I'm afraid you've lost me. It seems like you're saying that the message of a movie is something like this:
"Vivisection is wrong because of how graphically the bloodshed is depicted, and how vivid the expressions of agony are on the face of the victim, and how resoundingly his screams echo in our ears."
You contrast this with the implied message of the novel, which seems to be:
"Vivisection is wrong because of the insights into the vivisector's motives that the novel affords us."
It seems to me that in this light, no story can either tell the truth or tell a lie. It will start out by attempting to do one or the the other ("vivisection is wrong because..."), and then promptly fall apart as the medium takes over with ruthless efficiency: "vivisection is wrong because the medium makes it seem wrong".
By this logic, "drinking Kool-Aid is right because Jim Jones makes it seem right".
Ah. Well, I have no objection to Anonvmous Cowards! I apologize.
Sometimes arguing for the sake of arguing is fun!
In that vein, I'll point out that "nothing is constant" is a self-refuting statement. It presupposes a constant baseline against which the constancy of everything else can be measured. If you deny the baseline, then you have no basis for assessing the constancy of anything, one way or the other. You can't even make the statement unless you have a constant.
Once the class of constants has been admitted, it simply remains to determine what things are a member of that class. Doing violence to you for my own amusement is pretty constantly wrong, and I imagine you'd be the first to reject any ideology that argued otherwise.
Have you read any of his literary criticisms (like the one under discussion, for example)? If you did, you might allow that he's a good critic, even if he's also a bad novelist.
And why should we pay any attention to your criticism of Brin? Where's your body of superlative fiction to back it up?
Thank you. I think I have a clearer understanding of your point now. I'll not deny that understanding the medium (or context) of a message will generally help in understanding the message itself. Conversely, ignoring the context will often result in ignorance of the message.
But.
If I write a novel preaching the evils of vivisection, and then later a movie is made on the same subject, the movie will not say that vivisection is good because it is a movie (and not a novel), but because the message has changed.
Using the medium itself to be the message is a clever trick, but useless if if you have no message to convey. If the artist has no idea in his mind, then his medium will convey only the message, "Look at me! I am blobs of paint!" Thus my assertion that message must exist independent of medium, in order for the medium to do its proper work.
Normally, I don't reply to ACs, but I'd like to clear something up: I'm not proposing that all wisdom is timeless. I am proposing that we have clear proof that some wisdom is timeless. Whether or not Aristotle's wisdom is timeless is a different question altogether.
Condensed reply: So I should look to the nature of Slashdot to find the meaning of your post? If you spoke to me, should I expect to understand your words by studying the way in which air transmits sound, or the workings of your vocal chords? If your statement was made in Spanish, would your meaning change?
I think that you are confusing "design" with "implementation". I don't dispute that modern storytelling techniques are often radically different from those techniques used in the past--though not as different as you might think. This is different from the nature of stories.
But what is the nature of stories, anyway? A simple answer might be that the nature of stories is to communicate. This seems like a reasonable answer, and if we look into the past we see that it applies just as much to pre-historic cave paintings as to the contemporary novel. Looking forward, it's reasonable to assume that this nature will not change in the future. Likewise, the nature of storytelling is to communicate the story. A storyteller of any age, using any technique, can be judged against this standard. The thing being communicated is different in different times and places, but the fundamental principle of communication that defines a "story" does not.
If we take "communication" as the unchanging nature of stories, then we can interpret Aristotle as follows: "Plot is more important than character, in order to successfully communicate the story." The question then becomes "is Aristotle correct?"--and this question can be applied just as appropriately to modern stories as ancient ones. By the same token, his assertion will be just as correct in the ancient context as in the modern one, so if he's wrong today, then he was wrong back then, and if he was right back then, he will be right today.
Unless, of course, he has also confused implementation with design: his audience might have better received plot-driven communication than character-driven, leading him to believe that the implementation of his time was inherent to the nature of stories themselves. If he is wrong at all, I suspect that he is wrong in this way--and that he always has been wrong.
When I take in a story about Good vs. Evil, I prefer not to come away thinking, "Good is stupid, evil is clever, good is incompetent, evil gets the job done, good is irrelevant, evil rises and falls by its own hand, &c."
