Seeing and Thinking Accurately

(I'm reading Daniel Kahneman's book, Thinking, Fast and Slow.)

I'm not sure this project will improve net utility/happiness/satisfaction,  though it could prove insightful.

All that is insightful is not welcome, all the time.  For instance, if I can see clearly that I'm at least partially a bestial primitive animal, should I want to be aware of that if (and note the if!), I won't necessarily act on those impulses?  Wouldn't it be better to be submerged in my experience and "just" live without having the meta-view of living while I'm trying to do the living?

Should we be aware of everything?  Maybe partial delusion is best.

Suffering to Produce Art?

What is it about suffering that makes good art?

Let's back up, because maybe you disagree with the premise.  Or maybe it is stated too generally to disagree or agree with. What makes folks who have seemed to suffer produce good art?  Or, alternatively, what makes previously good artists who make it commercially, bad.

Alternative scenarios:

1) The artist's work hasn't changed at all, but the viewing of the work has changed

2) The work has changed in a dramatic fashion, and superceded the public's taste for the work: the artist has, essentially, advanced, or branched out, faster than allowable to stay relevant (in the current country/culture/milieu/etc).

3) The artist never suffered at all.  But mass appeal came about and changed his/her status, so that his/her work must now be taken more seriously.  Anything taken more seriously--i.e. anything we're willing to become more familiar with--will yield some forgiveness in the dance we call perception.

I'd like to propose that artists do indeed get worse if they don't push themselves (or somehow are pushed).   I don't think it is the suffering that causes good arts, but the capacity to back away from the suffering, to get through it, to have a change of perspective, that allows a certain alignment, a certain insight, and, after a lot of work, perhaps, some art can emerge built on that insight.  In short, without becoming uncomfortable, we don't change perspectives too fast, and don't produce very good art. 

Disclaimer: There's a long continuum between dissonant art and consonsant art--i.e. art that drastically differs from what you expect (so much so that it takes serious amounts of time to begin comprehending it) and art that is slick, easy to digest and finds instant resonance.  However, it is assumed at times that consonant art is somehow inauthentic.  That's perhaps not the case as much as we (cynics) would like to think.  It is incredibly hard to produce a piece of very slick immediately available art.  It may even be easier, at times, to produce something aphasic, ineffable, or so dissonant that there can be almost no audience besides those sympathetic with the artist, and not because the art is available to them.  Having said that, naturally those folks who become specialized in viewing art have a different taste, by virtue simply of higher exposure.  I'm not exactly sure what role that plays in the fundamentals of the piece of art on display yet though.

Why Delusion Persists

It isn't because people are stupid, but because we have egos that tell us that we're better than other people.

In essence, there's a delicate balancing act going on between the the need to be accurate and the need to succeed, to be viable, that is, to be attractive to others. 

For example, if we're rejected for an award, a promotion, or something similar, our egos allow us to reject the rejection and assert our "true" nature, and our cognitive rational minds swoop in to provide a host of reasons (however one sided). 

And that allows us to try to succeed again.

Without it, we might not, and if we didn't try, well, then it would be easy not to accomplish anything.

However, the bounds of our ego should come into play when we need correction.  Correction doesn't come easily, because a lot of us have learned to trust intuition more than almost anything else, particularly the messages of others who have experiences that we could learn from.  When we feel like we're exceptional, we don't want to sacrifice it for accuracy.  Hence delusional thinking.  It is easy, if you don't try, even natural.

Hindsight Bias and Personal Identity Based Narrative

It is all too easy to say that certain events and circumstances caused other events to occur, once both happened already.

For instance:

I am strong willed because I suffered physical child abuse.

I'm analytical because my parents were so simple and I wanted to rebel.

Anyhow, basing current life choices on how we perceive previous events isn't necessarily wrong--there's definitely a piece of the truth in there--but it isn't necessarily right, either, and it may be useless (except that it makes for an interesting story).  Unfortunately, our brains are very good at creating stories for our current situations, so good that it happens naturally and we often don't notice that we've been telling ourselves certain things about ourselves.

Marriage Is A Contract/Relationship

We don't like to cross the social/monetary value that much.  As in, we don't like to say what our social experience is worth in quantified or financial terms.  It produces a yucky internal feeling, one that, we think, tarnishes the social purity of the situation.  That's why it is easy to hate corporations, conglomerates, or anyone who has made it enough to talk about--they've figured out somewhere along the line that what they produce must be able to be consumed, and what is consumed can be quantified, and that there are patterns to successful consumption and production.  It isn't a secret so much as it is a battle cry to talk about the slickness of corporate products, the washed out quality of something mass produced, or the authenticity of the antiques in ever growing shops within a 250 mile radius of new york city. 

Chronicling All Existence -

For the sake of argument, let's assume that everything is recorded in some form or another.  What would you participate in (assuming our technological capacity puts us at the level of viewer and not direct participant), or view?  What does this say about our experience of time?  Why are we limited or not limited in how much we can understand a particular viewing?  What about viewing another experience gives us insight into it?  Why should we be able to understand it?

Neil Young Provides Men Acceptable Sentimental Emotive Stance

I couldn't help but stop walking this morning and just listen to the downtown NYC scenes that surrounded me--I work close to Ground Zero, and as such, there's a bunch of construction going on, not surprisingly.  So typically I hear clanking and banging, but this morning I heard Neil Young singing about fading into black, and then I stopped, too, and listened, and his voice carried me off into pure nostalgia, kind of sweet, tinged bitter, you know the sort, and I suppose that's just the way it goes on a chilly November morning.