposes what the modern attention economy has quietly stolen from us. Dopamine isn’t just a neurotransmitter anymore—it’s a commercial product. Entire industries are built on keeping us overstimulated, distracted, and incapable of engaging with anything that doesn’t deliver an immediate hit.
Your WALL‑E comparison isn’t hyperbole; it’s a forecast. We’re only a generation away from that outcome if we keep optimising our lives around micro‑rewards instead of meaningful effort.
What makes Dark Value so confronting is that it demands the one thing the Dopamine Economy has systematically eroded: the ability to sit with difficulty, ambiguity, and slow‑burn payoff. Sustained attention used to be a basic human skill. Now it’s almost a countercultural act.
Your idea actually makes me think of John Vervaeke when he quotes Erich Fromm on the having vs. being mode.
When you talk about how, especially in the U.S., we only value what we can perceive, I see that as being stuck in the “having” mode:
I have to have something.
I even have to see something in order to value it.
But being mode is different. It’s about being someone of character, of virtue. Those are abstract qualities(not an exhaustive list!). I think they live in that “dark matter” space you describe: real, shaping everything, but hard to see directly.
This is what I have seen as the Be-Do-Have model. People who over-emphasize the Light Value, as mentioned in this article, have that model reversed.
Firstly, great read!
Secondly, I believe our minds and bodies are inherently lazy. We have been programmed from an evolutionary standpoint to conserve energy by any means necessary, especially when there is a reward deficiency. So given our natural tendency to lean towards whatever gives us the highest reward for the lowest energy exertion, the light value systems / consumerism / capitalism work wonders on us, and we forget or ignore the dark value because why bother with hard thing when easy thing exist!
This is a strong and generous piece. You articulate the flattening effect of attention capture with real care, and the distinction you draw between immediately legible value and harder-to-access value is important and timely. The metaphor work does real lifting, especially in naming what gets lost when stimulation becomes the primary proxy for meaning.
One question I’m left with: how do you distinguish depth from intensity in the wake of an altered state? In other words, what constraints help separate durable value from amplified salience over time?
I ask because the diagnosis feels right, and the intuition is sharp — the remaining challenge seems less about seeing into the dark, and more about how we test what we bring back from it.