Scars On Your Halo
A journey through black holes, Solaris, and cognitive biases to rediscover the richness beyond first impressions.
⏱️ Reading Time ≈ 20 min
Introduction
I’ve trained Spotify’s algorithm long enough for it to have become quite reliable. So every now and then, I let myself indulge in some Daily Mixes or other custom playlists it curates for me. This also gives me a chance to cultivate surprise and serendipitous discoveries in my listening sessions—ones that more or less align with my musical taste.
The other day at the gym, I was listening to one of the Daily Mixes Spotify had queued up for me when a song hit me. It was Halo by Savage Hands, and its recurring theme—“scars on your halo”—stuck with me. I wasn’t interested in taking the lyrics literally; what struck me was the sheer power of that image and how perfectly it lent itself to a reflection on a major cognitive bias: the halo effect. This bias clouds our ability to truly know others, placing a veil of prejudice between us and them, all triggered by a mere first impression.
But let’s take this step by step and try to make sense of it all. I’ll follow a path that might seem a little erratic—let’s see where it leads.
Black Holes
So, let’s talk about black holes. Yeah, I know… but trust me, this will all make sense soon.
A black hole is an astrophysical object that forms when an object’s mass becomes so dense that its escape velocity (the speed needed to break free from an object’s gravitational pul) exceeds the speed of light. It’s called black because—once fully formed—not even electromagnetic radiation can escape, making it completely dark. Without getting too technical, we can simplify things by saying that any object turns into a black hole when its size shrinks to the Schwarzschild Radius.
One of the most fascinating (and frustrating) things about black holes—something that has puzzled physicists for decades and still does—is the concept of information loss. Anything that existed before a black hole formed becomes inaccessible once it’s hidden behind the event horizon. From the outside, it’s as if that information is simply… gone.
As Kip Thorne—one of the leading experts on black holes and a Nobel Prize winner in 2017 for his theoretical research—put it, the 1960s and 70s were a golden age for black hole theory. Some of the greatest physicists of the time worked together to untangle their mysteries. And here’s where things get relevant to us: during this period, John Wheeler famously said, “Black holes have no hair.” But what does that really mean?
It was the mid-1960s, and as we mentioned, black hole theory was a hot topic. Several scientists—Ginzburg, Doroshkevich, Novikov, Wheeler, Zel’dovich, Israel, and Price, among others—were working to understand what happens during the formation of a black hole. One particular question stood out: would a black hole always be perfectly spherical, regardless of the shape of the original object that collapses into it? In 1964, Ginzburg, Doroshkevich, and Novikov formulated their “no-hair” conjecture. Using cutting-edge mathematical techniques—such as perturbation methods—they managed to calculate the “transformations” an object would undergo as it became a black hole. The result? No matter its initial shape, the black hole would always end up spherical. Zel’dovich dismissed this as intuitively obvious. The only problem? He was apparently the only one who found it obvious.
Now, let’s take a nearly perfect sphere—a celestial body with just one small “imperfection”: a mountain on its surface. We also need to introduce Price’s Theorem, which states: “Anything that can be radiated away will be radiated away.”
On page 290 of the monumental “Black Holes and Time Warps”, Kip Thorne writes:
“As the star implodes, its mountain grows larger, creating an increasing mountain-shaped distortion in the curvature of spacetime. Then, when the star collapses beyond its critical circumference and forms the horizon of a black hole around itself, the distorted curvature of spacetime warps the horizon into a protrusion resembling a mountain. However, this horizon protrusion cannot survive for long. The stellar mountain that created it now lies inside the black hole, meaning the horizon can no longer feel its influence. No longer constrained by the mountain, the horizon sheds its protrusion in the only way possible: by converting it into ripples in spacetime curvature (gravitational waves) that radiate outward in all directions. Some of these ripples fall into the black hole, while others dissipate into the surrounding universe, leaving behind a perfectly spherical black hole.”
This is the very mechanism that renders a black hole hairless.
So, as stated again on page 293:
“All the features of the black hole (except for its mass, spin, and electric charge, ndr) will have vanished, carried away by radiation. This means that no possible measurement of the final black hole’s properties will ever reveal the characteristics of the star that collapsed to create it.”
To sum up, any object that crosses its own event horizon loses all of its unique, distinguishing features. The only information that can be retrieved about it after the fact is limited to the three standard properties—mass, spin, and electric charge—that define any other black hole. The event horizon conceals the “expressive richness” of the object it encloses.
Solaris
Solaris is a psychological science fiction novel written by Stanisław Lem in 1961. The story takes place on a planet—Solaris, to be precise—with rather peculiar characteristics. Aside from a team of human scientists who have arrived from elsewhere, Solaris has only one native inhabitant: a semi-sentient ocean that covers nearly the entire surface of the planet. This ocean expresses itself through violent “creative eruptions,” forming intricate structures on its surface.
