What is Art?

Art is in many ways magical. That someone can create something 1000 years ago and people find it and understand it goes to show that magic exists, just not in the form we most associate with magic.

The creative process, when one thinks about it, just goes to show how incredible the brain is. Let us consider a poem for example. To do so, we will look at one of my favourite poems, Annabel Lee (AL)by the great American writer, Edgar Allan Poe.

The opening lines;

It was many and many a year ago,

In a kingdom by the sea

May not seem that impressive, not in the same league as Kafka’s opening from his short story, Metamorphosis;      

As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect. (note: recent translations think that he may have turned into a dung beetle)

Or, to return to poetry, Allen Ginsberg’s poem Howl (which went on trial for obscenity, ah, the 1950s America, such a simpler time, unless you were not a WASP heterosexual white male with money)

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness

Yet the opening of Poe’s AL is miraculous in its own right.

First, let’s consider the process. Sat in a room, a man had a thought. He then took this thought and using symbols which had a predetermined meaning, using ink, created these symbols on paper in a certain order to be able to convey what he was thinking. 173 years later (it was published in 1849), you, dear reader, sees these words in a digital version of the ink and paper and immediately understand what they mean.   

It was many and many a year ago,

In a kingdom by the sea

We know that the story took place a long time ago and by the wonders of imagination we know that, although it was written a long time ago, for us, this story takes place long before that. Suddenly, through the associative process of ‘time’, ‘long ago’ and different places our brains say, ‘ah maybe it was the 17^th century?’ and visualise the houses and town this story took place in. If we are western, we may visualise western architecture. If we are Chinese, we may visualise Chinese architecture. If our minds go back further, we may imagine a place with architecture like the Parthenon in Athens, from Antiquity (the Golden Age, if you were a white male with money). Indeed, it is possible that we would not see the building the story took place in as we would see a building out of a window now, rather, it may resemble more an illustration or a painting. Indeed, given how we have been conditioned to think of ‘the past’ it may be in black and white or tinged with sepia.

Once we have established, in a split second, where it took place, what kind of town, we are then given more information. The town is by the sea- we now transpose our building/town to the seaside, based upon the concept in which the building would be appropriate, e.g. not a Chinese house in a French fishing village, as our brains have decided that this story is ‘real’ and therefore every aspect of it must conform to the reality. We also find out that it is a ‘Kingdom’. Here there may be a divergence. Some might see it as a literal kingdom and see them as a prince and princess, with a castle, or a Romeo and Juliet, or some may see it still as the same hamlet and take the terminology as being used for romantic purposes by the storyteller (who we may or may not identify with the real Poe).

Having been introduced to the main character, the narrator, and setting, we then are introduced to another cast member of the little story,

That a maiden there lived whom you may know

By the name of Annabel Lee;

What Poe does here is incredible because, instead of loading us up with information about some strange and exotic creature, a mythological princess, for what Poe is doing here is creating his own mythos, Poe takes this new character and says that, you, the reader, may be familiar with her. Maybe you know her father? Maybe she works in the bakery you visit for your morning bread? This, not only makes the reader feel an emotional connection with the story (pathos), but also does a lot of heavy lifting. Instead of defining Annabel Lee, Poe is letting the reader do so by creating their own image of her, or by wanting to be ‘part of’ the story, and not just an observer, claim to know more than is possible to known, possibly referring to Jungian Archetypes

(note: Jungian archetypes are defined as universal, primal symbols and images that derive from the collective unconscious, as proposed by Carl Jung. There are twelve brand archetypes: The Innocent, Everyman, Hero, Outlaw, Explorer, Creator, Ruler, Magician, Lover, Caregiver, Jester, and Sage)

or people from our own experiences. What this does is form a quick emotional link with the reader who becomes invested in the characters, especially after the next lines; 

   And this maiden she lived with no other thought

   Than to love and be loved by me.

