The Golden Compass

It was a very good movie. Pacing was faster, and there were some transition scenes that I didn't think needed to be there, but over all, the good far outweighed the bad.

To the haters: It was the "Magisterium" rather than that reality's Church. If you cannot see that they represent the same repression, the same blind dogmatic authority, then you need to take another literature class, and be sure to have the concepts of allusion, metaphor, and analogy explained to you, a few times until you get it right.

See the movie, enjoy it, then go read the books and enjoy them more. If you see the movie, the quality of the second two will most likely be greatly improved, even upon what was a wonderful film.

Good morning

Thinking, yesterday, about Silk and The Golden Compass and about something Neil once said about Art, and how once you create something, it's out there, for the world, and so one interpretation is as valid as another. When I create, I have an intention, in mind. It is not an interpretation nor is it a "reading." I am creating it, and my intention is to create such-and-such a thing. When you read or view what I've created, my intention will hopefully come through, but you, as viewer, reader, experiencer must perceive, expect, interpret my creation and thereby my intention. What I put to something will not necessarily be the same as what you take away from it, but what we're doing are different things.

I am taking a view of the world, and I am making it accessable to others. You (an other) are accessing it, and then bringing your own symbols and understanding to the mix, and that meaning that you take away does not say "What The Artist Was Trying To Do." Or it shouldn't. That's pretentious beyond all measure. You don't know what I was trying to do, no matter How good I've done my job. Even if the piece i've created is a paragraph that begins "This is what I was trying to do..." you have to wonder at my layers of intention and motivation.

Instead what an interpreter should say (and what I hope to remember to say) is "What I Take From This Is..." or "What This Means To Me Is..." Which, admittedly, also sounds a bit pretentious, but it's more honest. Because at the intersection of my intention and your interpretation, we have the work and the world, you know? And no matter what anybody does, all I can really do is comment on what it means to me, and try to better understand that in the context of the stated intention. Wars, art, cars, kisses, whatever. That's the world.

I dreamed about the movie, last night. Ice Bears and Dust, and late this morning, the Opening of Doors. In the middle there, something about water gates, having to have a dolphin friendguide me through underwater passages in a castle, to get to a room where I could access the water level system, and fight the guards. I had to be careful, though, so as not to beach the dolphin.

Later, there will be something very long, and very... intricate, here. It'll be about magic. Keep your Eyes Peeled.

Magic, Will, etc

Here's the thing I wrote, yesterday, around 5pm, or so. I'd had a long conversation in the department, about how I understand the universe, and the types of people who might be interested in what I'm trying to do.

There are some things that I didn't talk about, in here, such as the Kantian belief that, in dealing with concepts, we don't always see the whole idea, we see the correspodences between Instances of the idea. For example, the idea of a plant, we don't see the whole thing, from seed to wilted husk; we see instances and correspondences, and we create a continuance, through those, and out of those bits and pieces we term an idea "plant." But Spinoza believed that we grasp the whole idea, exactly in the process of making the correspondences an idea of continuance through time. In the sweep of the instance arc, we encompass the whole of the idea of the thing. This understanding can be extended to concepts such as "Organisms," "Art," or "Concepts." We find the correspondences, and we match them...

Anyway, here's this thing:

[Edit: Sunday: Fuck apologies. Here's the thing:]

What am I talking about? I mean an application of the will upon the intersections of possibility and determination. Think about the nature of the double slit experiment, again, and remember that a “faulty” measuring device can give rise to a wider interference pattern. That is to say that if there’s an 80% chance of the device measuring correctly, what the photo-reactive paper will reflect is an interference pattern generated by a lower frequency of that 20% non-observed Wave. Wave-Particle duality can be manipulated, and the infinite wave is not collapsed, until it is fully measured. Observation, measurement, determination, takes the potential (infinite) to the actual (finite). Another reflection of the act of sectioning the infinite from itself, so that we may better understand and manipulate it, yes? Yes.

So. The infinite wave, the forking paths, the twisting labyrinth that is the potential, the free will, the ability and the necessity to choose (and again we section, this from that, chosen from not-chosen) is pared down, is made determined and determinate in that one moment of choice. The branching infinites fall away like shattered fragments of leaves and glass, and there is only the line of Cause and Effect that has brought you Here. But you know that’s not true. Not strictly. What brought you here was the act of choosing, over and over again, until you became who you are, now. Those possibilities, those realities, those unchosen choices sum themselves over your path. They combine into the Now and the Here, and they are everywhere and everything. Infinity being what it is, and those options all being Non-Zero, Not-Quite-One, we must realise that there is always the possibility that… Something else is going on. No matter what we are experiencing, there are infinite infinities of other ways that it could be. Our pattern settles here, and we call this reality. Not so bad.

