So I've been thinking about about writing down a detailed description of my world view for a long time now, but I'm a bit too scatter brained for a book. That being the case, I've decided that the episodic format of a blog would be the best way to capture my random desires to talk about things. With that in mind, I'll introduce you to my first thought on life.
The following is a discussion on art. It's probably not that revealing to many of you, but maybe someone who reads this will find something insightful. The goal here today is to establish both the why and what of art. That is, why do we do it, and what exactly is it?
All art arises from the fact that humans are utility maximizing, social creatures.
We are happiest, have the most meaningful lives, and generate the most utility when operating in a group[citation needed]. In order to facilitate working in groups humans have developed several mechanisms that allow us to empathize with each other. We are capable of deducing what someone else is feeling from a quick glance at their posture, from the smallest motions, or from barely audible queues. This ability to understand the state of another person allows us to take the situation of other people into account in order to maximize utility for the group. As proof of the effectiveness of this ability, just look at the our species' extraordinary reproductive fitness.
One of the most important tools for increasing empathy (and by extension, utility and fitness) has been language. It allows us to express our ideas as symbolic sounds that travel through the atmosphere until they ram into another person who takes the symbols and reconstructs them back into ideas. Let's take a minute to say that again just for the sake of truly appreciating it. We are all capable of taking huge amounts of data, abstracting to the level relevant for the moment, translating that abstraction into a symbolic representation, projecting it into the air, and then someone on the receiving end of your message can do it all over again in reverse. It's basically short-range selective telepathy (if you've ever wished other people could "just read your mind" you might be disappointed to realize they already can, and you just have disorganized thoughts). Language is probably the most important thing ever invented by man.
For all of its amazing wonder, however, humans have still found ways to come up with ideas that are outside of the range of things that languages can express. Sometimes it isn't possible to find the words to describe things we want to express, or using language to express it would be remarkably inefficient. Art exists to provide us with empathetic tools to make up for the shortcomings of language. It's an alternative protocol we can use to communicate about thoughts that language has a difficult time expressing.
So in the end, the reason we make art is to communicate ideas for the purpose of increasing empathy between people in hopes of increasing utility and fitness.
That's pretty much all I've got for you right now. For some of you this is super old news, some of you think I'm full of so much crap, and a few of you might be having your minds blown. I don't know what I'll talk about next time yet. I'm thinking maybe I'll talk about the key features of different mediums in order to deduce the core purposes for things like music, paintings, film and games.
Friday, May 31, 2013
Thursday, May 30, 2013
Reaction to Equestria Girls
Here is the trailer for the upcoming film My Little Pony: Equestria Girls
This does not please me.
While the trailer may just be misleading (to make it look more "hip"), I feel like the themes in this film go against why I was attracted to MLP in the first place.
Why should Twilight Sparkle--the hero of Equestria who's been to hell and back several times, initiated by a demi-god, and reborn as a lesser diety herself--be reduced to a high school student who just wants to look pretty, be prom queen, and get the boy?
In other words, a central theme of MLP is showing that the hero's journey is not just for men, but women can become heroes too. Not "heroes in their own right" but true legitimate heroes. The TV series shows the process of Twilight Sparkle metamorphosing from quirky young person into a leader. Throughout the series she takes on responsibility and learns how to consider the benefit of the group ahead of her own. This process ultimately culminates in the death of the young irresponsible aspects of her character and her rebirth into the new role of royal alicorn (complete with transformation sequence and pegasus wings!)
The real beauty of MLP was how it showed that this hero's journey is not just an experience for the male part of the population, but actually a reflection of every human's life regardless of gender.
This trailer (at least) does not seem to keep to those themes. Instead we get the same ideas that have been hashed and rehashed a million times in every tween girl flick ever made. Instead of trials and descent into the abyss we get a trite conflict between catty girls. Instead of learning to lead the people around her Twilight must get a makeover to be the prettiest. Instead of initiation to a higher plane of existence by the moral authority Twilight is initiated into the presence of some teenage buffoon.
Incidentally, romance has only ONCE been a theme in MLP and it was as a joke. Is getting the attention of some dude really the central idea around which we want our women to live their lives?
Anyways, some people will say I'm thinking too hard about this. My response is that those people aren't thinking hard enough. Stories matter: they are the expression of our desires, fantasies, and values.
