There was this collector, he had all these paintings of renowned artists, each of them filled with wisdom beyond frontiers, and he was piling them up to the ceiling. He created a vast catalog so that he could find always the one he wanted among the thousand collected. He divided them into different rooms, he reorganized them several times, by topics, by quality, by author, by size and weight and material. He made a vast list and talked about them to all his friends.
He died without ever seeing any one of them...
...in detail.
Sometimes I wonder, if it would have been better if he had just one,
because by looking into just one
, attentively,
he would perhaps have gone farther
than collecting the thousands
he would never know.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Saturday, December 6, 2008
About life after death
(I wrote this to this forum)
I just wanted to say two things: first, regarding the meaning of life, it really doesn't matter if there is life after death, if God exists, etc., whatever is out there, each one of us must give it value or not. It doesn't matter that we are immortals created by God if we have to live according to principles with which we do not agree. Being slaves for eternity is not our only possibility. Instead we might wake up and question: "what do I think is valuable?" "what do I think is worth the trouble?" "what do I want to do, really?". This ability to be authentic is, in my experience, what gives life its ecstatic colors, without it, even if we were to live billions of years, surrounded by loving pears, everything would look like a kind of prison, or a dream. If we're not authentic, nothing around us will seem authentic.
So, freedom and authenticity is what gives life its meaning, the more awake we are, the more authentic and open to the World we are, the more we will enjoy life. And that is quite enough for me. If someone has a better motive to keep on living, I am happy for them and I would like to know it.
Secondly, regarding the lack of evidence for an after life:
What lack of evidence? Obviously, if you don't have legs you can't run. If you don't have a brain you can't memorize, add numbers, use your senses, etc. But the fact that I can't express myself in this world is no proof that I don't want to run, that I don't exist. I may be all about running although my body is in a wheelchair. I may dream of running, desire to run, think about running all the seconds of my life. No one will see it, but I will experience all these things about running anyway. The same may happen with the brain, although we might not be able to express ourselves without a working brain, although we cannot record memories or knowledge about things that didn't come through the senses, we might still be there even when the brain is not. All that we know about the brain is that it is an essential part of our body for us to interact intelligently with the world, there is no proved link that proves that brains generate consciousnesses.
I've lost my father and mother recently and my dad slowly lost his mental faculties. However, in my eyes at least, he did not loose his "spirit". By the contrary, my admiration for him just grew and grew in the final weeks I spent with him. He was becoming more giving, more abnegated, there was a happiness about him that illuminated me, a light in his eyes, a music about him, it was increasingly difficult to hear it, more subtle and filled with interferences, but it was ever more beautiful... And yet, towards the end, he couldn't even play a simple game of dominoes.
It's like if you hear Mozart on a cheap radio, it might look bad, there might be interferences, cuts in the audio, high distortion, etc. But that does not mean that there was something wrong with what Mozart's was attempting ot say. There is a big difference between what we experience, what we are, and what we can express. In some circumstances we can listen beyond the static and the distortion, we can listen to what the music means, how it was meant to be played, and then you understand, not so much what you hear, but what Mozart is trying to tell you, what was at the source of his creativity. This is certainly a much more intense experience than any high-end audiophile system can provide.
The brain is certainly a tool to express feelings, thoughts, to make plans, to interact with others. If that fails, the expression of who we are and what we want fails abysmally. But that says nothing about who we really are.
My father was in a coma, when we "came back" he was different, his eyes shone with greater joy, a joy that shone through is decaying body.
Now, I am not saying that we should believe that there is life after death, but when we look at scientific facts, they really don't tell much. If you check the studies made by Delanoy, Hutts and Hyman, you will see that there is pretty consistent evidence to show that some people at least have ESP (extrasensory perception). This is not wishful thinking, these are the results of more than a hundred years of closely monitored studies, in many parts of the world by many different teams of researchers. The apparent ability of plants to feel what goes around them (studied by Cleve Backster), or the claim by Masaru Emoto that good and bad vibes may influence reality at atomic levels, were never really addressed by the scientific community. MacDougall's assertion that the human soul weighted 21 grams also passed unscrutinized, although when Lewiss Holander made a similar experiment using cows he found out that the weight actually increased in the moment of death.
But the largest obstacle that a reductive explanation of consciousness faces (that is asserting that consciousness is solely the result of brain functions) is that no conceivable explanation has been offered for "how does a material substance generates conscious experiences?". Although there have been immense efforts in this area, and many hypothesys have been raised to serve as "neural correlates of consciousness", neuroscientists, philosophers, or any person for that matter, as failed to come up with a conceivable device that creates conscious states.
