Consciousness Explained?!

Mkay, now I'm reading Consciousness Explained, by Daniel Dennett. Just started, but so far it seems promising.

Of Timeless Ways

I'm about half way through Timeless Way of Building and mostly enjoying it. I always appreciate approachable philosophic writing that attempts to bring forward complete systems of thought to critique human existence.

So far, I've enjoyed most Alexander's ideas about rhythm and process being prime in understanding life in general and how to help generate it. A space is made up of all the different routines that take place in it, and it is life generating or destroying dependent on how it affects the routines in that space.

Alexander also drives at an important element in all design or in all "building" as he might say: unity within diversity and diversity within unity. He's hit on the right trail about good design being interwoven with this principle, it is a way to give a set of things a similar and cohesive quality without ever making them the same.

As much as I'm enjoying it, I have some critiques as well. His impressions of rural European and gypsy life are inundated with a deep mixture of idealism and rose-tinted nostalgia. I have nothing in particular against Europeans and gypsies, but I hardly fancy that life in Europe is or ever was so free of things like war, displeasure and ennui as he seems to think. I mean, Europe invented ennui as far as I understand. Perhaps I digress, but I think though the impressions he calls up certainly sound like wonderful places to see, tour or even live, I know that they are not all completely free of darkness.

As an artist, I very much appreciate hand-crafted things, and the personality inherent in artwork versus mass-produced products, but I hardly think modernization and modern architecture are wholly to blame for a thinning of the human spirit. These things themselves emerge from forces within the human consciousness and from the pursuit of human life. Economic efficiency and productivity as, say, within the housing market all begin with human motivations of wanting to advance humanity, even if it's just wanting to advance oneself.

Alexander claims that the timeless way is egoless, one must step out of the way of the creation. I think this is true in a sense, but not because of the way Alexander seems to be phrasing it. Michelangelo famously discussed freeing his statues from the stone that imprisoned them, and my favorite director Miyazaki writes of coming to a point in creating a film at which the film begins to make him. Yet, they are masters and true artists, and their work is deeply marked with their intention and focus. I do not think the timeless way must be an egoless way in the strictest of interpretations, but simply a natural and compelling way. It is the point at which the thought in the creator's mind passes from "I will make a great X," to "I must work with my utmost skill to make the greatest X that I can." This removes pressure from making a great piece of art to doing great work, which is a process, as Alexander discusses, that gives way to good things.

I look forward to finishing it soon and having much more in-depth points.

I almost forgot. I rather like his book structure. It feels very natural, almost "timeless." Mostly, though, as a reader I enjoy the ability to go back and forth between reading the broad strokes the italicized portions create to examining the detail in the explanatory paragraphs. I feel more like I'm exploring a landscape or a space with this approach than simply reading a book. Or, perhaps I should say, he's giving the conceptualization a kind of multi-dimensionality or a scalability that gives it a more approachable presentation.

A Little Thought On Stories

I recently purchased the book Directing the Story by Francis Glebas, who did storyboard work for a number of Disney productions including Aladdin, The Lion King, Pocahontas and more. It's fascinating to read as Glebas presents the inner thoughts of the Disney story process. The mantra is that the director directs the story and through it, the audience's emotions with the goal of bringing about an emotionally satisfying ending. Glebas continually makes reference to the audience being "lost" in the story, if the film is well put together and the crew has done its job correctly.

Even more, though, a certain idea he presents caught my eye:

Many books that I have found on filmmaking say that we willingly suspend our disbelief when we watch a movie. There is no "willing suspension of disbelief."

Let's say I go to a movie. I buy a ticket—check. Buy popcorn—check. Find a seat—check. Willingly suspend my disbelief—what? I cannot remember ever going into a movie theater and willingly suspending my disbelief. I don't even know how. Belief is automatic. As long as the structure presents a filmic world that is seamless and doesn't break the spell by calling attention to itself, we get sucked into the world of the story.

While the nature of belief is worthy of its own long investigation, I think Glebas has a significant insight into the way we watch movies or read books. Why are we ever affected emotionally by fiction? Some works have deeper impacts on us than others, with impacts varying from passing glee or sorrow to a rich catharsis. But, the fact remains that they affect us.