Is this really what we value? It's not what the MLP TV series values, and this trailer is not cool with me.
This does not please me.
While the trailer may just be misleading (to make it look more "hip"), I feel like the themes in this film go against why I was attracted to MLP in the first place.
Why should Twilight Sparkle--the hero of Equestria who's been to hell and back several times, initiated by a demi-god, and reborn as a lesser diety herself--be reduced to a high school student who just wants to look pretty, be prom queen, and get the boy?
In other words, a central theme of MLP is showing that the hero's journey is not just for men, but women can become heroes too. Not "heroes in their own right" but true legitimate heroes. The TV series shows the process of Twilight Sparkle metamorphosing from quirky young person into a leader. Throughout the series she takes on responsibility and learns how to consider the benefit of the group ahead of her own. This process ultimately culminates in the death of the young irresponsible aspects of her character and her rebirth into the new role of royal alicorn (complete with transformation sequence and pegasus wings!)
The real beauty of MLP was how it showed that this hero's journey is not just an experience for the male part of the population, but actually a reflection of every human's life regardless of gender.
This trailer (at least) does not seem to keep to those themes. Instead we get the same ideas that have been hashed and rehashed a million times in every tween girl flick ever made. Instead of trials and descent into the abyss we get a trite conflict between catty girls. Instead of learning to lead the people around her Twilight must get a makeover to be the prettiest. Instead of initiation to a higher plane of existence by the moral authority Twilight is initiated into the presence of some teenage buffoon.
Incidentally, romance has only ONCE been a theme in MLP and it was as a joke. Is getting the attention of some dude really the central idea around which we want our women to live their lives?
Anyways, some people will say I'm thinking too hard about this. My response is that those people aren't thinking hard enough. Stories matter: they are the expression of our desires, fantasies, and values.
Is this really what we value? It's not what the MLP TV series values, and this trailer is not cool with me.
Tuesday, March 5, 2013
Monomyth in Music: The Morrowind Theme Song
So I know I'm probably preaching to the choir out there when I say that The Elder Scrolls games are super 'mazinglicious, but I feel like I could add another level of appreciation to this great franchise. I'm going to interpret the opening theme of The Elder Scroll III: Morrowind in the framework of a monomyth (aka "the hero's journey," I prefer the term monomyth).
For those of you not in the know, the monomyth is a framework defined (not created) by Joseph Campbell in his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces. It has many parts and has had much said about it in the years since, and I'm going to use a weird mishmash of it that makes sense to me. You're probably going to get upset at this point and say that I'm full of bologna sandwiches, but that's just life and stuff.
In my mind the most important parts of the monomyth are
So there's the song, listen to it once, twice, or repeatedly until you fall asleep like I do. Here we go.
The first thing you hear at zero seconds is a drum breaking silence. It's easy to deduce that this is the call to adventure. The silence is the state that is broken by the sounding of a drum.
The step over the threshold into realms of power is indicated by the introductions of the strings into the mix. If we maintain that silence is considered to be the familiar state, then it should be obvious to conclude that by contrast stepping into a world full of wonderful, powerful sounds would indicate crossing the threshold*.
The first challenge begins around 0:35. The melody rises and falls as the hero is confronted with trials. Voices of instruments can be heard intermixing giving a feeling of the other stories that intersect with that of the hero. The most prominent of these is the horn. Just keep that in mind.
We progress through trials until about 1:10 when we enter the abyss. The tension mounts as the music swells, giving an indication of how the hero struggles in the abyss.
Fortunately he doesn't have to struggle long because he dies around 1:28 when the swell crests with the crash of a cymbal and a gloriously minor chord.
With death comes rebirth and atonement. From 1:28 to 1:33 a lot of things happen in the music all jammed into just 5 seconds. At the same time that the strings, which had been carrying the melody, are on a descending scale and diminuendo, the horn part plays an ascending scale while performing a crescendo to become the lead voice.
Now if we take the horn to be a symbol of majesty, power, and/or lordship, then this indicates the subservience of the hero to a greater power. In turn this highest power grants a boon and initiates the hero into a higher level of existence. This atonement causes the rebirth of the character. If you listen again you may also notice that the voice of the horn can always be heard, giving the sense that the highest power is present wherever the hero is, granting a certain kind of moral authority to the hero's task.