But think about this: our combination of symbols and meanings and interpretations, our individual combinations of choices and the ways that we separate the universe out into itself, through naming and concept generation, applications of This-Not-That, are all different. My understanding and combinations of meaning and interpretation are not yours, though they take a basic and general starting point from the universe that we have agreed to experience, that we have designated with our terms. We are not the same, and my system of description and understanding is concerned with similar-but-distinct things from yours. I can speak to you about what you want and I can express what I want, but our systems are not the same. We make them from the same things, but the meaning is a complex interaction of symbols and interpretations. Reality is the line of best fit for those interpretations. And So, when we look at the universe, when we try to parse explanations and answers, we must be clear about what we’re asking. And then we can figure out what system to use, to do it.

This is my goal: To create a responsible appreciation for and application of the infinite. My dynamic pattern of symbols and meanings is mine, and will always be, but it is also true that this pattern is a piece of a much larger dynamic pattern, that I can call the universe. But it is also true that that pattern only has any meaning at all, any worth because there is something Conscious to understand the Concept of “Existence.” The distinction between “being” and “not being.” Now, it can be said that these things would exist, without a mind to experience them, and I have to ask: Would they? Without minds to term them, separate them, understand them, do we have “planets,” “stars,” “asteroids,” “Lakes,” “rivers,” “sky?” No, because those terms are constructs of a consciousness that has been generated by a Will, a drive, a desire, a fundamental “I,” which cleanly and clearly spoke “I Am.” This-not-that. Without that, the terms are meaningless, the term “to exist” is meaningless, “to be” is fundamentally attached to the recognition of being, either by oneself or by something else, and if there is nothing there to Recognise that, then can anything be said “To Be?” Reality is dependent on consciousness, on observation, interpretation, and understanding, driven by something which is aware of itself, and of its surroundings. Because without that the term “reality” is meaningless, and there may, in fact, be Stuff Here… but so what?

As I said, my system of interpretation is not yours, and my meanings are not yours, and my concerns and questions differ from yours. The questions I ask will generate different systems to explain them, and the paradox of this reality is that it is and is not, and so any system may do work. In the infinite probabilistic sea that is “reality,” we both are and are not, exist and do not, everything is true, nothing is true, everything has worth and meaning and nothing does. All at once, all the time (time itself having been invented the previous winter). This is reality, and it brooks no “contradiction.” All that there is is everything, and all we can do is parse everything out, draw lines around it, to make it manageable, with language and meaning and concepts, we make the infinite into the finite, understandable chunks of meaning. We make systems to understand this and not that, to answer this question but not those, and it gives us meaningful answers for a specific context. But not Every context. My questions in astronomy will not be adequately answered by psychological understandings, if I am an astronomer, and astronomical explanations will not satisfy my questions about what the procession of the stars means. We need different systems.

Magic. We apply the generative will to the probabilistic waves, we use our consciousness to find and interpret correspondences, across categories, so that we may manipulate the outcome of those probabilities. We make ourselves aware of the nature of reality, of a particular conception of reality, and we strive to collapse the waves in a way which we find acceptable. We choose, and we try to predict and anticipate what the consequences of our actions will be, and we manipulate those consequences, in order that we may achieve our will. No, we will not always predict correctly, and no, we will not always know everything, but we can know more, do more and adapt, over time. What I mean by Magic is the application of the will, via the recognition of possibility and the manipulation of corresponding concept structures in the mind, to match, link, and interact with each other, so that we can see how one thing is like another, and the manoeuvring of one can result in a change in the other.

Your brain is a place where the macro and the micro meet. Your mind contains symbols and interconnections of meaning which are generated by interaction with the outside world, and agreement or disagreement with that which has gone before. In the process of concept formation, the mind chooses from the infinite soup of “possibles” and creates the distinct chunk of “Actual,” making trees “trees” rather than “General Undifferentiated Background Stuff.” Recognition of this process allows for greater manipulation of the components, and a wider, more responsible application of probability onto actuality. We take a thing, and name it, manipulate it, imbue it with meaning, and slot it into the process. When in the process, we can, manipulate the interaction of probability and symbolic meaning, both ways, along the scale, and via will, consciousness, observation, interpretation, understanding and intention we can produce an effect that reflects its cause, in either what was possible, or what the actuality Means.

Simple, no?

[Edit for Pimpage: 1.11pm: If you know someone who wants a little Strange and Beautiful, for the upcoming winter Holy Days, conside buying them one or all of the following (with ISBN, in case you'd rather bypass the whole Amazon thing, and go through a store):

Silk (ISBN 978-0-451-45668-7)

Threshold (978-0-451-46124-7)

Low Red Moon (978-0-451-46164-3)

To quote greygirlbeast, herself: "If you have an interest in seeing me continue to publish novels, these are the editions I ask that you please purchase, as these are the only editions that Penguin is watching. Thanks."]