newnumber6: Ghostly being (Default)
[personal profile] newnumber6
First, tomorrow's my birthday. Not all that important and I'll be doing more of a substantive birthday post tomorrow, but this is the random post and it's unrelated to anything else in the post so it fits here too.

I've mentioned before how I'd like to ban newscasters from using the meaningless phrase 'made history'.

I would also like to ban them from the phrase 'You might be surprised.' in their promos, and all variations of it. There's a new poll about so-and-so. What are the results? You might be surprised! What's the law about such-and-such, and what rights do you have? You might be surprised!

Yes, I might be surprised. Or if not me, at least it's a fair bet that some segment of your audience might be. You know why? Because if you told any story that would surprise NOBODY, IT'S NOT NEWS. You don't need to suggest that I might be surprised at the results of such and such. It's a given. Just tell me the results and let me decide if it was surprising or not, thanks.

Semi-related, recently I'm getting annoyed on TV news where they mention something like 'people are showing up protesting a new labour law' and then neglect to say what the law does and why they're protesting. I want depth, thanks!

-

Moving on, a phrase has been bouncing around in my head for the last week or so. I don't know what started it, specifically, some other random line of thought, but the phrase itself stuck with me - "The purpose of life is to create fiction."

Now, I don't mean it literally, since I don't believe there is any intrinsic purpose to life beyond what we, as intelligent individuals, give it. And yet, there's something compelling in the idea. Because when you look at it, that's the only human endeavour that sets us apart from the rest of the universe. Well, perhaps it's not the only one, but every other one can be the _basis_ for fiction.

The elements can shape land, drastically. Complex and seemingly ordered formations can exist in nature, even with life completely out of the equation. In the grand scheme of the universe there's little difference between the death of a human from the death of a bacteria. Sure, there is the faculty of self-awareness, but if there was a self-aware stone, it wouldn't be very interesting just because it was self-aware... hell, we probably wouldn't know the difference, so how do we know the stones aren't self-aware? Not intelligent, mind you, self-aware, something we have trouble even defining.

Now, fiction requires intelligence. It's possible a rock formation could, by pure coincidence, resemble English or alien words that tell a story (although it's highly improbable unless the story is something short like 'This cliff is made of cheese.' or 'The last man on Earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock at the door.', and even then, not likely), but without intelligent it's not actually a story, because a mind needs to interpret the language. The rock formation isn't telling a story, it simply _is_... the story is told in the mind of the person reading it.

So, the only thing that sets us apart from the rest of the universe is either that we create fiction or that we do thing that make for good fiction. And fiction requires intelligence. So, what else is there connecting fiction to human purpose?

Well, there's our nature, for one. Of course, we love to tell stories, but even beyond that...

Look at the type of societies we decry... ones which stifle the thought and creativity that give rise to fiction. Totalitarian regimes. But still it's within our capability to create them, perhaps because they do make compelling fiction. We have the capability to create that which we hate, and enjoy fiction about things we would hate to experience. Feels almost as though it was set up as an engine to create fiction... that we create things that make for good fiction, and yet have a hatred for them that causes us to try to topple them once they're already in place... which also makes good fiction. Similar line of reasoning applies in reverse... we can imagine utopias, but usually they're either dreadfully boring or they rely on human nature being other than what it is. It's as though we're designed to want to write about them but be unable to acheive it, because once we did, what would be the purpose of writing about it?

Even lies are fiction, perhaps fiction in the simplest form, and we can't stop producing them...

What is the use of fiction? I'm not talking about the use to humans... there are all sorts of answers to that, already explored. But is there an intrinsic use? The only thing that comes to mind is that it's existence is its own use. If life has an intrinsic value, for its variety and individuality, why wouldn't fiction. But instead of producing individual humans, we're producing infinite universes of possibility. Even though a particular fictional story might only focus on one tiny portion of a universe, the rest of the universe is implied by the story. Create fiction and give birth to a universe. Tell the story to someone else, and you create two, or three, or more, as the story is different in your mind as it is theirs, and they may, even without realizing it, imagine their own possible changes to the story. Just as obscure physical principles possibly create a large number of physical universes springing off from any event, human nature creates a large number of fictional universes off any fiction.