So, as a matter of fact, conscious states, conscious experience is a mystery, and scientific evidence is by far not conclusive on whether or not the brain produces, by itself, conscious states. In other words, taking into account all the scientific evidence we have available, we cannot reach a strong position on whether or not there is life after life.
On a more personal note I would have to say that I have experiences many times the ability to sync-up with friends and relatives, even if I don't have empirical contact with them for months. I cannot know what they are thinking, but most of the time I can know a part of what they are feeling if I focus on them with a clear mind (no emotional hurdles may be present - stillness is required, it's a very subtle sensation). I have met many people in my life that have that ability, and, as far as I can say, it works pretty well. Also, many people have experienced "Life after Life": Raymond Moody made an interesting documentary with interviews on some of these people, studies that have been replicated sometimes, including by a recent study by nurse working with dying people. This all falls in the category of "personal experiences" because we have no technological detector of out of the body experiences (or any kind of conscious experiences, by the way - how can I know for sure that there is anyone else that is (not) conscious in the universe?).
So, although I cannot commit to any thesis regarding life after death from a scientific point of view (the data is not enough and not studied enough), from a personal point of view, I sincerely have no doubt that the reality we capture with our senses is just a small fragment of what there is. My homo sapiens brain can't make much sense of all of this, so I just have to live with uncertainty, but living the mystery, I find, is not such a bad thing.
Now, what science is really adamant about is regarding it's scientific method and the expulsion of every kind of magical thinking. We must realize that science was strangled by religious thinkers, both in Europe and the Muslim world. Galileo and others were able to shut off the religious, dogmatic, magical way of thinking, and, in its stead, they have placed critical thinking, freedom of speech, experience as a way to test our theories. The "supernatural" had to be taken out of respectable intelligent discourse, if we had any hope of deciphering the mysteries of the world. We had to replace fear with careful vision.
Unfortunately all this criticism and testing fails when the foundations of the current scientific method are at stake. Because many scientists believe that if we let a mysterious and unanalyzable thing like consciousness into the midst of respectable, authoritative thinking, we will be inviting all the superstitions and the supernatural that was the basis of the Dark Ages to go back in again. It is like if we had spent hundreds of years saying to people «you don't have to be scared, you can look at the world without the spectacles of religion and question, really, what is this all about, with no preconceived ideas, phantoms or fears» and now we will let in again the ghosts of fear, rewards and punishments of the after-life, etc, all the magical way of thinking threatening to destroy all the clarity that man as accomplished in the last four centuries. Besides, it would be a terrible blow to any view of science as completable endeavour. For things like consciousness or free will seem to be beyond the scope of logical analysis. The idea of freedom for instance, is something that has no cause, but is also not random. How do we create a logical notion of something that does not have a cause but is also not random? Regarding consciousness, we cannot even begin to describe it. No theory we know of could describe to a blind man what color feels like. Experiences don't fit into words, although a star like the sun or the whole Milky Way could fit quite easily there, with all their detailed physical properties.
Conclusion - the problem of consciousness, or the problem of the after-life, is not so much decided on the basis of empirical evidence, for we have no concluding evidence for either side; it is generally decided on the basis of our position regarding science and religion. Unfortunately, in the name of clear thinking and critical reasoning, we are now under the pressure of the same dogmatic attitude that Galileo, Giordano Bruno and many others had to face. Many research areas are simply ignored, many scientific results are discredit just because they are "too absurd". Today, we are given the following choice: either we trust science and became "smart and skeptical", or we trust the "inner self" and go towards religion to become superstitious and confused. Alternatively we may just leave behind the orthodox choice and accept that we are just too little and limited to understand the big picture. I for one, prefer to live the mystery rather than to pretend that I know what I do not know.
In any case, the joy of life is just to "be yourself"... it is completely irrelevant if there is life after death or not, and, in any case, even if God himself came upon you and told you, you could not be absolutely sure about it. We don't even "know" for sure if we're just part of a simulation!!!
I just wanted to say two things: first, regarding the meaning of life, it really doesn't matter if there is life after death, if God exists, etc., whatever is out there, each one of us must give it value or not. It doesn't matter that we are immortals created by God if we have to live according to principles with which we do not agree. Being slaves for eternity is not our only possibility. Instead we might wake up and question: "what do I think is valuable?" "what do I think is worth the trouble?" "what do I want to do, really?". This ability to be authentic is, in my experience, what gives life its ecstatic colors, without it, even if we were to live billions of years, surrounded by loving pears, everything would look like a kind of prison, or a dream. If we're not authentic, nothing around us will seem authentic.