The following seconds indicate the return of the hero as he leaves the realms of power. The drums fade into the distance almost like something holding the hero, trying replicate the call once again, but it's not the drums that we hear last, but indeed, the strings. This indicates that the hero has returned home as a hero, bearing both the boon and increase in status granted during the atonement.
And that's that. Music is by its very nature an extremely abstract art form and it's very interesting to see when some of that abstraction lines up with some kind of narrative that resonates on an instinctual level. If you've read this far, I'm glad you granted me the time to talk about things that probably don't matter all that much, and I hope that your appreciation for The Elder Scrolls and music has increased in some way.
* For you more hardcore hero's journey analysts out there, I would say that between this point and 0:35 is the "meeting with the goddess."
For those of you not in the know, the monomyth is a framework defined (not created) by Joseph Campbell in his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces. It has many parts and has had much said about it in the years since, and I'm going to use a weird mishmash of it that makes sense to me. You're probably going to get upset at this point and say that I'm full of bologna sandwiches, but that's just life and stuff.
In my mind the most important parts of the monomyth are
- The call to adventure; the thing that pushes the hero from a static existence into something bigger.
- The threshold; the point where the hero leaves the familiar and enters into something else. This other place has been called many things: the wild, realms of power, realms of magic, etc.
- Challenges and temptations; the hero must pass through these in order to reach...
- The Abyss; the darkest moment in the hero's struggle. Usually the test that must be overcome to receive the boon.
- Death; caused by struggling in the abyss. Often death in stories is not literal so much as it is a shedding of something about themselves meaning that, in a sense, their old being is dead.
- Rebirth; once again, not always literal, but in the case of Gandalf vs Durin's Bane it is.
- Atonement; being initiated into a higher state by the ultimate power.
- Return; the return from the realms of power with a boon for the benefit of all.
So all we have to do is map these steps onto parts of the song and convince you that it makes sense. Easy, right?
So there's the song, listen to it once, twice, or repeatedly until you fall asleep like I do. Here we go.
The first thing you hear at zero seconds is a drum breaking silence. It's easy to deduce that this is the call to adventure. The silence is the state that is broken by the sounding of a drum.
The step over the threshold into realms of power is indicated by the introductions of the strings into the mix. If we maintain that silence is considered to be the familiar state, then it should be obvious to conclude that by contrast stepping into a world full of wonderful, powerful sounds would indicate crossing the threshold*.
The first challenge begins around 0:35. The melody rises and falls as the hero is confronted with trials. Voices of instruments can be heard intermixing giving a feeling of the other stories that intersect with that of the hero. The most prominent of these is the horn. Just keep that in mind.
We progress through trials until about 1:10 when we enter the abyss. The tension mounts as the music swells, giving an indication of how the hero struggles in the abyss.
Fortunately he doesn't have to struggle long because he dies around 1:28 when the swell crests with the crash of a cymbal and a gloriously minor chord.
With death comes rebirth and atonement. From 1:28 to 1:33 a lot of things happen in the music all jammed into just 5 seconds. At the same time that the strings, which had been carrying the melody, are on a descending scale and diminuendo, the horn part plays an ascending scale while performing a crescendo to become the lead voice.
Now if we take the horn to be a symbol of majesty, power, and/or lordship, then this indicates the subservience of the hero to a greater power. In turn this highest power grants a boon and initiates the hero into a higher level of existence. This atonement causes the rebirth of the character. If you listen again you may also notice that the voice of the horn can always be heard, giving the sense that the highest power is present wherever the hero is, granting a certain kind of moral authority to the hero's task.
The following seconds indicate the return of the hero as he leaves the realms of power. The drums fade into the distance almost like something holding the hero, trying replicate the call once again, but it's not the drums that we hear last, but indeed, the strings. This indicates that the hero has returned home as a hero, bearing both the boon and increase in status granted during the atonement.
And that's that. Music is by its very nature an extremely abstract art form and it's very interesting to see when some of that abstraction lines up with some kind of narrative that resonates on an instinctual level. If you've read this far, I'm glad you granted me the time to talk about things that probably don't matter all that much, and I hope that your appreciation for The Elder Scrolls and music has increased in some way.
* For you more hardcore hero's journey analysts out there, I would say that between this point and 0:35 is the "meeting with the goddess."
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