this guy

As children, are we afraid of the dark because we think there is a monster in the closet, or do we think there is a monster in the closet because we are afraid of the dark?

This sort of rationalization makes sense if the base of our fear of the dark is instinctual. We can rationalize this instinct by explaining that it's not that we are afraid of the dark, but that we fear what my be lurking in the dark but this assumes that our fear of what lurks in the dark comes before the fear of the dark itself (an obvious survival instinct). And this doesn't make sense in practice since many people will fear the dark even in a safe environment where it is perfectly safe to assume and even genuinely know that there is nothing lurking.

So if you have a fear of the dark, and have already convinced yourself that there is nothing lurking in the dark, how then do you rationalize that fear? The fear is of the dark itself at this point, not what you already know isn't lurking. To fear something lurking in your room after shutting the door, checking for hidden lurkers and then turning out the lights is wholly irrational. And yet a fear persists.

So why is it then irrational to understand what darkness is (an absence of photons) in order to overcome that fear of the darkness itself? To understand that 'darkness' has no intrinsically harmful or evil properties, it is nothing more than an absence of light?

That to me seems to be perfectly rational.

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