So, freedom and authenticity is what gives life its meaning, the more awake we are, the more authentic and open to the World we are, the more we will enjoy life. And that is quite enough for me. If someone has a better motive to keep on living, I am happy for them and I would like to know it.
Secondly, regarding the lack of evidence for an after life:
What lack of evidence? Obviously, if you don't have legs you can't run. If you don't have a brain you can't memorize, add numbers, use your senses, etc. But the fact that I can't express myself in this world is no proof that I don't want to run, that I don't exist. I may be all about running although my body is in a wheelchair. I may dream of running, desire to run, think about running all the seconds of my life. No one will see it, but I will experience all these things about running anyway. The same may happen with the brain, although we might not be able to express ourselves without a working brain, although we cannot record memories or knowledge about things that didn't come through the senses, we might still be there even when the brain is not. All that we know about the brain is that it is an essential part of our body for us to interact intelligently with the world, there is no proved link that proves that brains generate consciousnesses.
I've lost my father and mother recently and my dad slowly lost his mental faculties. However, in my eyes at least, he did not loose his "spirit". By the contrary, my admiration for him just grew and grew in the final weeks I spent with him. He was becoming more giving, more abnegated, there was a happiness about him that illuminated me, a light in his eyes, a music about him, it was increasingly difficult to hear it, more subtle and filled with interferences, but it was ever more beautiful... And yet, towards the end, he couldn't even play a simple game of dominoes.
It's like if you hear Mozart on a cheap radio, it might look bad, there might be interferences, cuts in the audio, high distortion, etc. But that does not mean that there was something wrong with what Mozart's was attempting ot say. There is a big difference between what we experience, what we are, and what we can express. In some circumstances we can listen beyond the static and the distortion, we can listen to what the music means, how it was meant to be played, and then you understand, not so much what you hear, but what Mozart is trying to tell you, what was at the source of his creativity. This is certainly a much more intense experience than any high-end audiophile system can provide.
The brain is certainly a tool to express feelings, thoughts, to make plans, to interact with others. If that fails, the expression of who we are and what we want fails abysmally. But that says nothing about who we really are.
My father was in a coma, when we "came back" he was different, his eyes shone with greater joy, a joy that shone through is decaying body.
Now, I am not saying that we should believe that there is life after death, but when we look at scientific facts, they really don't tell much. If you check the studies made by Delanoy, Hutts and Hyman, you will see that there is pretty consistent evidence to show that some people at least have ESP (extrasensory perception). This is not wishful thinking, these are the results of more than a hundred years of closely monitored studies, in many parts of the world by many different teams of researchers. The apparent ability of plants to feel what goes around them (studied by Cleve Backster), or the claim by Masaru Emoto that good and bad vibes may influence reality at atomic levels, were never really addressed by the scientific community. MacDougall's assertion that the human soul weighted 21 grams also passed unscrutinized, although when Lewiss Holander made a similar experiment using cows he found out that the weight actually increased in the moment of death.
But the largest obstacle that a reductive explanation of consciousness faces (that is asserting that consciousness is solely the result of brain functions) is that no conceivable explanation has been offered for "how does a material substance generates conscious experiences?". Although there have been immense efforts in this area, and many hypothesys have been raised to serve as "neural correlates of consciousness", neuroscientists, philosophers, or any person for that matter, as failed to come up with a conceivable device that creates conscious states.
So, as a matter of fact, conscious states, conscious experience is a mystery, and scientific evidence is by far not conclusive on whether or not the brain produces, by itself, conscious states. In other words, taking into account all the scientific evidence we have available, we cannot reach a strong position on whether or not there is life after life.
On a more personal note I would have to say that I have experiences many times the ability to sync-up with friends and relatives, even if I don't have empirical contact with them for months. I cannot know what they are thinking, but most of the time I can know a part of what they are feeling if I focus on them with a clear mind (no emotional hurdles may be present - stillness is required, it's a very subtle sensation). I have met many people in my life that have that ability, and, as far as I can say, it works pretty well. Also, many people have experienced "Life after Life": Raymond Moody made an interesting documentary with interviews on some of these people, studies that have been replicated sometimes, including by a recent study by nurse working with dying people. This all falls in the category of "personal experiences" because we have no technological detector of out of the body experiences (or any kind of conscious experiences, by the way - how can I know for sure that there is anyone else that is (not) conscious in the universe?).