Once we have this set up, a small hamlet by the sea in which two people live for nothing but the other (his use of lived is deliberately ironic as we will see later), the story can then unfurl (see below for the full poem).

We find that not all is happy, and that their love was so pure that even the angels envied them and this is why the powers of Heaven made Annabel Lee sick so that she died.

However, as the story comes to an end, we find that their love is so pure and powerful that every night the narrator dreams of their love and lies down, we assume, in dreams by

…the side

 Of my darling—my darling—my life and my bride

And then we get the twist which makes the incredibly beautiful story devastating for each night he lies next to her

In her sepulchre there by the sea—

 In her tomb by the sounding sea.

Which we suppose to be literal, i.e. the young man lying awake each night next to/on the coffin of his bride to be.

All of this depth, complexity and emotion stems from one thing. A person using a pen to create forms which have presupposed meanings. And so, this is art- from painting to film to writing etc.-, art is about taking a thought and/or emotion and using universal forms, projecting this thought/emotion so that anyone who encounters it and knows the forms, can, possibly, experience the same thought/emotion that once existed solely (pun intended) as a thought.

‘till next time

————————————————————

  Annabel Lee

BY EDGAR ALLAN POE

It was many and many a year ago,

   In a kingdom by the sea,

That a maiden there lived whom you may know

   By the name of Annabel Lee;

And this maiden she lived with no other thought

   Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,

   In this kingdom by the sea,

But we loved with a love that was more than love—

   I and my Annabel Lee—

With a love that the wingèd seraphs of Heaven

   Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,

   In this kingdom by the sea,

A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling

   My beautiful Annabel Lee;

So that her highborn kinsmen came

   And bore her away from me,

To shut her up in a sepulchre

   In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in Heaven,

   Went envying her and me—

Yes!—that was the reason (as all men know,

   In this kingdom by the sea)

That the wind came out of the cloud by night,

   Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love

   Of those who were older than we—

   Of many far wiser than we—

And neither the angels in Heaven above

   Nor the demons down under the sea

Can ever dissever my soul from the soul

   Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams

   Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes

   Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side

   Of my darling—my darling—my life and my bride,

   In her sepulchre there by the sea—

   In her tomb by the sounding sea.

Klara and the Sun

Regular readers will know that I rarely review, let alone read, ‘modern’ fiction. Indeed, you will have been bored by trips to Ancient Greece and Rome, sometimes venturing further through history up to the mid-20^th Century, before beating a hasty retreat. However, when my friend recommended the new Ishiguro novel, Klara and the Sun, I thought I would try it. Having previously read another of his novels (or rather started it and not bothered to finish it) and one of his film adaptations (watched, not really enjoyed) I was slightly sceptical, not of Ishiguro but rather of my own powers of judgement.   

Before deciding to read it, I read the blurb of the book and was immediately struck with how it seemed to be similar to the quite excellent Steven Spielberg film, A.I. Artificial Intelligence, based on the Science-Fiction writer, Brain Aldiss’ short story, Supertoys Last All Summer Long. (Note: Stanley Kubrick was going to make A.I. but he didn’t think he had the emotional intelligence to make it which is why Spielberg agreed to make it, only after Kubrick died)  

In A.I., due to population growth, people were not allowed to have children. They were assigned numbers and a lottery would take place to see if they would be allowed to have children. A company then created an artificial child that people could have in place of an actual child. Two people take the child home and love it like their own flesh and blood, until they win the lottery, and then they drive out into the middle of nowhere, tell the A.I. child to get out of the car, and drive away, as one would leave a fridge by the side of the road. What then follows, not to spoil it, is a heart-breaking journey of the A.I. trying to return to his mother. In the film we learn that maybe A.I. has a greater capacity for love and humanity than humans (I’ll pause for two hours now whilst you go and watch the film).

(2 hours later)

With this in mind, I had to be careful to put A.I. out of my mind so that my subjectivity would not unwittingly colour my thoughts on Klara.