There are much better, truer, more uplifting stories about Good vs. Evil out there. George's vision makes me want to join the Empire, seek out the Dark Side, and thus avoid being an incompetent, lying little scrotum hiding out in a swamp.
Your rallying cry of "the theme is valid, so the story is good!" only carries so far. After that, the heart and mind revolt, and I look for better stories.
Aristotle was not a movie maker. Nor is his advice valid today, as hundreds of years have passed since he supposedly said that.
Aristotle is talking about stories and storytelling, is he not? The nature of stories is timeless, and while storytelling techniques may have changed since Aristotle's time, storytelling principles--being closely bound to the nature of stories--have not.
Since Aristotle is talking about things that don't change over time (the nature of stories and the principles of storytelling), if his advice is not valid today, it must never have been valid. He was just as wrong about stories "hundreds of years" ago as you say he is today.
Advice doesn't have to be contemporary to be valid. "Don't murder people" has been around far longer than you or I (or Aristotle), but just because we've forgotten who "supposedly" said it first, that doesn't mean it's suddenly now bad advice.
As for the question of whether Aristotle really said it or not is irrelevant to your argument: the wisdom of the statement can easily be tested without resorting to argument by authority. In fact, arguing that it must be good advice because "Aristotle said it" is just as foolish as arguing that it must be bad advice because "Aristotle is dead now". But I digress.
Sure, some people are just criminals at heart, but haven't the surveys been showing that the biggest "pirates" are also the biggest "fans"? If this is true, then I'd expect that the people most likely to DL the album for free would be the same people who'd want extra band goodies and concerts. So suddenly Bon Jovi is rewarding their fans for liking them (and voting with their wallets), while protecting their (debatable) revenue stream, and wisely ignoring the minority of haters (who don't really make up much of their listener-base anyway, and won't make much of a difference one way or the other).
The contemporary version would be, "If you believe that, I've got a dot-com startup[1] for you to invest in".
==========
[1] Or possibly a major energy company, a famous Internet backbone provider, or a new transuranic element.
If there's no rigor to the surveys in question here, then the very data that/. uses to support the claim that filesharing doesn't hurt is suspect. If the survey has no rigor, then your opinion is meaningless anyway.
In psych research, at least, each instance of a particular survey must have a unique identifier, otherwise the data is suspect. This can be a serial number that is bound to nothing but that particular set of responses, but without a system to ensure that each set of responses--and each respondent--is unique, no credible institution or journal will accept the data. If you want your opinion to be heard, you'll have to accept the fact that your opinion will be uniquely identified, even if measures are taken to prevent revealing who, exactly, "you" are.
Don't forget that there will be a minimum strength based on the materials and the construction used.
"Well, it doesn't really need to be this strong, but the most cost-effective, warranty-reliable plastic we use doesn't come any weaker than this."
Arguments that we should or should not do something presuppose that any one state is better than any other state. Can you show me how we make the universe a better place by being mindful of consequences or preserving most of the planet's life?
Maybe we should be like lemmings, although that whole cliff & water thing may be a myth. But why should we evolve to be one way or another? Is there some compelling reason to value an amoeba over a platypus? An organism over a rock? A quark over a supernova? It's probable that in the past humans did not exist for billions of years. Is that a bad thing? It's possible that in the future, humans will not exist for billions of years. Is that a bad thing?
Absolutely. Any other organism on the planet with a use for this stuff and access to it would be exploiting the shit out of it without a second thought. Hell, most of these organisms wouldn't even give it a first thought, being motivated purely by biochemical imperatives. Why should we be any different?
If by "not as elegant" you mean "hours of math homework", then you and I understand each other clearly:)
Re:The RPG is dead! LONG LIVE MMORPG!
on
Layoffs at WotC
·
· Score: 2
Damn. I live in California, USA, so I guess that won't work...:(
Re:The RPG is dead! LONG LIVE MMORPG!
on
Layoffs at WotC
·
· Score: 1
Where do you live? I'm looking for a good group too.
Re:Don't need no stinkin' recruiters!
on
Layoffs at WotC
·
· Score: 2
Remember how popular D&D got during the 80s in spite of the limited marketing, shitty rules revisions, silly source material, execrable art, and the violent fundie backlash?
And D&D was only ever sold in specialty stores: game stores, some bookstores. I don't see how WotC has changed this at all, except to open their own chain of specialty (gaming) stores to flog their products in.