So, although I cannot commit to any thesis regarding life after death from a scientific point of view (the data is not enough and not studied enough), from a personal point of view, I sincerely have no doubt that the reality we capture with our senses is just a small fragment of what there is. My homo sapiens brain can't make much sense of all of this, so I just have to live with uncertainty, but living the mystery, I find, is not such a bad thing.
Now, what science is really adamant about is regarding it's scientific method and the expulsion of every kind of magical thinking. We must realize that science was strangled by religious thinkers, both in Europe and the Muslim world. Galileo and others were able to shut off the religious, dogmatic, magical way of thinking, and, in its stead, they have placed critical thinking, freedom of speech, experience as a way to test our theories. The "supernatural" had to be taken out of respectable intelligent discourse, if we had any hope of deciphering the mysteries of the world. We had to replace fear with careful vision.
Unfortunately all this criticism and testing fails when the foundations of the current scientific method are at stake. Because many scientists believe that if we let a mysterious and unanalyzable thing like consciousness into the midst of respectable, authoritative thinking, we will be inviting all the superstitions and the supernatural that was the basis of the Dark Ages to go back in again. It is like if we had spent hundreds of years saying to people «you don't have to be scared, you can look at the world without the spectacles of religion and question, really, what is this all about, with no preconceived ideas, phantoms or fears» and now we will let in again the ghosts of fear, rewards and punishments of the after-life, etc, all the magical way of thinking threatening to destroy all the clarity that man as accomplished in the last four centuries. Besides, it would be a terrible blow to any view of science as completable endeavour. For things like consciousness or free will seem to be beyond the scope of logical analysis. The idea of freedom for instance, is something that has no cause, but is also not random. How do we create a logical notion of something that does not have a cause but is also not random? Regarding consciousness, we cannot even begin to describe it. No theory we know of could describe to a blind man what color feels like. Experiences don't fit into words, although a star like the sun or the whole Milky Way could fit quite easily there, with all their detailed physical properties.
Conclusion - the problem of consciousness, or the problem of the after-life, is not so much decided on the basis of empirical evidence, for we have no concluding evidence for either side; it is generally decided on the basis of our position regarding science and religion. Unfortunately, in the name of clear thinking and critical reasoning, we are now under the pressure of the same dogmatic attitude that Galileo, Giordano Bruno and many others had to face. Many research areas are simply ignored, many scientific results are discredit just because they are "too absurd". Today, we are given the following choice: either we trust science and became "smart and skeptical", or we trust the "inner self" and go towards religion to become superstitious and confused. Alternatively we may just leave behind the orthodox choice and accept that we are just too little and limited to understand the big picture. I for one, prefer to live the mystery rather than to pretend that I know what I do not know.
In any case, the joy of life is just to "be yourself"... it is completely irrelevant if there is life after death or not, and, in any case, even if God himself came upon you and told you, you could not be absolutely sure about it. We don't even "know" for sure if we're just part of a simulation!!!
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Speed Racer - culture and conter culture
I saw this movie, Speed Racer, intermingled with some images from Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut. Somehow they seemed similar, both presented lustful images, arresting images, both subtly seemed to imply that all of that is not enough. You need to remain free in all this ballet of masks, you cannot forget who you are, your inner hearing, the ability to see behind appearances. In Speed Racer the hero uses this ability to magically know that the car will start if he engages the fifth gear. But the marvellous aspect of that motion picture, is the way it exposes, in luscurious detail, all the sins in which we give in to the Devil. (the movie actually employs this word, and "religion" too)
The plentiful colors, the vibrant technology, the loving lover, the adoration of fans, the chance to save your family, the deep relation with the brother, being loved by all the family... everything, from peanut sandwiches, to amazing cars and cities, imense racing tracks, amazing abilities, notorious feats, villains easy to win, etc. Everything appears as perfect as we could wish with only one fault: the perfection seems to ruin everything. Usually we want to improve things, we fight against excess cold, warmth, we want water, food, money, a spouse, all the things that we blame on our not being entirely and utterly happy.
But here you are immersed by an avalanche of goods. There is too much of everything, and then you realize: they are not really that happy! They are just the same, with their dreams and aspirations and illusions, ups and downs... The Matrix is exposed again. This time with no obvious solution in the horizon (as it should be - because no one grows following footsteps).
