The Ramblings of a Rutgers Philosophy Student. . .

A long time ago when I was an undergrad at Rutgers, I had taken a Philosophy of Mind class. Not one of my better efforts. The three things I remember from it were that we began with BF Skinner and a Behaviorist view of mind, that the Professor teaching the class was impressed with Daniel Dennett, and that I wrote probably the worst paper of my academic career. The paper embraced Hubert Dreyfus' What Computers Can't Do - arguments against the mind as some type of computer.

The topic here, however, is Daniel Dennett and his work. At the time of the above class I chose not to explore his work. That was spring of 1989. Dennett had written Brainstorms. Consciousness Explained came out in 1991. Basically as the undergrad I was I just lumped the Professor teaching the class and Dennett together, and ignored them both. That entailed both short and long term consequences. The short term was simply that I missed a big chunk of what was going on in that class, which led to a poor grade. Not the worst thing. It is the long-term consequences that I find much more interesting.

Since that time I have proceeded to pick up the Intentional Stance, and also read through Darwin's Dangerous Idea. Neither really resonated or grabbed me, but they were interesting enough for me to buy and read. How many philosophy text do grab one? There actually have been some, Now these readings have taken place over the past 20 years. In short, I appreciated that Dennett values Intentionality and Darwinism.

Jump to 2015, more than 25 years since that class and my introduction to Daniel Dennett. A constant theme of mine lately is to read more - things such as the philosophical traditions I had read at Rutgers. Meanwhile, a few years back, I had joined a website - Meetup.com for both work and amusement. In January of 2015 they had announced a new group doing readings of Analytic Philosophy in NYC. That was perfect as my Rutgers' philosophy studies was largely in that space.

Now strangely this group on Meetup.com were asking for a writing sample. At first I had sent them some things I had written back during that Rutgers period. They responded that the material was dated and that they were passing. OK. That, like the class I mention above, could be a blog post or two. I was a bit annoyed, a bit amused. Meanwhile, they had also posted an article which was to be the subject of their first meeting. It was a paper written by David Chalmers, Consciousness and its Place in Nature. It is an overview of the positions taken by philosophers on the subject, dating back to Descartes.

To be continued. . .

The Death of Storytelling. . . or not

This week I attended an event in the WeWorks suite that my office is located in. This is truly one of the perks of working at a WeWorks facility. The number of things going on is pretty amazing. Now I think I am lucky in that we have on my floor one of the larger spaces for such events. Either way it is nice being wined, dined, and sometimes even entertained, even challenged intellectually.

So this week I was introduced to Eventsy, which partnered with another group M.E.T (Media-Entertainment-Technology) to present a panel discussion titled: "The Slow Painful Death of Storytelling".

The general premise was that with the ever changing distribution channels - broadcast television, cable, digital, etc. . . storytelling suffers. Somehow we would lose the ability and focus on storytelling. To explore that theme they brought in a panel of speakers coming from various areas of the media and entertainment sectors.

A few days later I continue to dwell on various thoughts they provoked in the course of their conversations so I thought it appropriate to detail some of them here. Below are some of the thoughts that i keep going back to.

 At the core of my thought is the  title of the panel. The death of storytelling from where I stand is not happening anytime soon.  It might take on new twists and turns, but at the end of the day storytelling is not going anywhere. I am afraid it is practically hardwired into us. It seems to entail parts of our perceptual system. . .what we see and what we hear, And then we try to explain what is happening - what we are seeing, what we are hearing, and why. What materializes is a story that may explain, or amuse or challenge, perhaps all of those, but always it is a story.

With that I just look at the history of storytelling, and technology. With Gutenberg we had the printing press and the Bible. In  the 19th century it was the serial and with it Huck Finn, and a Tale of Two Cities. In the early 20th Century there was radio with the War of the Worlds, and silent movies which allowed for the likes of Charlie Chaplin. The timeline can run right up to today, with cable with Tony Soprano and  Mr White.

And it could be argued that those technologies lent themselves to those stories. The Bible could not have happened without the printing press. The serials allowed for long large stories to be broken up and digested by a newly literate cultures. Charlie Chaplin though he did do one or two talkies, was a Silent Picture Star.

Lastly, HBO and others really had to introduce their stories on cable. They could not be shown at 10 PM any night on broadcast TV. They had to wait till we had cable. And to really see and feel the story we did need a visual image-which grabbed us through the screen. On the TV we could literally see where the bodies where buried unlike Capote's In Cold Blood. And to understand and feel these characters we needed at least a season.

No the story is alive and well. It has evolved but is still with us. It will digest reality TV and all other absurdities and come back even stronger.

Now at the end of the event the focus moved to funding. Crowdfunding is quite amazing. I have seen numerous musicians take advantage of it. One artists who I follow has offered up jam sessions, living room concerts, and background vocals on his latest album. In the process he is able to spend more time in the studio with a range of musicians, just adding to the quality and duration of the material. In short, for musicians crowd funding is an amazing tool and allows them to truly work with and interact with their audience. Filmmakers I am sure can have a similar relationship with their audience. In both cases I am talking about the "indie-artist", with little or no relation to the studios and record companies.

I will end with one sad note regarding movie financing. Specifically movie futures and a movie futures market. Futures are a type of financial instrument allowing one to invest in various goods and commodities. A famous play in the futures market is the end of the Eddie Murphy Danny Aykroyd film - Trading Places. If you recall they manipulate the price of Concentrate Orange Juice, much to the chagrin of their former masters.

Such markets for the movies would allow traders to bet on the gross receipts that a movie pulls in during its opening. Just as fans are allowed to support their favorite director or production company, with this market, financially driven investors looking for a return on their investment would also have a place to play. At least that was the way it looked, Shortly after getting initial regulatory approval in June of 2010, however, it was killed. The Dodd-Frank banking bill basically prohibited such markets.

Considering all that we have seen evolve otherwise, it is a shame that such markets were not allowed. We might have been forwarned of the success of Mission Impossible this weekend, maybe even made some cash of it.

Once again, a nod to WeWork, Eventsy and the M.E.T. for a fun and provocative evening!

Progress and Progressions - an Update

Awhile back I wrote a post, Progressions. . ., detailing three progressions that our world was experiencing. Actually that was back in 2011, not that long ago. Basically I pointed to three general trends and pointed to how culture and technology are intertwined and evolve based upon that relationship. Whether it is low-brow entertainment such as the Three Stooges, Jackass, and today Youtube, to recruiters moving from the New York Times to Monster and LinkedIn. Our culture and our technology do evolve, and there is an interaction between the two.

Another theme that I stressed or pushed upon in that post is that progressions are are not progress. And in the same breath they are more of an evolution. Which brings me to another topic that has haunted me for a long while: what is progress or Progress with a capital "P"?

Progress as I speak about it here is something expected in the world. It is a view of world as constantly improving. Whether you look at social issues, the economy, or technology there is a certain view that things are changing for the better and that is Progress. There is also the related and more limited version where only science and technology progress but not the social world. Here we continue to see the anticipated innovation in technology but not in regard to poverty and the economy.

Let me make one more point on what I mean by progress here. When I apply this concept I am not referring to a specific situation that happened to improve. Rather, I am saying it was inevitable that the specific situation and all situations will improve. In short there is or was a certain faith in Progress. It is Progress as the general improvement of life as the months and years unfold to which we are pointing to.

Going back to my original post, highlighting three cultural progressions, I doubt they involve this Progress with a capital "P" which I reference above. That said there is a certain progression that can be associated with the word Progress itself involving both "Progress with a capital P" and progress as a progression or evolution. It has a certain history or evolution.

To be continued. . .