Black Mirror and the Experience Machine

So the other night I was watching an episode of Black Mirror *Spoiler Alert to follow!!!* called "San Junipero." In the episode, we meet Yorkie, who seems just to be a young college kid travelling to a party town (San Junipero) to have some fun even though she seems very out of place. Yorkie meets Kelly and the two of them quickly fall for each other. But something doesn't seem right, and one of the other characters talks about Yorkie being able to find Kelly "in another time" and then we see what we think is Yorkie travelling in time.

In actuality, San Junipero is a sort of fake place, kind of like the matrix where people in the real world basically plug in and go visit. They can make themselves look differently and they can live there in any time they wish, basically making it perfect for them. This episode really made me think of The Experience Machine that we talked about in class and we talked about how when people were asked about whether they would choose to be a part of it or not they said no because they wanted their accomplishments to be real.

But in the show, people readily go to San Junipero, and it is actually made to be a sort of afterlife. You can chance heaven existing or you can choose to kind of have your mind permanently put into San Junipero. I thought that was an interesting take on it, having the Experience Machine be a sort of afterlife.

Buddhism in Music

Tonight in their concert, the University Chorus performed a song called Gate Gate.  Although it's in a foreign language, the meaning behind this song is straight from Buddhist philosophy.  The lyrics and phrases tell the story of people finding liberation from suffering and "crossing the river" to enlightenment.

The most common line in the song goes as follows:

Gate, Gate, Paragate, Para Sam gate Bodhisvaha

Bodhi Svaha

The English translation of this phrase is basically:

Gone, Gone, Gone beyond Gone utterly beyond

Oh what an Awakening

Gate, or gone, is the idea of being "gone" from suffering -- liberated from pain (or desire, in Buddha's teachings) -- or going from naivety to knowledge (learning about enlightenment, becoming aware of your state of being).

Paragate is simply an emphasis on gate -- it means "gone all the way to the other shore"

Parasamgate builds once again on gate -- the "sam" in the middle means "everyone" or the entire community, so it means "everyone gone to the other shore"

Bodhi is essentially enlightenment or awakening; it's the "light inside" that leads you being liberated from suffering when you see it

And lastly, Svaha is a cry like "hallelujah!" -- it's like those on the shore welcoming others over

I think it's interesting how such a major topic in our class showed up in such a "normal" part of today.  How often do these topics and ideas pop up in our lives?  Granted, this one is pretty deep and if you hadn't looked it up wondering what the language was, you would have never found this trail of information.  But what about things like the Stoics and emotions? Or Plato and the three-part psyche?  I feel like these things are right in front of us more often than we realize, and I find it intriguing to think about how they show up in our daily lives.

Leo Tolstoy and The Tragedy of The Commons

Recently, in class, we were introduced to Leo Tolstoy and some of his ideas. Through his story and the lecture, we learned about his dislike for the idea of private ownership of land. For me, this idea seemed to have a big problem, notably known as, The Tragedy of The Commons. I thought this problem with his idea was important and worth mentioning as we, as a society, are still having problems addressing this issue in the world today.

The Tragedy of The Commons is an article written by Garrett Hardin which refers to the problem that arises when there is no private ownership of land. When there is no private ownership of land, people will tend to take more than is optimal, even if rules are in place against it, which will lead to the degradation of the land. The example used to illustrate this point in his article is that of communal grazing land. In his article he describes a pasture set aside by a community to graze cattle that is open for all to use. The community has set rules on how much one is allowed to let their cattle graze on the land. One day, however, someone decides to start letting their cattle graze a little more than they’re supposed to. After a while, some of the people in the community noticed, so they began to do the same. They thought if he was doing it then they should to. Soon, nearly everyone in the community was breaking the rules and letting their cattle graze more than they were supposed to. This lead to the degradation of the grazing land, and before they knew it, the land was no longer usable. The land had been so degraded by overuse that it had been turned into dirt.

The way to keep this from happening is simple, allow people to own their own portion of land. For instance, had everyone in the community owned a piece of the grazing land, the land would have never been degraded because everyone would take care of their small piece of land. When the land was communal, nobody cared about the health of the land because it wasn’t really theirs; they didn’t feel a sense of obligation nor did they have a real incentive to take care of the land. What’s the point in doing your part in keeping the land healthy when someone else is going to come by and overgraze because they can? In short, not allowing people to have ownership of the land created a domino effect of people overgrazing because they didn’t want to allow someone else to allow their cattle to take all the grass while they were doing the right thing. When you give each person a piece of land to own, you then create an incentive to keep the land healthy because it’s the only land you have, and it’s yours.