Why should I keep going, now that I know that I will not change the nature of the game, that friends and foes are driven by the same principles?
"Sorry. That's for you to figure out. I just hope, when you do, I'm there to see it."
There are no easy replies in the movie for the ultimate question it asks: "why should I go one to live in a Matrix?" - but it beautifully shows the Matrix we live in, without criticizing it, loving it, caring for it, but at the same time showing it is just baloney, fake, it can never give us what we are searching for. But all these more complex quibbles stay away, unrepresented.
I feel this movie is in line, not only with Kubrick's movies, but also with the "Chronicles of Riddick" all of them opposing the repressive power of the system (society, desires, prisons, concepts) hinting to the hidden world of what lies beyond the mind, not exactly at our fingertips, but in the realm of our consciousness. All we have to do is trust the inner soul and let the world (both inner and outer) happen.
It is interesting to notice how our mainstream culture keeps us engaged, while the "counter" culture (although part of the same) tries to disengage us from culture to engage us at a deeper level. But, in almost every case, we are always wanting for the same, greater contact with the biggest Lover, we want to Understand, to be one with, Existence...
Deeper and deeper..., the rabit hole goes...
The plentiful colors, the vibrant technology, the loving lover, the adoration of fans, the chance to save your family, the deep relation with the brother, being loved by all the family... everything, from peanut sandwiches, to amazing cars and cities, imense racing tracks, amazing abilities, notorious feats, villains easy to win, etc. Everything appears as perfect as we could wish with only one fault: the perfection seems to ruin everything. Usually we want to improve things, we fight against excess cold, warmth, we want water, food, money, a spouse, all the things that we blame on our not being entirely and utterly happy.
But here you are immersed by an avalanche of goods. There is too much of everything, and then you realize: they are not really that happy! They are just the same, with their dreams and aspirations and illusions, ups and downs... The Matrix is exposed again. This time with no obvious solution in the horizon (as it should be - because no one grows following footsteps).
Why should I keep going, now that I know that I will not change the nature of the game, that friends and foes are driven by the same principles?
"Sorry. That's for you to figure out. I just hope, when you do, I'm there to see it."
There are no easy replies in the movie for the ultimate question it asks: "why should I go one to live in a Matrix?" - but it beautifully shows the Matrix we live in, without criticizing it, loving it, caring for it, but at the same time showing it is just baloney, fake, it can never give us what we are searching for. But all these more complex quibbles stay away, unrepresented.
I feel this movie is in line, not only with Kubrick's movies, but also with the "Chronicles of Riddick" all of them opposing the repressive power of the system (society, desires, prisons, concepts) hinting to the hidden world of what lies beyond the mind, not exactly at our fingertips, but in the realm of our consciousness. All we have to do is trust the inner soul and let the world (both inner and outer) happen.
It is interesting to notice how our mainstream culture keeps us engaged, while the "counter" culture (although part of the same) tries to disengage us from culture to engage us at a deeper level. But, in almost every case, we are always wanting for the same, greater contact with the biggest Lover, we want to Understand, to be one with, Existence...
Deeper and deeper..., the rabit hole goes...
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Raymond Kurzweil
This guy is a genius with probably a little nuttiness in between (probably the good kind of nutiness, in a Ratatoille (the rat) way). He enriches our thoughts about the short term future (less than a thousand years from now), raising very interesting and thought provoking hypothesis. However he has a view of death which is quite peculiar:
"...death is a tragedy. That is our instinctive reaction and that reaction is correct. In my view it is not death that gives life meaning. Life gives life meaning. The creation of knowledge in all its forms (art, music, science, etc.) and relationships gives life meaning. And death is disruptive of that." (source found on wikipedia)He praises immortality as if it is a good thing. Well, I wonder how much time he takes to get bored of a particular state of mind. But if he his talking about maintaining abilities and memories, well, we've already done it to a large extent: it's called language and it's main result - culture!
Monday, November 17, 2008
Regarding copyright
(this was posted on isohunt, a p2p forum currently being prosecuted by the MPAA and RIA)
I think that there are two things everyone agrees with:
1) Man is distinct from animals because he has the ability to think;
2) Thinkers and people who promote that ability should be rewarded in a prosperous human society.
Now for this reason it seems abundantly clear that scientists, artists and researchers of every sort should be well rewarded in today's society, especially those who go further, who discover something new, something that works. In the case of artists: those that create "quality" art. The kind of art that leads us to new places, that makes us evolve and see life in a new way.