On page 177 Lem writes:
“We know, but cannot grasp, that above and below, beyond the limits of perception or imagination, thousands and millions of simultaneous transformations are at work, interlinked like a musical score by mathematical counterpoint. It has been described as a symphony in geometry, but we lack the ears to hear it. Only a long-distance view would reveal the entire process, but the outer covering of the symmetriad conceals the colossal inner matrix where creation is unceasing, the created becomes the creator, and absolutely identical 'twins' are born at opposite poles, separated by towering structures and miles of distance. The symphony creates itself, and writes its own conclusion, which is terrible to watch. Every observer feels like a spectator at a tragedy or a public massacre, when after two or three hours— never longer—the living ocean stages its assault. The polished surface of the ocean swirls and crumples, the desiccated foam liquefies again, begins to seethe, and legions of waves pour inwards from every point of the horizon, their gaping mouths far more massive than the greedy lips that surround the embryonic mimoid. The submerged base of the symmetriad is compressed, and the colossus rises as if on the point of being shot out of the planet's gravitational pull. The upper layers of the ocean redouble their activity, and the waves surge higher and higher to lick against the sides of the symmetriad. They envelop it, harden and plug the orifices, but their attack is nothing compared to the scene in the interior. First the process of creation freezes momentarily; then there is 'panic.' The smooth interpenetration of moving forms and the harmonious play of planes and lines accelerates, and the impression is inescapable that the symmetriad is hurrying to complete some task in the face of danger. The awe inspired by the metamorphosis and dynamics of the symmetriad intensifies as the proud sweep of the domes falters, vaults sag and droop, and 'wrong notes' incomplete, mangled forms—make their appearance. A powerful moaning roar issues from the invisible depths like a sigh of agony, reverberates through the narrow funnels and booms through the collapsing domes. In spite of the growing destructive violence of these convulsions, the spectator is rooted to the spot. Only the force of the hurricane streaming out of the depths and howling through the thousands of galleries keeps the great structure erect. Soon it subsides and starts to disintegrate. There are final flutterings, contortions, and blind, random spasms. Gnawed and undermined, the giant sinks slowly and disappears, and the space where it stood is covered with whirlpools of foam.”
This is the raw, violent creative power of Solaris. Imagine standing before it, safe, witnessing these eruptions of expression. Now, suppose Solaris could be compressed beyond its critical threshold, collapsing into its own event horizon and vanishing forever from any external observer. Whether that expressiveness persists inside or not is now irrelevant. Nothing hidden beyond the black hole’s horizon is visible from the outside, and nothing that happens within is ever “broadcast” beyond it. The black hole will always appear as a perfect sphere. Solaris’ richness is irrevocably lost.
Halo Effect
The halo effect is a cognitive bias that distorts our evaluation of people and objects based on an initial impression. It was first discovered in 1907 by Frederick L. Wells and later formalized in 1920 by Edward Thorndike. This judgment error is driven by our belief system—individual preferences, biases, and social perceptions—and acts as a mental shortcut, allowing us to make quick decisions based on limited cues. For example, if we meet someone who is good-looking and well-mannered, we are likely to perceive them as competent and trustworthy. Conversely, if an unfamiliar person interrupts a conversation multiple times, we might immediately label them as rude. The same applies to brands: if we have a strong appreciation for a particular brand, we may purchase one of its products even if reviews advise against it.
From an evolutionary perspective, this mechanism was crucial for survival: a quick but potentially flawed decision was preferable to a well-reasoned one that came too late. The halo effect generally refers to positively biased evaluations, while its opposite—the horns effect—describes the inverse phenomenon, where a single negative trait skews the overall perception negatively. For simplicity, I will use halo effect to describe both cases.
Our brain has developed these shortcuts to better adapt to the environment and ensure greater safety. However, the rapid evolution of environmental conditions over the past centuries—particularly in the western world, where life-or-death decisions are rarely required on the spot—has outpaced our brain’s ability to fully adapt. As a result, we navigate reality with a cognitive framework optimized for an environment that no longer exists. This is known as the ancestral brain biases.
Our mental capacities are subject to ego depletion—the phenomenon where we have a limited amount of cognitive energy, which gets depleted by mental effort and needs to be restored before tackling new tasks. Even today, when survival is largely assured, these mechanisms remain extremely useful, as they help reduce cognitive load. However, this is true only when they are well-informed—a crucial condition that determines whether these shortcuts serve us effectively or lead us astray.
