Looking Up / The Importance of Sky
A few years ago¹, I attended a philosophy talk at NYU on “The Mind” that focused on the topics of consciousness and visual perception. In attendance was the famed philosopher of mind Ned Block, who presented a bit on his work on perceptual precision, specifically regarding links between vision, attention, and consciousness. What is it like to perceive something? How do our bodily systems of vision (the eyes and the visual cortex of the brain) play a role in our ability to perceive? These were the sorts of questions that were raised then, which tie into a lengthy history of philosophy of mind’s preoccupation with how we come to perceive and understand the world around us.
While the first half of this session was presented by Professor Block, the second half of the session brought in the perspective of a neural scientist², one who approached questions of the mind by directly analyzing the mechanisms of the human brain. While philosophy of mind and neural science do not necessarily oppose one another, they attempt to answer different sorts of questions with different methods. Sometimes they overlap³, like when a philosopher of mind uses evidence about how the human brain works to argue about a specific position on materialism (the belief that there is no immaterial phenomenon like a “mind” or “soul” beyond what physically exists). However, neural scientists generally ask questions about how the neurons in our brain and body interact to produce phenomenon such as memory or enjoyment (a bottom-up approach), while philosophers of mind ask grander questions about the mind such as whether one actually exists or what properties constitute intelligence (a top-down approach). Whereas Professor Block’s talk was more philosophical in nature about perception as a concept, the following speaker — whose name I unfortunately do not remember — focused specifically on how the visual cortex of our brains processes visual information. More concretely, how does sensory information received from our eyes get processed by a specific set of neurons in our brain, and what is the result of this processing of information?
I’ll spare you the nitty-gritty details of both of these talks and how they go into concepts such as qualia and the workings of the V1 area of the brain. The thing that particularly stood out to me from this session, which I still think a lot about to this day, came from something the second speaker centered in much of his talk. At the time, he had been thinking about the importance of the sky and how the visual perception of the sky affects our brains. For him, this question stemmed from a trip to Greece, where he visited the Theatre of Dionysus, a famous ancient theatre in Athens on the hill of the Acropolis. What’s important to note about this theatre, unlike many of the theatres we have today, is that it was outdoors. As he stood there marveling at the architectural achievement of the theatre, he noticed the prevalence of the sky in his view and how from the place of the audience, one saw much more of the sky in their view rather than the actual stage itself. He began to wonder why this was, and what importance it served for the Greeks.
In Western culture, Greek theatre has been held in the absolute highest of regard, with our concepts of tragedy and comedy, costuming, and narrative arcs finding root in the works of Greek playwrights. But for something so deeply praised, studied, and revered, how come the stages were so tremendously small in comparison to the vastness of the sky that could steal the attention of any viewer? While one could dig deeper into a literary or cultural analysis of the role of the sky as space and/or a character of its own in the Greek plays, the speaker that day decided to pose this as a neural science question — does the perception of the sky in view have an effect on our brains, and if so, what is that effect? Does this help us understand why the Greeks might have constructed their theatres with the sky in view as opposed to having closed-roof, indoor theatres? Why is it that the sky seems to captivate us and steal our attention so?
I don’t recall too many of the details of this talk from years ago (especially since my background isn’t in neural science at all), but from some initial studies at the time, it seemed that when people looked up at the sky, there was some quality about it — perhaps in the vastness of it and how our brains have to process that vastness — that actually contributed to the releasing of dopamine, a chemical in our brain that is central to feelings of enjoyment and pleasure. Other neuroscientists have also theorized that looking up into the sky activates the particular systems in our brains that have been specialized for engaging with the upper visual field, the same systems that are also activated during religious experiences, meditation, dreaming, and creative activity. In our own day-to-day language, when things are “looking up”, it’s idiomatic for something being positive, whereas in the inverse, someone “looking down” has connotations of sadness. (Funny enough, I always think about the Futurama episode where Professor Farnsworth’s back gets bent at a right angle by Bender such that he’s always facing the sky and his personality completely changes to one that’s constantly positive and upbeat — to the rest of the cast’s annoyance — but the moment his back is bent back, he regains his bleak view of the world.)
This is a great example of the sort of investigation conducted in neural science, because we’re looking for answers in the processes of our brains to give explanation to things that we take for granted, such as the longstanding belief that looking up into the sky can lift one’s mood, even if slightly. I don’t necessarily know of or think that there are too many studies on whether looking at the sky actually does release additional dopamine in our brains, but it’s sure an interesting thought. At least for the professor who gave a speech that day, he seemed to have a theory that because looking up at the sky activated parts of the brain that are also highly correlated with things like creative activity and religious experiences, this is why Greek plays seemed to invoke such euphoria in its viewers and why to this day views of the vastness of the sky seem to continue to captivate and inspire us. The feelings we have of optimism or joy that we get from looking up at the open sky might actually be tied to real, chemical changes in the brain, and it’s not just a folk saying or a gag from an animated TV show. That’s pretty cool to me.