My first thought on reading the news was "Excellent! Now I don't have to worry about whether or not to buy more WotC crap just to keep up!"
Slashdot Mirror
I'm afraid you've lost me. It seems like you're saying that the message of a movie is something like this:
"Vivisection is wrong because of how graphically the bloodshed is depicted, and how vivid the expressions of agony are on the face of the victim, and how resoundingly his screams echo in our ears."
You contrast this with the implied message of the novel, which seems to be:
"Vivisection is wrong because of the insights into the vivisector's motives that the novel affords us."
It seems to me that in this light, no story can either tell the truth or tell a lie. It will start out by attempting to do one or the the other ("vivisection is wrong because..."), and then promptly fall apart as the medium takes over with ruthless efficiency: "vivisection is wrong because the medium makes it seem wrong".
By this logic, "drinking Kool-Aid is right because Jim Jones makes it seem right".
Or have I misunderstood you?
Ah. Well, I have no objection to Anonvmous Cowards! I apologize.
Sometimes arguing for the sake of arguing is fun!
In that vein, I'll point out that "nothing is constant" is a self-refuting statement. It presupposes a constant baseline against which the constancy of everything else can be measured. If you deny the baseline, then you have no basis for assessing the constancy of anything, one way or the other. You can't even make the statement unless you have a constant.
Once the class of constants has been admitted, it simply remains to determine what things are a member of that class. Doing violence to you for my own amusement is pretty constantly wrong, and I imagine you'd be the first to reject any ideology that argued otherwise.
Have you read any of his literary criticisms (like the one under discussion, for example)? If you did, you might allow that he's a good critic, even if he's also a bad novelist. And why should we pay any attention to your criticism of Brin? Where's your body of superlative fiction to back it up?
Thank you. I think I have a clearer understanding of your point now. I'll not deny that understanding the medium (or context) of a message will generally help in understanding the message itself. Conversely, ignoring the context will often result in ignorance of the message.
But.
If I write a novel preaching the evils of vivisection, and then later a movie is made on the same subject, the movie will not say that vivisection is good because it is a movie (and not a novel), but because the message has changed.
Using the medium itself to be the message is a clever trick, but useless if if you have no message to convey. If the artist has no idea in his mind, then his medium will convey only the message, "Look at me! I am blobs of paint!" Thus my assertion that message must exist independent of medium, in order for the medium to do its proper work.
Normally, I don't reply to ACs, but I'd like to clear something up: I'm not proposing that all wisdom is timeless. I am proposing that we have clear proof that some wisdom is timeless. Whether or not Aristotle's wisdom is timeless is a different question altogether.
Condensed reply: So I should look to the nature of Slashdot to find the meaning of your post? If you spoke to me, should I expect to understand your words by studying the way in which air transmits sound, or the workings of your vocal chords? If your statement was made in Spanish, would your meaning change?
I think that you are confusing "design" with "implementation". I don't dispute that modern storytelling techniques are often radically different from those techniques used in the past--though not as different as you might think. This is different from the nature of stories.
But what is the nature of stories, anyway? A simple answer might be that the nature of stories is to communicate. This seems like a reasonable answer, and if we look into the past we see that it applies just as much to pre-historic cave paintings as to the contemporary novel. Looking forward, it's reasonable to assume that this nature will not change in the future. Likewise, the nature of storytelling is to communicate the story. A storyteller of any age, using any technique, can be judged against this standard. The thing being communicated is different in different times and places, but the fundamental principle of communication that defines a "story" does not.
If we take "communication" as the unchanging nature of stories, then we can interpret Aristotle as follows: "Plot is more important than character, in order to successfully communicate the story." The question then becomes "is Aristotle correct?"--and this question can be applied just as appropriately to modern stories as ancient ones. By the same token, his assertion will be just as correct in the ancient context as in the modern one, so if he's wrong today, then he was wrong back then, and if he was right back then, he will be right today.
Unless, of course, he has also confused implementation with design: his audience might have better received plot-driven communication than character-driven, leading him to believe that the implementation of his time was inherent to the nature of stories themselves. If he is wrong at all, I suspect that he is wrong in this way--and that he always has been wrong.