Klara is an AF, although it is never defined, AF presumably means Artificial Friend. The premise being that wealthy parents can buy a friend for their child to look after them and tend to their every need. I other words, AFs are designed to remove the need for human interactions. The opening of the book sets out the premise given by Zhuangzi in The Way of Chuang Tzu;

“A frog in a well cannot discuss the ocean, because he is limited by the size of his well. A summer insect cannot discuss ice, because it knows only its own season. A narrow-minded scholar cannot discuss the Tao, because he is constrained by his teachings”

Meaning that one cannot know more than one knows. Ishiguro creates the persona of Klara by the way that she names things. The shop manager is Manager, the sun is Sun, in which showing her limited understanding of the world, Klara has assumed proper nouns for things which the reader knows to be plentiful. For Klara, however, this limited world is her world and, although she can see out of the window, assumes that all that she can see is the entire world.

Klara is solar powered and much of her early thoughts are in relation to the sun- the way the sun moves, the way the sun shines, the patterns it creates. In many ways, Klara a return to early religions when the Aztecs or Romans would worship the Sun as being the giver of life, or even, one might say the Son of God in Christianity. For Klara, being solar powered, this is literal. Ishiguro shows how one’s outlook on the world, one’s faith can be shaped at an early age through ignorance. This is not to say that it is wrong, but it creates a dogmatic view which discounts other possibilities.

Klara is selected by a young girl, who tells Klara to wait for her. The manager responds to Klara’s refusal to go with a different girl by telling her that she is naive and that people lie. However, the story would have been very short if the first girl, Josie, does not come back for her.      

Josie has an unknown sickness which we find may have killed her sister. Josie is also what is known as lifted. Although this term is never explicitly described, one draws the assumption through hints that it means that she has been genetically modified. This may account for her sickness. This is one of the frustrating traits of the book. Ishiguro often hints at things and whereas an in-depth satirical look is required, Ishiguro tends to go for the most obvious aspect of it- in this instance social standing. Josie’s best friend is not lifted which creates for a few pages some social tension but then disappears out of the book.

It turns out that people expect that Josie will die, and soon. Klara’s role is to replace Josie. Someone is making an AF body that resembles Josie and the plan is to then put Klara’s ‘consciousness’ into the body. At this point two more themes are hinted at- what does it mean to love? Can an AI love? And when Klara assumes the Josie AF’s body, what will happen to her own body?

Here we have two interesting topics. 1) What does it mean to love, what is love? 2) What is a person? Are they consciousness? Are we dual or non-dualistic beings (do we have a body and soul or are we just contained within our body?). However, the book does not consider these further and the fortune-cookie wisdom ends with the passage.

One theme the book tries to continue with is the notion of fact vs faith. Science has said that Josie will die. Klara, who believes that the sun gives life, goes to an old barn where the sun sinks on the horizon (temple) and prays to the sun to give life back to Josie. She makes a deal with the sun that if she destroys a machine that creates pollution, the sun will save Josie. Klara manages to convince Josie’s father in the power of her faith and he helps her.

(At this point we should note that there are also side stories happening but these are half-baked and seem utterly inconsequential, just attempts to draw parallels between Klara and the humans)

This, so far, has taken over two thirds of the book. The rest happens in a rush. Josie gets sicker, Klara convinces the family to open the blinds so that the sun can make her well. They do and she gets better, completely healed. Josie goes on with her life and Klara is moved to a storage cupboard with a stand Josie makes for her so that she can see out of the window. Next thing we know, Klara is on a scrapheap remembering her family when the old manager finds her, says how she misses her and then leaves. The implications are clear. The AF and not the humans has the greater capacity for love. The humans discard her as they would an old kettle that is no longer useful, and yet Klara has made a big impression of one human (the manager), who when given the chance to take Klara home and look after her, leaves her in what Ishiguro frames as a moment of compassion and love.