This problem with Tolstoy’s idea is extremely prevalent in the world today. Humanity is killing the environment because of this same issue. The oceans and skies are being polluted with toxins. The oceans are being overfished to the point of extinction for many species. Habitats are being destroyed everywhere to make way for more “important” things. These issues don’t have easy answers; for example, how would we distribute ownership of the skies? Some countries have taken the initiative and claimed ownership of waters near their cost, and this has played out amazingly due to their extra care and supervision of the waters. This however is still rare and most of the parts of the earth we share are being ruined by our actions. What do you think? Do you think the “Tragedy of The Commons” is in the future for the earth if we don’t make drastic changes, or do you think there are more pressing matters than this?

Consolation For Difficulties- Nietzsche

In "Consolation for Difficulties", Nietzsche talks about how calling people "gifted" and an "inborn talent" can be a problem.
"Don't talk about giftedness, inborn talents! Once can name all kinds of great men who were not very gifted. They ACQUIRED greatness, became 'geniuses' through qualities about whose lack no man aware of them likes to speak..."
Telling people that they were born a "genius" can cause a few problems:
1. The "inborn geniuses" could be praised so much to the fact that they really believe it, stop trying harder to improve, and limit their abilities.
2. It could cause a person to boast about their talents when in reality, they may not even be that good.
3. More people are going to think that you need to be born with a certain talent in order to accomplish specific goals.
4. It can cause people to give up more easily.
People like Beyonce and Lebron James are some of the most successful people in the world. It took a lot of hard work and practice to get to where they are. There are interviews and clips of them talking about how much work they put into what they do. The success, fame, love, and money doesn't just come naturally.
It is easy to think that those people are born that way naturally and get discouraged. It is very important to know that motivation and hard work is key when it comes to achievement.

Consolation for Difficulties in the movie "Joy"

It is common for people to want to eliminate as many hardships and struggles as possible. This may seem like an enticing idea, but may actually be detrimental to one’s life. Nietzsche talks about how pleasure and displeasure are so tied together that you cannot have one without the other, in his “Consolation for Difficulties”. After reading his thoughts on this subject, it reminded me of the movie “Joy” starring Jennifer Lawrence.

This movie is about a young woman who creates a revolutionary mop design, but struggles to get her product on the market and successful. She goes through many struggles to get her product to sell. Some of these hardships included getting money together to make the product, convincing people to buy the product, and keeping her product’s design safe from other corporations. Throughout the movie, she is put under extreme stress trying to achieve her goals, but in the end, it is all worth it, as she eventually is successful with her invention.

Nietzsche explains his ideas on the relationship between pleasure and displeasure with diagrams of a flower and a mountain. The diagram of the mountain shows mediocrity at the bottom, pain as the climb, and fulfillment as the top of the mountain. This diagram is applicable to the movie “Joy” because the main character was originally just a typical person with big dreams, at mediocrity, but she went through lots of pain and struggles (going up the mountain) to get to success, or “the top of the mountain”.

Without going through pain or displeasure, it is not possible to achieve success from mediocrity. Pain and pleasure are always intertwined, as pleasure is not achievable without some pain.

How much is too much?

Several of the philosophers that we have learned about this semester have firmly held the belief that we, as humans, should not strive. However, this is how progress is made within society.

In the movie Geostorm, one man, named Dekkom, goes completely overboard in his attempt to reach his goal of becoming the President of the United States. Instead of working harder and developing his platform, Dekkom decides to take matters into his own hands. It turns out that he bugged the largest satellite in the world, "Dutch boy" and was using it in his power to start a geostorm that would win him the presidency.

The geostorm progressed across the world as it destroyed city after city. Dekkom designated the storm to end in the destruction of the city that the national representatives and legislators were meeting in. His plan was to get out of harm's way himself so that in the aftermath of the storm, he would be the only one left to fill the United States presidency.

The logic that Dekkom uses is extremely irrational. While he is striving for the presidency, there are much more reasonable ways to go about reaching his goal. He was already popular in politics, and could have used that to promote his platform; however, he took an extreme plan and it all went up in flames (literally, the entire satellite imploded). In this situation, Dekkom should have chosen the intermediate, as Aristotle suggests in his literature. The two extremes would include ambushing the election, as Dekkom does, or not campaigning at all and never having the opportunity to fulfill his desires.  Dekkom should have chosen the intermediate and waited for the next election in which he would have ran a reasonable and pure campaign. In doing so, Dekkom would have likely have been mroe successful that he was in the movie plot.