In essence, I think Glebas is right, we don't "willingly suspend our disbelief" to watch or read stories, instead, we are all too ready to believe.

We believe because good stories are cast as little worlds or realities with their own rules and regulations, their own visual and narrative designs, a crystal rock whose intricacies refract and split the sunlight into infinite tiny beads of color that slide and dance as you tilt it.

Also, I'm beginning to wonder if the emotional impact of stories might not have something to do with my thoughts about the nature of perception as the most significant and basic act of the human being. There is obviously a perceptual difference between watching a movie about an explorer and being an explorer, but if these both document similar events, then we get to experience some small part of being an explorer when we watch the movie.

This may be messy, but basically stories/films/novels, allow us to experience the thoughts and emotions of being someone different. By being privy to the events in a character's life or the events of a plot arch, we become confidants of the narrative itself, like gazing through the intricacies of the crystal and take away the experience and insight into something that is at once smaller and larger than us.

P.S. - I recently checked out Timeless Way of Building, and plan to work through that in the next couple of weeks. Perhaps we'll have some good discussion out of it, your last post piqued my interest in it.

A General Theory of Love

I finished The Timeless Way of Building, and I'm currently reading A General Theory of Love, which seems promising.

I don't suppose you've read it?

The Final Word

Well, I think I probably enjoyed the book more than you did. But, Joseph Campbell is a name that I remember from childhood being associated with the original Star Wars (a defining interest in my youth) and, thus, with cool things. So, I'm glad I've finally thoroughly read one of his most famous manuscripts.

As to your critiques about lack of analysis, I wonder if it's just not as we've talked about before: the subject matter is very large, very general, and, thus, difficult to do specific and deep rigorous analyzing. I suppose one of my critiques is that the book does not have enough examples of mythology. No doubt trends and similarities can be found in the mythologies of different peoples from different places, but it seems one would have to compile a large number of myths to substantiate that. Campbell has a number, but I can't but have the feeling that the similarities ought to be more apparent than the examples he provides. But, that also requires getting past the extensive red tape of worthy translations to make valuable comparisons.

Also, I often had the sense that Campbell's thoughts are all only partially mature. While I agree with some of his claims, he seems to carry a grudge against the Christianity in the West at the time. The portion I read of Bill Moyer's interview with Campbell The Power of Myth showed a deeper and more fundamental understanding of myth, as well as a greater maturity about life. His claims and notions still were very broad, none too specific, but they had a more focused spirit, if you will. No doubt, much of this came with time, but it seemed to make a better crafted understanding, not one that seemed so loose.

You touched on this, and Campbell touches on this in the last chapter of the book, but one of the most fascinating issues about myth now is its modern predicament. What is its place in our culture? What does it mean to you and me, to your kids? It feels like we need new stories of mythology, new myths to guide us adapted to the modern framework. If they are stories to help show us our places in society and in the world, clearly views of the individual, society and the world have changed significantly in the past several thousand years, and that's where the tension comes in. It's like new wine in old wine bags, or misshapen gears trying to work together. There's a tension and a confusion about it all.

With that in mind, I think film has become the dominant storytelling medium of our society, and I think the best candidates for new mythologies come from that art form. There's always been something grand and substantial about films, especially played in movie theaters, like temples they enshrine the images of heroes and heroines whose perfect images are displayed in sizes larger than human life. In film, time moves in reflection of the plot, a single guiding line about one action or story, it is not burdened with the incarnational aspects of life (i.e. eating, sleeping, paying bills, using the restroom, bathing, working, relaxing; granted, I believe some of the best films and film characters do show and do these, but I'll not get too deep into that), rather, their lives flow in reference to a specific purpose or task. Music accompanies their journeys, and situations turn out fantastically perfect. All of this, of course, has been harmed by the ubiquitous nature of digital media and screens. So, now, you can watch the quest, but it's on your tv or computer monitor, much less monumental than the experience of seeing it in the cinema. Yet, still, I think it's the closest thing we've got to what our ancestors have.

Thus, in the end, pipe in hand, I've enjoyed this book and I'd like to read more of Campbell's work, especially the larger collections/compendiums of myths (The Masks of God series).

Thanks for reading!