"These delusions are running wild.
Hopping on an express train,
I am coming to see you."
I would like to talk about two kinds of magic today. Unfortunately, there is nothing charming, attractive or surprising about the phenomena discussed below. They are but semi-interesting discoveries of the mechanism of the mind, some kind of trick that the brain plays on itself if you will.
Hopping on an express train,
I am coming to see you."
I would like to talk about two kinds of magic today. Unfortunately, there is nothing charming, attractive or surprising about the phenomena discussed below. They are but semi-interesting discoveries of the mechanism of the mind, some kind of trick that the brain plays on itself if you will.
1. Desire, Obsession and Possession
What do you want?
That was quite a demanding question, and one would normally infer a rather hostile tone from reading this sentence. Indeed, this is what a stereotypical protagonist would exclaim, in desperation to overcome evil. As I have discussed in the previous posts, wishing largely stems from greed. Desires and wants, being one step further, seems to undeniably have intricate links with selfishness. And, true to the usage of the word, when one is unable to control his desires, he is considered an evil or insane person.
I feel like I have to interject here with the thought that a person being evil does not necessitate hatred towards the person, since it is the natural predisposition of someone, and that cannot be helped. Nietzsche remarked on the fact that actions done based on love are "beyond good and evil", but as I often observe, all aspects of the human mind is, in fact, beyond what a shallow distinction of morality can cover, but I digress.
I feel like I have to interject here with the thought that a person being evil does not necessitate hatred towards the person, since it is the natural predisposition of someone, and that cannot be helped. Nietzsche remarked on the fact that actions done based on love are "beyond good and evil", but as I often observe, all aspects of the human mind is, in fact, beyond what a shallow distinction of morality can cover, but I digress.
Despite the complexity of the brain, one can only have a limited amount of thoughts. The mind, at any instant, or even over a period of time, is unfortunately finite (giving rise to such fantasies as instrumentality). It follows that there is a finite amount of desires one can have. Surely, in a semi-socialist society, where individual desires are often suppressed, it is not detrimental to obsess over a wide range of things? Yet we see people running wild with desires all over the world: Money, power, affection, carnal desires to say the least. Why are we so irrational about desires, and are so willing to destroy our rationality (or, towards an extreme, sanity) over it?
What happens when the finite amount of desires a person has gets fulfilled? Of course, quantitatively, once some desires are sated, the person concerned would be in a position that is better off than previously. Does this mean that his desires will hitherto be diminished? This is often (counter-intuitively) proven false, as one seeks more after one desire is sated, tying back to the fact that wishes are never fulfilled in the most perfect means. In fact, it is often the case that the more one gets satisfied, the more he desires, as seen from the fact that the rich are often the most greedy, the higher-ups the most power-hungry.
This is the first delusion that our minds play constantly: The delusion of satisfaction. From the fact that the rate of generation of desires is proportional to the satisfaction of desires, we can deduce an exponential growth of needs as a person lives and strives to satisfy himself, rather like an uncontrolled nuclear reaction. The way out here, then, seems to be to not start this reaction at all, to have no desire for satisfaction. Indeed this is why resistance to temptations is a fundamental axiom to many moral doctrines.
But I am not here to preach moral standards. To be honest, I am quite against these kinds of so-called moral doctrines that strangle human nature. I am here to highlight this observation, to examine it rationally, and perhaps to offer some solace to people who have their desires unfulfilled constantly. Autonomy lies central in the beauty of human nature (if there is any such beauty in this rather imperfect construct anyway). At the end, if this leads to the self-destruction of mankind, at least we can say that we stayed true as humans towards the end.
2. Knowledge and the omniscient
"But above the gray land and the spasms of bleak dust which drift endlessly over it, you perceive, after a moment, the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg. The eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg are blue and gigantic — their irises are one yard high. They look out of no face, but, instead, from a pair of enormous yellow spectacles which pass over a nonexistent nose. Evidently some wild wag of an oculist set them there to fatten his practice in the borough of Queens, and then sank down himself into eternal blindness, or forgot them and moved away. But his eyes, dimmed a little by many paintless days, under sun and rain, brood on over the solemn dumping ground." - The Great Gatsby
With the advent of computers, much has been done over the recent years on technology surrounding "computer vision"; that is, to mimic the ability of human sight and perceive the light that is emitted or reflected by the physical world, making interpretations about them. The power in computer vision is your usual augmentation capabilities that technology offers. Regardless of medium, we employ vision to perceive and to learn, to gain knowledge. Computer vision gained traction precisely because of the ability to deploy the power of computing to gain and process even more information around us.
