What I mean is, those lights, and most lights, only serve a human purpose, but some lights are for a non-human reason (like for plants or testing conditions), and its fun (to me) to disentangle which is which.

In this case they almost certainly cause active problems for the ultra-sensitive neutrino detectors, and they have to scrap the data from whenever they are turned on. In some cases they inhibit growth of the target organism (good or bad). In others, like lights in brewery brite tanks, they don't matter or are for cleaning purposes.

I enjoy asking about the lights, whenever I get a chance. Its always a question that gets a “huh, never thought about that, actually”, but I just find the human need element fascinating, because it dramatically impacts the whole machine. I wonder what we’d know if visible light wasn't our primary sense.