Now, with scientists and other thinkers we have no problems today, after the second world war governments and enterprises all over the world get their services and pay them accordingly.
But artists are not getting the same feedback from their creativity. For two different reasons:
- the problem of paying more to the "fast-food" artists: most artists are sold through advertising, the ones that get more money are usually not the best, but the ones that are more promoted, those who get more publicity. Some of them sound awful and we would not take notice of their art if we didn't know it was made by them. Truly good works of art should be appealing and rewarding even if they had no "brand"" on them. they should speak for themselves.
- the problem of "where did the money go?": most money goes into the pockets of people who just copy and distribute what the artist made (the companies and labels). This is reinforced by the fact that current copyright laws do not make the artist the owner of what he has made. The company is the legal owner in spite of generally not having had any creative part in its birth.
These two aspects end up by economically strangling the "good" artists, those that just don't follow a formula, but are creating something new (I am speaking particularly about independent and alternative artists).
Now the net released the grip of the companies over the artistic production. It has more or less implicitly provided an alternative source of incoming for all artists which is direct donation. A band or person puts his works of art on display on the net for billions of users to see and enjoy. Some of them will want to contribute back through economic donations, showing the approval of the work and the want to have more.
This new model of financing the artists is much more efficient: it almost completely eliminates the "middle man", it provides access to much more artists, it provides a much better way of assessing who "deserves" the more money: those that have really "touched" us.
Now this does not apply to big hollywood productions, but then, with the development of cheaper technology, it will be gradually easier to produce stunning motion pictures without much money. Music studios can be generally replaced by a cheap pc, perhaps something like that will happen with movies in two or three decades.
Now, to me it seems clear, that the well-to-do people who made millions or billions in the music, tv and movie industry, are the ones that have something to loose. What they are seeing is a completely new model of refinancing the artist in which they are completely excluded. There is no need for a music industry anymore, or for book publishers. As musicians or writers can simply put their works on the web for the general consumption.
Now, to societies, it is of the utmost interest that many, good-quality, artistic creations be available to the widest audience. Art is what helps to guide the values of society. There is nothing more important to the evolution of a human society than to be clear about what is valuable and worth pursuing. Art makes us go deep into our hearts, to discover new ways of feeling and seeing the world. It helps us to heal our sores, to become more tolerant and wise, to see more and with more detail the inner recesses of the human soul. Art is no less important than technology or science. It should be well protected and developed.
Today's corporations are interested in profits, they put a sail on the winds of artistic creation, and try to get some profit from it. The best for their profit is to create a culture of scarcity so that we will be "hungry" for what they got to give, and we will be ready to pay them big time. But the scarcity is very damaging to our societies, especially when we now have an alternative which can reward the artist directly. we should not forget that it is the ability to think that distinguishes us from other species, we should take the greatest care that we maintain this ability as clear, sharp and wide as possible.
The future:
We should create a society in which we are taught to donate, to give back to those that have given us. Without this, if we are all "greedy", big corporations will continue to flourish. Ultimately, they rely on our own selfishness. Our economy relies on balancing selfish actions and desires, we must create a niche of gratitude and donation. If we are able to do this, then the corporations will crumble for the artists themselves will prefer the free web. It is the gratitude of consumers who will make a difference (or fail to do so).
This change of attitude can be done by giving the example, by talking about it, etc, but it is also necessary to create a practical way of materially rewarding the artists. To give just one example, I love Regina Spektor, her music has changed my life. Yet I have no way of donating to her, I can buy some of her musics on her "MySpace" page, but half of the money will go to other people, and if I buy one of her CDs, then even less will go to her. But I don't feel indebted to any of those distributors, I don't even remember how I got in touch with her music in the first place. I would like to pay her, only! So... as long as the artists don't provide ways for us to make direct donations, someone should build a page with a bank account into which we can make deposits or paypal payments addressed to a particular artist. And then that someone would take like 0,1% or something and give the rest to the artist in question. Everything should be very transparent and public. One could make a living just by redistributing money to the artist in this fashion. I think that there are a lot of people like me, who feel grateful and would like to retribute in some way what was given to them.
On a final, personal note:
I don't feel like I have taken any money from any big corporation, I don't see tv and I don't listen to "mtv-music". I am a student with very limited financial resources at this time. I like reading and if every contemporary work of art was forbidden, as these rich guys would want to, I would simply read Plato and Plotino from the library, and would be even more distanced from all this consumerist society than what I already am. The free net is what connects me to this century.