Yet, is there a time when we do not want to learn, or gain information? For a computer, maybe it would be the point where its storage cannot handle the amount of information fed into its system. This is why selectivity and efficiency are important themes in computer vision: To reject extraneous and uninformative noise. However, for a human, the rate of loss of information, simply by prioritization of the brain and selective forgetting of unwanted information, we do not seem to have a limiting bound to information that we cannot store, for practical purposes.
A lot of deities in various religions are crafted in the face of humans: They have a similar image to humans, except that they also have boundless capabilities, one of which is omniscience. They do not need to learn, for they already know everything, and are perceiving everything at every possible angle. Both their storage and perception capabilities are infinite. The question now is whether we can internalize these capabilities as humans, who are still prone to emotions.
When I read The Great Gatsby back during the IB, and whenever I came across this inanimate pair of eyes of Dr Eckleburg on the billboard, I would think about how he would have felt if those really were his eyes. To see a world full of greed, hatred, jealousy and discrimination, the relentlessly Capitalist and deluded world of The Great Gatsby, where money and status are the only things that define a person, is something I was doubtful if anyone could bear to see. Does one really need to look into the mind of Daisy as she cries over the mere sight of the colourful clothes, and, without a trace of remorse, draws away from Gatsby after she crashed his car into a person? No matter how dark fictional stories are made to be, it is impossible to even begin to trace the multi-dimensional darkness of a willfully evil or helplessly ignorant human (which exists everywhere, at any time).
Curiosity may be a good thing that drives us to better ourselves by learning about the world, but a lot of this world is so unworthy of learning that I deem an uncontrolled sense of curiosity the second delusion people play on themselves. Just like desire for material objects, unbounded desire for knowledge may very well be the downfall of one's mental faculty.
While I believe that "ignorance is bliss" is a phrase that is invented to deceive people to stop questioning about the antics of the evil, I am rather sick of seeing people with unbounded optimism and idealism to this world fall to their own failure to recognize the fact that some side of humanity is better off left untouched and unexplored. Unlike computers, we are fallible to emotions. And the moment we sacrifice emotions to learn, we fall into insanity, never to return again. Yet, this is what growing up means: To start off with a clean slate, then gradually darkening it with revelations of how self-destructive and cruel humans can be.
Some parts of the human, by nature, are irrational, because it is better off being so.
"But above the gray land and the spasms of bleak dust which drift endlessly over it, you perceive, after a moment, the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg. The eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg are blue and gigantic — their irises are one yard high. They look out of no face, but, instead, from a pair of enormous yellow spectacles which pass over a nonexistent nose. Evidently some wild wag of an oculist set them there to fatten his practice in the borough of Queens, and then sank down himself into eternal blindness, or forgot them and moved away. But his eyes, dimmed a little by many paintless days, under sun and rain, brood on over the solemn dumping ground." - The Great Gatsby
With the advent of computers, much has been done over the recent years on technology surrounding "computer vision"; that is, to mimic the ability of human sight and perceive the light that is emitted or reflected by the physical world, making interpretations about them. The power in computer vision is your usual augmentation capabilities that technology offers. Regardless of medium, we employ vision to perceive and to learn, to gain knowledge. Computer vision gained traction precisely because of the ability to deploy the power of computing to gain and process even more information around us.
Yet, is there a time when we do not want to learn, or gain information? For a computer, maybe it would be the point where its storage cannot handle the amount of information fed into its system. This is why selectivity and efficiency are important themes in computer vision: To reject extraneous and uninformative noise. However, for a human, the rate of loss of information, simply by prioritization of the brain and selective forgetting of unwanted information, we do not seem to have a limiting bound to information that we cannot store, for practical purposes.
A lot of deities in various religions are crafted in the face of humans: They have a similar image to humans, except that they also have boundless capabilities, one of which is omniscience. They do not need to learn, for they already know everything, and are perceiving everything at every possible angle. Both their storage and perception capabilities are infinite. The question now is whether we can internalize these capabilities as humans, who are still prone to emotions.
When I read The Great Gatsby back during the IB, and whenever I came across this inanimate pair of eyes of Dr Eckleburg on the billboard, I would think about how he would have felt if those really were his eyes. To see a world full of greed, hatred, jealousy and discrimination, the relentlessly Capitalist and deluded world of The Great Gatsby, where money and status are the only things that define a person, is something I was doubtful if anyone could bear to see. Does one really need to look into the mind of Daisy as she cries over the mere sight of the colourful clothes, and, without a trace of remorse, draws away from Gatsby after she crashed his car into a person? No matter how dark fictional stories are made to be, it is impossible to even begin to trace the multi-dimensional darkness of a willfully evil or helplessly ignorant human (which exists everywhere, at any time).
Curiosity may be a good thing that drives us to better ourselves by learning about the world, but a lot of this world is so unworthy of learning that I deem an uncontrolled sense of curiosity the second delusion people play on themselves. Just like desire for material objects, unbounded desire for knowledge may very well be the downfall of one's mental faculty.