Around the same time, in September 2016, NYC would begin to see increased construction by its West End around the Hudson Yards area. What was once a relatively empty segment of the skyscraper-dominated Manhattan would quickly be consumed by various development projects centered around the new 34th St-Hudson Yards station on the 7 subway line, which opened the year prior. I remember making my way across 34th St from the A train station to Javits Center for New York Comic Con (NYCC) 2016 and remarking to myself how different the skyline already seemed to look that October, and in that moment, I noticed an emotional difference between this years’ particular walk to Javits and prior years’ walks.
You see, since 2012, I had been attending NYCC annually, and every year, I’d take an A train from Brooklyn up to 34th St-Penn Station and walk westward to Javits Center. The walk itself is roughly three avenues, or half a mile, across (what used to be) a noticeably empty part of Manhattan, by the water, no less. Given NYCC’s occurrence in October, this was always quite the cold and windy trek to the convention center. The one redeeming quality of the walk, however, was that as you travelled westward towards the waters, the architecture of the city with all its skyscrapers would open up, and you would be faced with nothing but the vastness of the open sky. Just as the Greeks were enveloped by the open sky in their hillside theatres, so were you on the walk to the West End.
Regrettably, I don’t have photos of what this walk used to look like before all of the new construction around Hudson Yards went up. I only have memories of the view: behind you, the sprawling concrete jungle with buildings that reach above where your eyes can see, and in front of you, a rare openness, vast and untouched, and a feeling of stepping into a world so endless and freeing. That’s what it felt like to walk across these avenues and have the sky unravel itself for you, unobstructed and all-surrounding once you reached your destination. But somewhere along the way, the developers of the area decided to value capital and profit over the natural beauty of the area, and riddled the streets with new construction that blocked out all but the sun at high noon. I remember returning to the same street in 2018, feeling suffocated by all the towers around me, no blue sky in sight.
I wish I could find before and after photos centered in the middle of 34th Street, looking westward, because it’s an experience that you really have to be there to understand. A lot of the photos of the new Hudson Yards developments are purposefully shot from outside the Yards or from an aerial view for a reason — when you’re actually standing between buildings, you’re pretty much always stuck in the shadows, feeling cramped and suffocated. They might look nice from far away, but when you’re actually there, on the ground, you just lose something that the view of the open sky once gave you.
As much as this is a public grieving for the loss of an infrastructural memory — perhaps one that can be criticized as a resistance to change — this is also a meditation on the importance of the sky in view when developing cities. And it’s not just a matter of how skyscrapers block out light or tunnel wind. If we take it to be true that our brains produce more dopamine when we look up at the sky, then perhaps the blocking of the sky reduces some of the benefits that we get from that dopamine. Dopamine is central to our reward and pleasure systems and low dopamine could be associated with symptoms of depression, such as reduced motivation and enjoyment in things. It’s hard to say how significant this is — if at all — when a city’s sky is completely obstructed by buildings, but it’s definitely an interesting case to consider, even anecdotally. While walking to the Javits Center in 2016, these were the sorts of questions that came to mind, motivated by the implications of the presentation I had just heard a month ago. I wondered if there was any literature in urban planning or architecture spaces that discussed the importance of the sky’s visibility in developing projects such as these at Hudson Yards, but I could not find any. All I had was this feeling of having lost something, looking westward on 34th Street only to find the clutter of construction where I once found escape in the open sky.
One recent thought I had: it can’t be that the sky itself is what causes our brains to release dopamine, though the vastness of it as an all-encompassing entity in our upper visual field might have something to do with it. Perhaps it has to do more with the act of looking up at the sky that activates those euphoric regions of our brain. Following this train of thought, what if the problem isn’t with skyscrapers, but rather with construction that happens to obstruct our view of the sky, that stops us from wanting to look up at the sky as much? Stated differently: couldn’t it be possible to construct buildings that actually encourage us to look at the sky? The Greek theatres were designed in such a way that the sky would take up most of our view when sitting in the audience seats. Some buildings that stand on their own, like great churches and cathedrals of history or the Freedom Tower, complement the sky and motivate us to look upward. Perhaps that’s also what makes them feel so euphoric to look at, because they utilize the (supposed) release of dopamine that we get from looking upward to their advantage. I imagine if folks centered this idea in urban planning, we could get cities that don’t sacrifice one thing for another, but instead imagine ways where we build vertically but also encourage people to look up into the sky. It feels like all these recent skyscraper constructions in densely-packed cities seem to have a negative impact on peoples’ moods. What if the lack of view of the sky is one of the reasons this happens? Could it be possible to design with the sky in mind, such that we can instead raise peoples’ moods using our constructions? Something worth considering, I think.
Fast-forward to today, in December 2020. I’m sitting in my car while on Park Street in Alameda, looking down at my phone as I usually do when I’m parked and waiting to pick up food that I’ve ordered. I put my phone down for a moment to rest my eyes. It’s been a long day… a long week, month, year, life. Far too much has happened ever since the start of the pandemic, and it feels like I haven’t been able to concentrate on anything at all during any of this time. My mind’s just been a haze through all of it, feeling unmotivated and stuck. I reach to pick my phone back up, but for whatever reason today, maybe it was something that caught the corner of my eye, or just a stray thought that happened to catch my attention, I decided to stop and look up. Not at anything in particular, but just at the sky itself. And I mean, really look. My eyes re-adjusted to the deep blue of the sky, and I took in its vastness for what felt like the first time in a long time.