Epicurus and Minimalism

This school year, I watched the documentary Minimalism: A Documentary About the Important Things. This documentary starring Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus shows what it’s like to be a minimalist and why they do what they do. They say that “Minimalism is a tool to rid yourself of life’s excess in favor of focusing on what’s important—so you can find happiness, fulfillment, and freedom.” Through living a minimalistic lifestyle, people have found lasting happiness through life itself instead of through material things. A minimalistic approach to life allows people to find freedom from fear, worry, stress, and toxic ways of consumer culture. In class, when we learned about Epicurus and living prudently, I immediately thought back to this documentary. I think Epicurus would be in favor of the Minimalistic lifestyle for many reasons. First off, Epicurus says in order to live a pleasurable life free from stress and anxiety, you must live prudently. You must think carefully, plan ahead, and manage your desires. He says we shouldn’t follow after unnatural and empty desires. Secondly, a Minimalistic way of living allows people to become happy and satisfied with all of their belongings. Epicurus says when you reduce the amount of material things that you own, you become more appreciative of occasional luxuries. Lastly, many modern Minimalists are jokingly seen as hippies who don’t own televisions or cars, and they just sit in their tiny homes writing blog posts every day. While this is very stereotypical and not 100% true about Minimalists, I do think that they are different and hip in a certain kind of way. This lifestyle reminds me of the “Epicurean Garden”. The “Garden” was Epicurus’ ideal way of living in a hippie-like community with supportive people who all take care of one another, disbursing burdens and living a simple life full of ataraxia. After learning about Epicurus in class, I have seen how Epicurus and Minimalists have very similar methods of finding happiness. If you have seen this documentary yourself, do you think that long term happiness can be found from living a Minimalistic lifestyle and living prudently? If you haven't seen it, you should definitely check it out! It's on Netflix, Amazon, iTunes, and many other platforms.

Letting Pain Affect Your Art- Hemingway and Nietzsche

“Write hard and clear about what hurts” 

-      Ernest Hemingway 

This has always been one of my favorite quotes, while thinking about it this week, I realized how well it went along with Nietzsche philosophy. Nietzsche differs from other philosophers in that instead of running from pain and making his life as clean and sterile as possible, he argues that people should embrace the hurt and allow it to grow you. He says that without that pain, you cannot reach full potential.  It is clear Hemingway agrees with this philosophy. He is telling readers that to create truly great art (whether that happens to be writing, painting, etc.) you have to create about something that matters, that is relatable. He is saying channel your pain, your heartache and create something truly memorable and messy. Embrace the hurt and don’t try to sterilize life, rather write (or create) hard and clear about what hurts.  

Messing with Memories?

As I read Dr. Rider's post on traumatic memories, another example came to mind.

In the book series The Mysterious Benedict Society, there is an invention called the Whisperer.

It is a machine capable of erasing memories and manipulating people's thoughts and beliefs.  A Mr. Curtain created the Whisperer to aid his attempts in what was basically world domination, and "whispered" thoughts into every mind through radio, television, and cell phone waves, gaining people's trust and support without their knowledge or consent.

In the right hands, its effects were reversible, but the machine was used wrongly on many people, essentially turning them into one man's minions.  The world was a darker, colder place overall.  And like Lacuna's treatment in the "Eternal Sunshine" movie, people were changed...not always for the better. 

That is why I do not think people should seek to erase memories.  It may start with horrid and traumatic experiences, but the more used to the idea people got, it would progress to embarrassing or simply sad/depressing moments.  And if it were continued for long enough without being kept in check, soon we would be erasing memories like we do pictures, because one tiny detail was wrong -- a hair out of place, or my nose looks too big.  Messing with the mind is dangerous territory, and not something I'd recommend.

Deception and the movie "Click"

Click, Compared to Haybron's Idea of Deception

In his book, Happiness: A Very Short Introduction, Daniel Haybron introduces the idea that it may not be enough for a person to just simply feel happy. He outlines three major areas, where a person may seem happy, but their life is lacking something important. These areas include deception, impoverishment, and deprivation.

I would like to focus on the idea of deception and compare it to the 2006 film, Click. Click, starring Adam Sandler and Kate Beckinsale, shows an average businessman, who spends too much time at work, and not enough time at home with his family. In the movie, he meets a bizarre inventor, who offers him a remote that can control time. Of course, Michael Newman (Sandler), uses this remote to his advantage at first. He skips through the hard, boring moments and presses pause on the good moments. Because he is a man consumed with work, some of these boring moments include time spent with family. He soon learns that he is deceiving himself of what life is really like. He realizes that the remote has taken control of his life. Towards the end of the movie, he sees that the hard times are what shapes him and his family into the people that they are.

In comparison, Haybron explains that by being deceived, we miss out on genuine experiences. Haybron makes a similar connection by including The Experience Machine in his argument. The Experience Machine is a simulation that can allow a person to experience anything they desire. Moreover, Haybron also includes that when we are deceived, we miss out on building a life for ourselves and we deprive our desire to succeed. By having a remote that controls time or a machine that simulates experiences, we are allowing ourselves to be fooled. We miss out on what real life is like. We miss out on the good moments.

Finally, at the end of Click, Michael Newman looks back and cherishes the times that he is able to spend with his family. I think Haybron makes a valid point when he argues that there is a need for more than happiness. What are you thoughts on this subject?