While I believe that "ignorance is bliss" is a phrase that is invented to deceive people to stop questioning about the antics of the evil, I am rather sick of seeing people with unbounded optimism and idealism to this world fall to their own failure to recognize the fact that some side of humanity is better off left untouched and unexplored. Unlike computers, we are fallible to emotions. And the moment we sacrifice emotions to learn, we fall into insanity, never to return again. Yet, this is what growing up means: To start off with a clean slate, then gradually darkening it with revelations of how self-destructive and cruel humans can be.
Some parts of the human, by nature, are irrational, because it is better off being so.
OP Discussion 11: Nisemonogatari "Karen Bee" OP, Marshmallow Justice Slightly NSFW (Don't be such a baby)
"This is my fate! I’m telling you!
I can’t leave things the way they are!
If I were to give a reason,
It’s because I’m a hero, an ally of justice!"
Nisemonogatari is another easy 10/10 for me (though it does ramp up the "fan-service" by quite a bit compared to the first season).
Truth and fiction are themes that are often explored in philosophy and literature alike, as it is imperative that actions and thoughts are appropriate to the well being, of an individual and the society. However, as I have mentioned in previous posts, there are many instances where fictitious statements, accounts or even causes are more informative and valuable than totally truthful ones. Nisemonogatari (A portmanteau of 偽物 (that which is fake) and 物語 (story)) explores the boundary between reality and falsity, and examines the all too common stigma around the quality of falsehood around three (or possibly more) main characters, representing different manifestations of the theme.
The character featured in this OP is Karen Araragi, one of the "Fire Sisters" of Koyomi Araragi, the protagonist. It would seem that she fills the niche position of the energetic character in a typical anime series, with a strong affinity to sports, a cheerful demeanor and an often playful attitude. What defines her though, and the "Fire Sisters" in fact, is her relentless and "scorching" passion for justice. Unable to suppress the desire to right the wrong, she confronts everyone she deems destructive to the justice of the society, and actively hunt them down to teach them a lesson, not giving up until the evils are defeated.
Where does the lie come in in this very stereotypical story of a hero, then? Well, if we examine her actions we see that all she does is enact justice on others' problems. Being born into a rather peaceful family, the sisters of Araragi have never been subjected to hardship, as far as the series is concerned. In the process of "helping others solve their problems", is it not true that Karen is simply acting on her own volition and sating her own desire to act as the hero? In the series, it is seen that Karen's actions brought Koyomi into heaps of trouble simply because of her relentlessness in pursuing Kaiki (more on him later) for his curse on Nadeko and her schoolmates. Can her delivery of some contrived sense of justice balance out the people she hurt in the process? These are the questions that the series asks as the Karen Bee arc progresses, eroding the sympathy of Karen in favour of the initially antagonistic and dislikable Kaiki.
However, all is not lost for Karen, as the series turns back into Kaiki surprisingly complimenting Karen during his rather anticlimactic confrontation with Koyomi and Senjougahara. Two things are mentioned: That there can be no true justice unless one is facing his/her own problems with conviction, and that there can be no justice if one has no strength. Lacking both qualities, Karen, unfortunately, is a fake hero. Despite this, having a desire for justice was a start, as Kaiki remarks, and that the blame should not be on her for causing the ruckus surrounding Koyomi, at least not on her penchant for fighting evil. To fight the evil, one must first desire to do so. And even though Karen does a bad job at the fighting itself, and has no clear conviction, her courage is to be acknowledged.
In becoming real, one must first pretend, and in the process of pretending, is it not true that one gains more insight and legitimacy than the real? This is what Kaiki leaves us with as a lesson, and that we shall examine later.
The OP itself is a very good reflection of what is to be expected of Karen's character: Passionate, energetic and always ready to fight. It continues on with the theme of representing personalities with animals, with the bee being featured here. I suppose there are some resemblance to the character concerned: Hot-blooded and unrelenting, but quite easy to dismiss if not in a group. As usual for Monogatari OP's, it is filled with abstract patterns and play on colour that I find remotely similar to a pondering person's thoughts, and that seemed oddly calming for me. Anyway, I have to say that as I listened to this repeatedly over the past few weeks, some of the energy of Karen rubbed off on me, and motivated me to go on. Even though I may just be a normal student with a regrettable lack passion or skills, just pretending to be one that can solve some problems could be enough for now.
I would have to say that in terms of characters, the Monogatari series has produced some of the most meaningful and interesting development and traits I have ever seen. While a lot of the elements of the story are quite absurd and fantastical, the themes it explores hits deep into reality. It is precisely these characters, presented by straddling paradoxically between reality and fiction, that exposes reality and the human nature the best.