I think that there are two things everyone agrees with:
1) Man is distinct from animals because he has the ability to think;
2) Thinkers and people who promote that ability should be rewarded in a prosperous human society.
Now for this reason it seems abundantly clear that scientists, artists and researchers of every sort should be well rewarded in today's society, especially those who go further, who discover something new, something that works. In the case of artists: those that create "quality" art. The kind of art that leads us to new places, that makes us evolve and see life in a new way.
Now, with scientists and other thinkers we have no problems today, after the second world war governments and enterprises all over the world get their services and pay them accordingly.
But artists are not getting the same feedback from their creativity. For two different reasons:
- the problem of paying more to the "fast-food" artists: most artists are sold through advertising, the ones that get more money are usually not the best, but the ones that are more promoted, those who get more publicity. Some of them sound awful and we would not take notice of their art if we didn't know it was made by them. Truly good works of art should be appealing and rewarding even if they had no "brand"" on them. they should speak for themselves.
- the problem of "where did the money go?": most money goes into the pockets of people who just copy and distribute what the artist made (the companies and labels). This is reinforced by the fact that current copyright laws do not make the artist the owner of what he has made. The company is the legal owner in spite of generally not having had any creative part in its birth.
These two aspects end up by economically strangling the "good" artists, those that just don't follow a formula, but are creating something new (I am speaking particularly about independent and alternative artists).
Now the net released the grip of the companies over the artistic production. It has more or less implicitly provided an alternative source of incoming for all artists which is direct donation. A band or person puts his works of art on display on the net for billions of users to see and enjoy. Some of them will want to contribute back through economic donations, showing the approval of the work and the want to have more.
This new model of financing the artists is much more efficient: it almost completely eliminates the "middle man", it provides access to much more artists, it provides a much better way of assessing who "deserves" the more money: those that have really "touched" us.
Now this does not apply to big hollywood productions, but then, with the development of cheaper technology, it will be gradually easier to produce stunning motion pictures without much money. Music studios can be generally replaced by a cheap pc, perhaps something like that will happen with movies in two or three decades.
Now, to me it seems clear, that the well-to-do people who made millions or billions in the music, tv and movie industry, are the ones that have something to loose. What they are seeing is a completely new model of refinancing the artist in which they are completely excluded. There is no need for a music industry anymore, or for book publishers. As musicians or writers can simply put their works on the web for the general consumption.
Now, to societies, it is of the utmost interest that many, good-quality, artistic creations be available to the widest audience. Art is what helps to guide the values of society. There is nothing more important to the evolution of a human society than to be clear about what is valuable and worth pursuing. Art makes us go deep into our hearts, to discover new ways of feeling and seeing the world. It helps us to heal our sores, to become more tolerant and wise, to see more and with more detail the inner recesses of the human soul. Art is no less important than technology or science. It should be well protected and developed.
Today's corporations are interested in profits, they put a sail on the winds of artistic creation, and try to get some profit from it. The best for their profit is to create a culture of scarcity so that we will be "hungry" for what they got to give, and we will be ready to pay them big time. But the scarcity is very damaging to our societies, especially when we now have an alternative which can reward the artist directly. we should not forget that it is the ability to think that distinguishes us from other species, we should take the greatest care that we maintain this ability as clear, sharp and wide as possible.
The future:
We should create a society in which we are taught to donate, to give back to those that have given us. Without this, if we are all "greedy", big corporations will continue to flourish. Ultimately, they rely on our own selfishness. Our economy relies on balancing selfish actions and desires, we must create a niche of gratitude and donation. If we are able to do this, then the corporations will crumble for the artists themselves will prefer the free web. It is the gratitude of consumers who will make a difference (or fail to do so).
This change of attitude can be done by giving the example, by talking about it, etc, but it is also necessary to create a practical way of materially rewarding the artists. To give just one example, I love Regina Spektor, her music has changed my life. Yet I have no way of donating to her, I can buy some of her musics on her "MySpace" page, but half of the money will go to other people, and if I buy one of her CDs, then even less will go to her. But I don't feel indebted to any of those distributors, I don't even remember how I got in touch with her music in the first place. I would like to pay her, only! So... as long as the artists don't provide ways for us to make direct donations, someone should build a page with a bank account into which we can make deposits or paypal payments addressed to a particular artist. And then that someone would take like 0,1% or something and give the rest to the artist in question. Everything should be very transparent and public. One could make a living just by redistributing money to the artist in this fashion. I think that there are a lot of people like me, who feel grateful and would like to retribute in some way what was given to them.