Related to that is the final thing I want to consider... fiction sits at the top of the chain...

whatever (superstrings) it is gives rise to particles, particles give rise to atoms, atoms give rise to molecules, molecules become more complex and eventually become life, life becomes more complex and eventually becomes intelligence, which leads to society, and it is societies that develop fiction (well, individuals could develop fiction too, but then non-intelligent animals can develop 'societies' in a sense... but it certainly helps, when creating stories, to have someone to tell the stories to). Who knows what fictions creates when it becomes complex enough, perhaps that's mean to be as obscure to us as what gives rise to particles. Hell, maybe complex enough fiction creates superstring. ;)

Hmmm... I realize I'm sounding a little like Grant Morrison. Ah well. Really, this is all just thought experiment anyway... an intriguing idea I had fun exploring... as I said, I don't really believe there is a purpose to existence, nor do I believe that fiction has any existence beyond the people who imagine it, but there's some undeniable appeal, to the idea that the ultimate end to human existence is to produce fiction, even if it's not literally the case.

Finally, some thoughts on Stargate: SG-1 Season 9 and Stargate Atlantis Season 2, since they just aired the Season 9 finale tonight here. Spoilers behind the cut, nothing really big, but if you happen to be one of those who doesn't like to hear anything and haven't yet seen Season 9 because it airs in syndication for you or whatever, well, there'll be something.

This year Stargate's gone through some big changes, with the addition of Ben Browder to the cast, and the final departure of Richard Dean Anderson (aside from one guest appearance this year). The other big change is that the Goa'uld are all but gone as a significant threat... they're still lurking about, but the big new threat are the Ori, a race of ascended beings from another galaxy, and their servants, the Priors. Meanwhile Teal'c has to deal with troubles in the new Jaffa Nation.

Despite the big changes, the show's still holding up remarkably well. It's easy to screw up pulling off a major change to the show, but they've managed to keep up my interest, and not really violate any of the core themes... the main threat is still people masquerading as Gods, but now they're just a lot more powerful. Browder's a good replacement for RDA, although his character feels a little too much like Chricton with a little military training (Claudia Black as Vala does somewhat better, playing a character not much like Aeryn). Still, he's fun to watch, and they've done well working strong character episodes in.

My favorite of this year was probably Ripple Effect, but only for the first half of the episode - the rest of it was okay but I felt they could have done better. Fun fact I read about it - while filming, the director did a take where just before a door closed, alternate Carter and Mitchell were shown holding hands. When the writer pointed it out, the director said 'I thought that's where you were going with it, I just made it explicit.' Though the cut never made it to air. Woulda been funny, though. :)

Also of note is Arthur's Mantle - Only Stargate could do a common SF show concept that THEY'VE ALREADY DONE and somehow make it even better than the original episode, mainly because nobody forgot the first time it happened.

Cast is also great... often they can make me laugh just with expressions on their faces, as you can tell what they're thinking, they're so familiar. Plus there's fun things like Teal'c willingness to hit Cam given even the slightest opportunity, and his growing knowledge of Earth Pop Culture. I would have liked to see Jack guest at least once more (and the 'alternate realities' one was just crying out for a brief cameo or at least a mention of him being on many of the teams that didn't come through the gate).

Atlantis is still just kinda okay. My main problem is that I really only really like one of the main characters, Doctor McKay (he's Canadian). Well, Doctor Beckett's not bad too, and you always have to support characters named Doctor Beckett. But it also just doesn't have the same energy. I do like that the second season's had them in regular contact with Earth again though - right from the beginning I thought it would be a great idea to do away with the 'no way to get home' aspect very quickly, and they did, and handled that part well (still far enough apart that they have to rely on their own resources, but not constantly looking for ways to get back either). Also dragging Atlantis down this year were too many plots hinging on characters acting way too stupid for no good reason. You'd think BY NOW they'd figure out that even when the hint of an alien possession happens, you lock down all their command codes instantly.

Plus SG1's finale blew Atlantis' out of the water in the OMGWTFHOWARETHEYGOINGTOGETOUTOFTHIS? category.


And thus ends this random post.
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newnumber6: Ghostly being (Default)
newnumber6

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