Most of these past weeks and months, I’ve been stuck indoors, quarantining in my own apartment as carefully as possible, limiting the amount of time I spent outside beyond making quick runs to the grocery store. But today, I looked up at the sky and felt some small glimmer of euphoria — nothing really much, but even that miniscule amount was enough. It made me think about the presentation that I heard all those years back, and I began to think again about the effects of looking up at the sky on our brains and our moods. All this time, I had been looking down at my phone, and I think, for the longest time, I just simply forgot to look up.
Isn’t it interesting how the phrase we use is look down at our phones, rather than look up at our phones? Well, it makes perfect sense since we usually hold our devices downwards, rather than upwards when we look at them. I think a lot about the boomers and Luddites who complain that we’re looking down at our phones too much all the time (when really, haven’t we always been looking down at something, even before we had phones?). But what if, like with our urban planning and architecture, we thought more about looking up when we designed our technologies as well? I remember sitting on the beach with friends one night, looking up at the stars when they opened an app that used the phone’s camera to help identify constellations in the sky. This app encouraged us to look up, not down, and I remember how when they pulled it out, it got us all to look up at the sky that night and enjoy that experience.
We talk a lot about how to design mobile apps to look on the phone, but what about designing with where the apps make us look in the real-world, too⁴? I wonder if things would be any different if we designed for looking up at our phones with the sky in view, rather than the current default of looking down. Could we re-envision existing designs to allow for this to feel natural and comfortable to do? Could we take a page from the Greeks with their theatres and construct experiences that move us to engage with the vastness of the sky? Just as the theatre was still the center of attention then, even with the presence of the sky involved, so could the content on our devices be, with the sky playing a role in simply complementing that content. Now that’s something I’d like to see folks work on, and I’m curious what difference it would make in our digital experiences.
It’s taken me years to get around to writing this piece, which I first attempted to write immediately after hearing the presentation at NYU back in 2016. At the time, I was so immensely fascinated with the idea that looking up at the sky could have an actual, tangible impact on our brains, as well as the fact that we could use various methods in neural science to answer a question such as, “Why did the Greeks design their theatres with so much of a focus on the sky?” Of course, this isn’t the entire reason why, and the Greeks themselves probably didn’t design their theatres intentionally with the knowledge that looking up at the sky could activate regions of the brain that also activate during other euphoric or spiritual experiences. But it’s still interesting to see how we could find these sorts of explanations that back behaviors or sayings that we just take for granted. But then what?
In 2016, I didn’t have much else to say about this other than the fact that it’s interesting. I struggled to write this, to figure out where it would go and what I would say. And to be honest, even today I still don’t know. But over the years, I’ve been able to see how a question that emerged from thinking about Greek theatre could also have implications for architecture and urban planning, and technology design and human-computer interaction. If nothing else, it’s been extremely fascinating to see how something so specific as studying the release of dopamine in our brains from looking up at the sky could connect to so many disparate topics.
I’m not here to say that looking up at the sky or designing cities with open sky views will suddenly cure depression or solve all of our problems, and I’m still skeptical about how significant the effects of looking up at the sky really are. But in writing this, I hope to get more folks thinking about these sorts of questions (even if it’s not this one specifically). Questions behind things that we take for granted, the answers of which might lead to surprising conclusions in how we design and approach so many different things in life we didn’t expect to be at all related. And maybe it helps lead us to see the world in a completely different way that we never thought of before. Or maybe all it does is help us to take pause in our hectic lives and think about something interesting we once heard about when we look up into the sky, and wonder.
And maybe that’s enough.
Footnotes:
¹ My Google Calendar indicates that this event took place on September 22, 2016, but I can no longer seem to find the website that lists the information for this event.
² I use “neural scientist” here as a term that has some distinction to “cognitive scientist”. Whereas a “cognitive scientist” attempts to study cognition, which could involve an immaterial mind, a “neural scientist” focuses on the workings of neural systems specifically. I could also use the term “neuroscientist”, which in my opinion holds an even great materialist connotation than “neural scientist”, but at NYU we specifically had a Center for Neural Science with degrees in neural science, as opposed to neuroscience, so I’m sticking with the formalism we use, though in reality “neural scientist” is pretty much interchangeable with “neuroscientist”.
³ There are some philosophers who specifically work within neurophilosophy, a subfield made famous by the Churchland family, which interrogates questions of neuroscience using philosophy and questions of philosophy using neuroscience. There’s a lot more nuance in the distinctions between all of these fields, but I don’t really go into them for the sake of keeping this article from expanding more than it already has.
⁴ I suppose this might be some kind of question that folks in human-computer interaction (HCI) might ask, and I’ve yet to look into whether or not they have any literature regarding this, but it seems like an interesting topic to look into.