These shortcuts, which we can broadly summarize as “intuition,” can lead us to flawed conclusions, decisions that contradict logic, and suboptimal behavior. This is why the first step is to be aware of their existence. Next, we must understand how to inform them correctly so that they work to our advantage. Finally, we need to know how to shield ourselves from them when we recognize that their outcome wouldn’t be useful—or at least not entirely reliable.
It’s always crucial to remember that, no matter how well we understand these phenomena, they still happen. That’s why knowing how to “put them in their place” is a fundamental skill (as I discussed here: Knowledge and Mistakes) for becoming effective navigators of reality.
Returning to the halo effect, not only can it lead to poor decision-making, but it also reinforces biases, stereotypes and discrimination. In short, every time we let this bias take over, we lose the potential richness of what we’re evaluating. Of course, protecting ourselves from it doesn’t mean assessing everything with hyper-precision—we simply don’t have the time for that. However, making it as informed as possible is a valuable investment that allows us to turn it to our advantage. In this way, intuition can help shield us from people or things that aren’t worth deeper engagement (for example, individuals whose values are fundamentally misaligned with ours), while also prompting us to explore those whose richness might only reveal itself once we move past our immediate judgment.
There are many reasons why I love Lem’s novel—I actually consider it one of the must-read books in all of literary history—but one of the main ones is that the planet Solaris is a raw and unfiltered metaphor for the human condition. We are all incredibly complex, brimming with immense richness. Those violent and creative formations on the planet reflect the intensity of our emotions and creative expressions, which rarely emerge in a calm, gradual way but rather erupt violently, like waves in an ocean stirred by the wind. The passage I quoted from the novel strikes me as a perfect representation of a powerful emotion like anger, which, at its peak, can almost resemble a kind of possession.
In “Restare in Piedi tra le Onde”, a book on effectively managing emotions that I highly recommend, psychologist Gennaro Romagnoli at one point compares emotions to waves in an ocean. This metaphor serves to illustrate why we should take the time to distance ourselves from our emotions rather than identify with them, allowing us to manage them more effectively. Since they are merely waves in the ocean, they are expressions of it but do not define or exhaust its entirety. Therefore, even in the presence of intense emotional expressions—especially unwelcome ones, like anger or jealousy—choosing not to fully identify with them can be beneficial. Now, I don’t intend to delve into the topic of emotional intelligence here, as it’s beyond the scope of this article and deserves its own dedicated discussion. However, Romagnoli’s metaphor serves as a useful bridge to connect the three topics we’ve explored so far: black holes, Solaris, and the halo effect.
Wrapping Up
Stepping away for a moment from the purely emotional aspect that Romagnoli discusses, let’s return to the ocean metaphor. Naturally, this brings us back to Solaris and what we mentioned earlier. A human being can be imagined as a dynamic interplay of these movements—emotional, psychological, cognitive, and creative. They alternate, explode and implode, create and disintegrate, take form only to collapse back into the field of possibility. Each of us is a creative furnace in every possible sense of the term, a source of richness that deserves to be expressed and known—at least by those who resonate on the same wavelengths. After all, we can’t and shouldn’t aim to be appreciated by everyone.
Remember what would happen to Solaris if it underwent gravitational collapse? All of its expressive richness would be forever concealed behind its event horizon. Similarly, the halo we impose in our quick judgments of others obscures the unique movements that define them, reducing them to predefined categories. The halo effect functions exactly like an event horizon: it hides distinctive traits, allowing only a narrow set of standardized attributes to filter through—attributes that judge, categorize, and homogenize. If we want to avoid losing the richness of the people we encounter, we should make it a habit to resist this bias and linger a little longer, savoring the depth that is constantly being offered to us.
How can we do this? By slowing down our reasoning process and giving ourselves the time to gather more information before forming a judgment. By avoiding comparisons, which often trap us in stereotypes. By embracing variety for what it is, without succumbing to the need to fit others’ expressiveness into predefined categories. And finally, by resisting our innate tendency to judge—at least during the first encounter.
Take the genesis of this article as an example. A random encounter with a song I would never have actively searched for (I know Savage Hands, but they’re not on my usual radar), one I could have easily skipped in favor of something more aligned with my taste. But partly due to the training session, which had likely lowered my cognitive defenses, I found myself in the right mental state to embrace the richness of what was in front of me. Without that moment of hesitation—without resisting the judging impulse that urged me to change the track—I probably would never have had the chance to write what you just read.
This is the kind of richness we miss out on when we project halos onto others—let’s avoid it for a while and see what we’ve been missing. Black holes have no hair, and halos have no scars. A good starting point would be to come from a place of abundance (see mental accounting). Let’s assume that other people are treasures waiting to be discovered, that they have the potential to enrich us in unimaginable ways. We can always change our minds later.
Make the most of it! Until next time, S.