Klara and the Sun seems to be a superficial book which hints at topics that it never explores. The book has been nominated for awards, possibly on the strength of the author’s name, and would make pleasant holiday reading. However, the book lacks any real depth and emotional intelligence and leaves one thinking what might have been had Ishiguro decided to expand upon the themes he creates.

‘till next time             

God and the Negation of Self

Previously in these pages we have (God knows when, pun, obviously, intended) looked at how people use God as an alibi for their bad actions. In this piece we will look at how the concept of God in relation to the individual can negatively impact upon the individual. Please note this is not looking at the question of ‘being’ or ‘existence’ in relation to a God, rather it is ‘being’ and ‘existence’ in relation to ‘self’.

Saint Augustine was an interesting man (great opening line, let’s bask in that for a moment). In his confessions he speaks about how he went from a life of debauchery by the standards of his times (nothing by current standards) to a life filled with meaning and love. This, he says, happened because of God. Whilst he and the book are incredible (touching on his pioneering thoughts on physics and philosophy), when reading it, one finds one’s self being gradually ground down by the simpering (my opinion) which prefaces each utterance. Before telling his story to God, to whom the confessions are addressed, Saint Augustine prefaces it by words along the lines of (note: this is not a direct quote), ‘Oh, God, without you I couldn’t tie up my shoes and use the toilet or eat an apple…’ before continuing his story and his reflections on his self. It might seem utterly petty for me to bring this up, and it is, however, when reading this, other than the repetition of something along those lines prefacing each utterance, it is the tone which I found so abrasive.

What is it about the tone that I found so uncomfortable? Simply, in prefacing (sincerely) each aspect of his biography this way, Augustine was negating himself. By saying that it was only due to the wisdom and compassion of God that he could see the error of his ways and change, Augustine is essentially admitting that he is powerless and only God can act in this world. Apart from the obvious moronic question this raises, if everything happens because God is actively doing things, why is there suffering etc., Augustine is saying that everything that he did, in confronting himself, in trying to improve, in finding wisdom, was not due to himself but rather due to God. Now, it is very possible that our actions are guided in some part by God. If we are the ‘Children of God’ then our ‘self’ would have been created by God meaning that our actions and decisions are guided by how God made us, but to say it is purely down to God and God alone negates the need for humans. If God does everything, why bother to create humans? That there are humans (hello, my fellow humans) suggests that if there is a God or not, as with the ancient mythologies, humans have autonomy, what we would call free will, the ability to make decisions for one’s self.

The concept of free will is something I have covered before and will not do so here- my conclusion going from free will is freedom of interpretation (things happen, how we react is our choice) to my more recent thoughts that if we are the by-products of nature and nurture then how much of our interpretations are ours alone? But let’s ignore all of that for now and say that humans have a mind and with that mind they can make decisions of thought and action. This then, to return to the topic, would mean that Augustine is ‘choosing’ to negate himself to say that everything that he thought and did were the actions of God, even if this revelation is in hindsight.

There are possible interpretations for this; he is showing gratitude, he is falling into the Danish Theistic philosopher Kierkegaard’s trap of ‘prayer does not change God, rather it changes the one who prays’ and so by attributing everything to ‘God’, Augustine is unconsciously finding help from within himself for what he did/will do (tee hee, ‘Will’ do… pun intended) etc.      

What Augustine shows is that there is a danger in giving one’s self over to something else, in this instance it is God, but it may be Society, or a Belief, or a Politic, and in doing so one loses one’s individuality and ceases to be an autonomous human and rather becomes the equivalent of a domino in some grand, unknowable and utterly bewildering, and in some instances, utterly terrifying, plan.

‘till next time   

Flaws with the Analysis of the Psychology of Thinking

In his book, Thinking Fast and Slow, the eminent Psychologist, the grandfather of Behavioural Economics, Daniel Kahneman, talks about two experiments that we will look at in this short piece.

