5 ms·

If it were true, pills wouldn't have fixed it... consciousness would be some sort of contagious cultural norm, taught to children and so forth. Not sure what's

If it were true, pills wouldn't have fixed it... consciousness would be some sort of contagious cultural norm, taught to children and so forth. Not sure what's disturbing about it. Many times in my life I've met people who seem to be able to say the right things at the right time, but it feels like they're only some sort of clever parrot that recognizes that repeating that phrase is moderately relevant without actually understanding it. Has that never happened to you?

juliangregorian 11y ago
Not to bag on artists but, sounds like a pretty apt description of the art world.
- anigbrowl 11y ago
  That's quite reasonable. There's definitely an analytical/technical dimension to art (of whatever kind), but the whimsical/inspirational component is important as well. That's why you hear so much about getting to a 'flow' state where your own consciousness goes into a more passive mode and you become a conduit for the muse. When I'm writing I'm often taken aback by what my characters say or do; I'll sit down and think 'OK, I've realized X went here to look for Y, so Z - you go there and look up Y in order to learn more about X.' Then instead of being sensible Y and Z get into a huge fight and both end up worse off than before. I don't mean of course that they exist objectively in some parallel dimension or derive their existence from Platonic ideal forms (although either possibility is interesting to consider); certainly they're projections of my self and my knowledge about narrative structure that I cobble together retroactive narratives to explain. But it's not unusual to 'know' more about a character than one can consciously articulate to oneself, in the same way that we can reach out and catch a thrown ball faster than we can articulate the ballistic calculations involved in such a feat. So just as an athlete needs to get into the habit of catching or hitting a ball rather than thinking about its trajectory, as an artist you need to get into the habit of moving your body and whatever artistic tools you employ in a sort of mindless, passive fashion. If you think about it too much it's either contrived or you get stuck. You know that situation where you watch a movie and everything flows along smoothly, but after you get up and walk around you realize the plot didn't make any sense - things happened at the same sort of pace they do in many good stories, but only because they were organized that way in advance rather than for fundamental reasons of character. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Centipede%27s_Dilemma http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Centipede%27s_Dilemma
- jkaunisv1 11y ago
  I think that also comes from being forced to discuss, express or summarize in words something that comes from an emotional or playful state and, excepting the literary arts, exists largely independent of language. They've got to say something to sell a piece, or to convince people they had something intellectual to say if that's their goal career-wise, even if it's not their goal in making the art itself.
andrewflnr 11y ago
Roughly 50% of the time in my economics class, listening to my professor. The weird thing is, on things not directly related to the material, he sort of wakes up and turns into a real human. Probably he's just a nice guy and bad teacher, but it's a little unnerving to watch, especially after reading Peter Watts' work.

juliangregorian 11y ago

Not to bag on artists but, sounds like a pretty apt description of the art world.

anigbrowl 11y ago
That's quite reasonable. There's definitely an analytical/technical dimension to art (of whatever kind), but the whimsical/inspirational component is important as well. That's why you hear so much about getting to a 'flow' state where your own consciousness goes into a more passive mode and you become a conduit for the muse. When I'm writing I'm often taken aback by what my characters say or do; I'll sit down and think 'OK, I've realized X went here to look for Y, so Z - you go there and look up Y in order to learn more about X.' Then instead of being sensible Y and Z get into a huge fight and both end up worse off than before. I don't mean of course that they exist objectively in some parallel dimension or derive their existence from Platonic ideal forms (although either possibility is interesting to consider); certainly they're projections of my self and my knowledge about narrative structure that I cobble together retroactive narratives to explain. But it's not unusual to 'know' more about a character than one can consciously articulate to oneself, in the same way that we can reach out and catch a thrown ball faster than we can articulate the ballistic calculations involved in such a feat. So just as an athlete needs to get into the habit of catching or hitting a ball rather than thinking about its trajectory, as an artist you need to get into the habit of moving your body and whatever artistic tools you employ in a sort of mindless, passive fashion. If you think about it too much it's either contrived or you get stuck. You know that situation where you watch a movie and everything flows along smoothly, but after you get up and walk around you realize the plot didn't make any sense - things happened at the same sort of pace they do in many good stories, but only because they were organized that way in advance rather than for fundamental reasons of character. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Centipede%27s_Dilemma http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Centipede%27s_Dilemma
jkaunisv1 11y ago
I think that also comes from being forced to discuss, express or summarize in words something that comes from an emotional or playful state and, excepting the literary arts, exists largely independent of language. They've got to say something to sell a piece, or to convince people they had something intellectual to say if that's their goal career-wise, even if it's not their goal in making the art itself.

andrewflnr 11y ago

Roughly 50% of the time in my economics class, listening to my professor. The weird thing is, on things not directly related to the material, he sort of wakes up and turns into a real human. Probably he's just a nice guy and bad teacher, but it's a little unnerving to watch, especially after reading Peter Watts' work.