On a final, personal note:
I don't feel like I have taken any money from any big corporation, I don't see tv and I don't listen to "mtv-music". I am a student with very limited financial resources at this time. I like reading and if every contemporary work of art was forbidden, as these rich guys would want to, I would simply read Plato and Plotino from the library, and would be even more distanced from all this consumerist society than what I already am. The free net is what connects me to this century.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
comment on Regina Spektor's "Buildings"
this was written to and appears in the context of the following page:
http://www.songmeanings.net/songs/view/3530822107858504412/
http://www.songmeanings.net/songs/view/3530822107858504412/
Wow, almost everything has been said (including lacrimosa's description of the tall buildings, but almost all comments have amazing insight and speak for themselves).
I'm just going to add what's different in my impression: I think it is difficult to understand this song as a direct description of a husband-wife relation. People are together for many reasons but it is mainly because they want to (it gives them pleasure or because they think they should), or getting out makes them afraid (of being alone, loosing social or economic status, etc). When one of us is alcoholic or getting into trouble the relation gets a complex change that is not reflected in this song (for instance good memories mix with present deception, a will to fly away mixes with wanting to cuddle, etc).
So it seems to me that this is the view of a son or a daughter, that is anxious to get out and live is life, he looks at his parents lives and sees them as getting stuck in the sift of time. He sees them as always repeating the same mistakes, going over and over again the same states of mind, giving time to each other, but just repeating the same things all over again.
The son (or daughter), looking at their parents miserable (to him) life realizes: time cannot be given. You cannot ask for time. No one can. You are waiting for your life to happen, but time is going on anyway and you are the one not being sifted in the sift of time. You are stopped, in the inner walls of your house and life, you can't move on, and everything else is around you, happening, evolving, etc.
So, the child realizes, time is not given, time is not taken, it is just passing along, sifting from the ones who want to change with it, who go along, and those who got caught in the past. This child then breaks away from what he/she sees as their parents circular (or even vicious) relation, and gets out.
The final words, disconnected, is like the child getting away, understanding his parent's life, and, because he understands it so well, at the very core, he can let it go. He has lived it, he has been through it, done that, so he can move on.
Of course, he really does not understand what is going on. Spouse relations may seem very dull and dry from the outside but, most of the time, they are full of light and freedom and adventure in the inside.
Another thing I would like to add is that there is a slight ambiguity in the song. It is clear that the explicit meaning is of an alcoholic wife, but there are also some hidden suggestions or hints at a sexually abusing husband:
"in the car he would lean her head gently against the side door window"
may be a subtle reference to sex in the back seat, and the following line
"And in the bathroom he would hold her hair back and hope"
Seems so close to "hold her hair back and forth"
I'm not saying the Regina though about this, but, you know, it's really easy to imagine this, and when you do the lyrics is complemented: you understand *why* the wife get's drunk all the time. She is not loved, she is simply used. The husband saying "Oh, oh it's okay" would now also have a double interpretation: he seems to tolerate her, or even to apparently support her in her role, but not really to *be" with her, to love her to her most inner core, to see her as the most beautiful thing ever (and without this "love" is just an empty shell).
This actually opens an interesting perspective on the song's meaning. What does "love" means? What is the difference between making love and using the person for sexual gratification?
I think what "true" love provides is what Kant said: we should treat others as ends in themselves. That means, not as a means to an end, but as an end in himself or herself. When we put the other above everything else and treat him/her as an end in himself/herself we are loving them.
In this perspective we are all turned into instruments (not loved) when we put success, economical development, technology, gadgets, etc, above what we want and who we are. Instead of being an end, we become just a means to get something (money, glory, friends, food, etc). We disrespect our inner being to get something outside of us. So the "they build building so tall these days" could also refer to the mesmerizing beauty of today's technology and scientific achievements. Some of us are so mesmerized by this beauty, that we follow, hypnotized as if we had no free will, the trends and fashions and best paying jobs. We become slaves to the system. And, because we become instruments to get the best place in it, we start begging for time, asking for time, time to be ourselves...
In this sense this song would apply to all of us. We are all asking for time, giving ourselves more time: perhaps tomorrow I'll do what I like, perhaps tomorrow I'll follow my dreams, perhaps tomorrow I'll break free from all this non-sense that interests me no more... perhaps... more time, more time...
But time is not given, time is not taken,
Time just sifts through its sift
And either you're with it, flowing with it, or you sit in its sift.
In a breaking moment.
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