Experiment 1) Participants are asked the question; “How many of each animal did Moses take onto the Ark”

Experiment 2) Participants watch a 2-dimensional (2D) automated square move across a screen. On the screen also there is a stationary triangle. When the square is in proximity with the triangle, the triangle starts to move.

In relation to experiment 1, Mr Kahneman remarks how few people spot the trick within the question. The answer is 0 because it was Noah and not Moses who built the ark. He then goes on to remark why this is (see the book for his full explanation). However, when reading the experiment, it occurred to me that Mr Kahneman was making too many assumptions to draw any real conclusions as there are too many variables unaccounted for. Whilst, for him, the experiment has one variable used to elicit a measurable response, the use of Moses and not Noah, what he does not take into account is the subjectivity of the participants. What do I mean by that? Well, in this context I am using subjectivity not to refer to ‘individual perception’ but rather as each person as an individual with individuality, ergo they are subjects.  Let’s look at the experiment:

To be able to answer the question one must:

1)            Have knowledge of the biblical story of Noah and the Flood from Genesis

2)            Have the knowledge (if existing) in a way that is easily accessible.

In the West we rarely think about the Bible and so the information therein would be not immediately accessible, and, given the stress of an experiment, hard to access. As we may have heard the story in school as a child and since then the memory has become less prominent as new memories are created and active concerns with the present and future dominate the mind, it seems unlikely that one would be able to recall the relevant information, in this context, as quickly as the experiment implies. Indeed, if you tried it as you were reading this, then once I said it was Noah, not Moses, you may have gone, “oh, of course!”, as though it was silly that you could make such a simple mistake. To simply say that it was ‘not noticed’ is to simplify the human experience to a level which, whilst academic, has no bearing on reality.

Let’s try another one to test my hypothesis:

How many days did it take Strider to carry the Ring of Power to Mount Doom?

Here, if like me in creating this question, you have knowledge of the novel by J.R.R Tolkien, The Lord of The Rings, and this knowledge is recent e.g., you were recently thinking about it, then you would say ‘Strider was the name given to Aragorn, Aragorn was a human who became the King and did not carry the Ring to Mount Doom. Rather it was the Hobbit Frodo Baggins who was the ring bearer ergothe answer is 0 because Aragorn did not carry the Ring.’

If you have no knowledge The Lord of the Rings (LOTRs), or had not read it, or seen the films, recently, then this question would be as meaningful to you as if I said ‘How many dinosaurs does it take to change a lightbulb?’ (Answer 0 as lightbulbs post-dated the dinosaurs). Or ‘Why did Chang-e live on the moon with a mouse?’, if you know Chinese mythology you would know that it was a Jade Rabbit and not a mouse and so on and so forth.

There are other considerations that need to be taken when considering the answers to the question:

1) the participants might be very nice and notice my ‘error’ but chose to overlook it

2) the participant may notice but not care enough to say anything

3) the participant may notice but, for various reasons, not feel comfortable enough to speak up.

In this brief analysis we have seen 5 reasons why the results that are given by the experiment cannot be conclusive of anything as there are too many variables, not in the experiment, but in the participants which cannot be factored for, even if one was to try to create a group of LOTRs fans or devout Jews or Christians.

The second experiment,  

Experiment 2) Participants watch a 2-dimensional (2D) automated square move across a screen. On the screen also there is a stationary triangle. When the square is in proximity with the triangle, the triangle starts to move.

drew the response that the triangle moved due to an interaction with the square. The notion suggested was that these 2D projections, with no mass, had interacted on a physical level and thusly one effected the other – simple causality, basic physics. However, there is a flaw in the formulation of any hypothesis based on these results. And that is the context. The participants were being asked to watch it and then say what happened. This then creates the assumption that a) something will happen and b) there is a causal link. If I were to do the experiment, for example, I would say that the square impacted the triangle because that is what it was meant to do- the programme was created for the square to effect the triangle and so a suspension of disbelief is created- the same one which means one can read/watch LOTRs and accept what one sees as being factual. In this world there are Hobbits and Elves. For the story to work, this ‘fact’ has to be without question otherwise the answer to ‘How many days did it take Strider to carry the Ring of Power to Mount Doom?’ would be;

 1) he’s not real

 2) there was no Ring of Power

 3) Mount Doom is not a real place

 and so, the answer is…0, the same answer we got from the real question with the assumption that the participants had knowledge of LOTRs! In this way we get the same ‘expected’ answer, but not for the reasons we expect, thusly showing that when dealing with the thought process of an individual, there are too many unknown variables to create a definitive answer.