There are much better, truer, more uplifting stories about Good vs. Evil out there. George's vision makes me want to join the Empire, seek out the Dark Side, and thus avoid being an incompetent, lying little scrotum hiding out in a swamp.
Your rallying cry of "the theme is valid, so the story is good!" only carries so far. After that, the heart and mind revolt, and I look for better stories.
Aristotle is talking about stories and storytelling, is he not? The nature of stories is timeless, and while storytelling techniques may have changed since Aristotle's time, storytelling principles--being closely bound to the nature of stories--have not.
Since Aristotle is talking about things that don't change over time (the nature of stories and the principles of storytelling), if his advice is not valid today, it must never have been valid. He was just as wrong about stories "hundreds of years" ago as you say he is today.
Advice doesn't have to be contemporary to be valid. "Don't murder people" has been around far longer than you or I (or Aristotle), but just because we've forgotten who "supposedly" said it first, that doesn't mean it's suddenly now bad advice.
As for the question of whether Aristotle really said it or not is irrelevant to your argument: the wisdom of the statement can easily be tested without resorting to argument by authority. In fact, arguing that it must be good advice because "Aristotle said it" is just as foolish as arguing that it must be bad advice because "Aristotle is dead now". But I digress.
Sure, some people are just criminals at heart, but haven't the surveys been showing that the biggest "pirates" are also the biggest "fans"? If this is true, then I'd expect that the people most likely to DL the album for free would be the same people who'd want extra band goodies and concerts. So suddenly Bon Jovi is rewarding their fans for liking them (and voting with their wallets), while protecting their (debatable) revenue stream, and wisely ignoring the minority of haters (who don't really make up much of their listener-base anyway, and won't make much of a difference one way or the other).
"It was the music critic, in the den, with the screwdriver!"
:9
Mmmm... Clue: DMCA Edition...
Sorry, did you mean circumcision or circumvention? It makes a big difference, you know.
The contemporary version would be, "If you believe that, I've got a dot-com startup[1] for you to invest in". ========== [1] Or possibly a major energy company, a famous Internet backbone provider, or a new transuranic element.
If there's no rigor to the surveys in question here, then the very data that /. uses to support the claim that filesharing doesn't hurt is suspect. If the survey has no rigor, then your opinion is meaningless anyway.
In psych research, at least, each instance of a particular survey must have a unique identifier, otherwise the data is suspect. This can be a serial number that is bound to nothing but that particular set of responses, but without a system to ensure that each set of responses--and each respondent--is unique, no credible institution or journal will accept the data. If you want your opinion to be heard, you'll have to accept the fact that your opinion will be uniquely identified, even if measures are taken to prevent revealing who, exactly, "you" are.
Aaaaw yeah.
Don't forget that there will be a minimum strength based on the materials and the construction used. "Well, it doesn't really need to be this strong, but the most cost-effective, warranty-reliable plastic we use doesn't come any weaker than this."
Arguments that we should or should not do something presuppose that any one state is better than any other state. Can you show me how we make the universe a better place by being mindful of consequences or preserving most of the planet's life?
Maybe we should be like lemmings, although that whole cliff & water thing may be a myth. But why should we evolve to be one way or another? Is there some compelling reason to value an amoeba over a platypus? An organism over a rock? A quark over a supernova? It's probable that in the past humans did not exist for billions of years. Is that a bad thing? It's possible that in the future, humans will not exist for billions of years. Is that a bad thing?
Sounds about right. Unless you're going to invoke some external authority to justify a claim to be something more.
Absolutely. Any other organism on the planet with a use for this stuff and access to it would be exploiting the shit out of it without a second thought. Hell, most of these organisms wouldn't even give it a first thought, being motivated purely by biochemical imperatives. Why should we be any different?
If by "not as elegant" you mean "hours of math homework", then you and I understand each other clearly :)
Damn. I live in California, USA, so I guess that won't work... :(
Where do you live? I'm looking for a good group too.
Remember how popular D&D got during the 80s in spite of the limited marketing, shitty rules revisions, silly source material, execrable art, and the violent fundie backlash?
And D&D was only ever sold in specialty stores: game stores, some bookstores. I don't see how WotC has changed this at all, except to open their own chain of specialty (gaming) stores to flog their products in.
My first thought on reading the news was "Excellent! Now I don't have to worry about whether or not to buy more WotC crap just to keep up!"