‘till next time

Happiness (Part 2) Rushing to Paradise

When you pass through humble, when you pass through sickly

…

When you pass through anger and self-deprecation

and have the strength to acknowledge it all

When the past makes you laugh and you can savour the magic

that let you survive your own war

You find that that fire is passion

and there’s a door up ahead not a wall

Lou Reed- Magic and Loss

——————-

In part 1, we looked at how happiness is not defined and how searching for something that has not been defined is impossible. We then looked at how people use external sources to find happiness such as fame, social standing, narcotics etc. and concluded that these are not forms of happiness, rather ways of running away from happiness as the road to happiness is internal and very, very hard.

———————-

In chasing the quick external fixes to be ‘happy’ the individual sacrifices their own right to think for their self and to self-actualise. The individual becomes dependant upon means out of their control to be happy. This then creates more conflict and often anxiety for that which is given may be taken away. The notion that an actor is only as good as their last film springs to mind and so, as we can see, this flight from happiness by attempting to take shortcuts has only left the individual further away from where they wish to be and so we ask ourselves, why?

The obvious answer is that they want a shortcut as they want it now and are not willing to put in the hard work that is required to arrive at their destination, a place there is no guarantee that they can reach. And yet there is sometimes a much sadder reason, fear. Fear of happiness can take on many forms and stem from many sources. For one, it might be that external sources have gotten into the head of the individual and made them feel that they are not worthy of happiness (this is very common and, for me, should result in a jail sentence other than the one of the perpetrators being imprisoned by their own unhappiness) or they may be scared as to feel happy can be a terrifying thing as one often loses one’s own notion of self in happiness. For example, people who project a stoic logical persona may have it washed away by their tears of joy. This, as you can imagine. Is very concerning for one who carefully controls their public image. And so, we can see that often fear in its many guises can stand between one and happiness.   

And so, it seems that to be happy, one must have a form of self-actualisation, but instead of relying on external loci, it must come from within. There is possibly nothing more terrifying than having to confront one’s own self. As the German philosopher Nietzsche notes, it is the lies that we tell to ourselves which are most common, if one tells one’s self that they are happy, as created by external loci, and then they are confronted with the illusion then one is forced to acknowledge that the foundation of their life is a lie and that their moments of happiness were not happiness, rather moments when the fear lifted temporarily. At moments like this, one often escapes into nihilism in all its forms to reinforce the illusion that they are ‘coping’ and the coffee they need to get out of bed or the wine they need every meal is just a supplement and not a crutch. Indeed, they can look around at society and see the same actions taking place and tell themselves that they are normal, that they are sane.

However, if one decides to confront the reality and goes more into it then one will find psychic forces tearing one apart for we often need a foundation of belief just to exist. To challenge these truths we hold can be very dangerous and harmful, and many people do not make it through to the other side. However, those who do, emerge with the small, ugly, baby form of the phoenix. The mythical creature the phoenix must, at the end of its time, burn in its own flames to be reborn. What dies is beautiful and fully developed, and what is born is ugly and weak, however, over time, it grows from the ugly into the beautiful as it starts to realise its own potential. And so, the individual who has died in the flames of their truth will find a new truth and with it will start to find their true self and with this their loci of identity will become internal and so external sources lose their power and the individual arrives at that moment of self-realisation, the calmness, the true essence of happiness.

‘till next time