I don’t usually care for fantasy, though I like Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter. Rewatching the first Harry Potter movie, I was reminded of the puzzling correlation in fiction between magic and traditional social orders. Even though the wizards in
I find it interesting that the initial premise of this article starts off talking about social orders and how magic tends to recreate standing social orders but instead of delving into THAT more and how technology (logistically? oppositely?) could create a different/better/whatever social order, the article spins off to pine about nostalgia etc. I like what Neal Soldofsky had to say and some of what mjgeddes said about creativity. I think the article's view of magic is simplistic to say the least. In general I tend to believe that a lot of what magic explains in one way, science is trying to explain in another but they are a lot closer (talking about unseen forces) than either might like to admit. The way they are studied definitely differs. In terms of whether magic recreates the same OLD social order hmmm. "Magic" can be traced back in and through as threads of many different cultures. of whom their social orders radically differed. So if "Magic" is trying to recreate a social order, maybe it isn't just of one type. But if many people relate to the idea of magic maybe it is because at one point in our long and varied histories, our own cultures had some sort of association with such an idea and it wasn't like it was a bad word all the time to be spit out of the side of your mouth with complete disregard. I am using that word "Magic" since that is the word tossed out in the article. But there could be other words to substituted in its place: a way of describing unseen forces, a way of describing an occurrence that seems to be operating under laws more unpredictable than those usually visible, etc.
maybe it’s the world-building impulse that pushes things towards realism. To make a fantasy world feel real, you have to look at the real world. And history. (escapsim and realism have a complex relationship I think. escapism is actually strengthened by strong doses of realism)Also, maybe our histories are less romantic than the histories of Tolkein’s era? Maybe people in general are just more cynical about order and power than the used to be. I wonder if there’s a change in American-penned Fantasy that tracks in time with the Vietnam war and Watergate?I definitely think fantasy and history are less romantic, and that that is a change for the better. Certainly part of it is our increasingly anti-authoritarian society. I think another factor is simply that fantasy has existed for a long enough time that people have been able to spend more time thinking about the themes and what they imply. In earlier times people wrote stuff just because it felt cool, and then a legion of fans analyzed it. New writers grew up with those analyses and incorporated them.
I think one of the reasons fantasy harks back to simpler social structures is that world-building is hard.
IIRC, Pratchett gave this as one reason for writing the diskworld as fantasy. If he used magic to achieve some things, he did not have to worry about how plausible they were, given the technologies already in the diskworld.
The Harry Potter series deals with personal growth and morality. The main character learns to shoulder his responsibility towards his community, discover how much strength he really has, and needs to make tough choices along the way. There are also a number of moral lessons about tolerance and against racism. There's not really anything new there, but it deals with change on a personal level.
Tolkien is, I believe, more or less pure escapism. His stories exist to entertain and distract, not to teach.
Creativity supersedes rationality (it includes rationality but extends beyond it). I think it's the ability to categorize and generate fruitful analogies, and no, IQ does not correlate with this skill.
'Imagination is more important than knowledge' - Einstein
“Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence’ -H. L. Mencken
To use rationality, you need the correct Bayesian priors. Rationality can't supply them (at least, not in a computable sense).
Aren't the origins in traditional myths? Even Homer was reciting stories about a long-gone golden age.
Speaking of which, I've never heard of a Greek analogue to the Venerable Bede/Gildas giving an account of the onset of dark ages. I would have thought there would be at least a mythical version of that (such as Geoffrey of Monmouth's).
"Magical thinking" combats our bias towards recent events--specifically, if we suffer misfortune or failure, we are more likely to ascribe it to our own limited capabilities or develop an external locus of control. Magical thinking is an opposing bias which offers an actionable method to alter the situation (even if an ineffective one), thus pulling our locus of control inward and switching our mind from "self-evaluation" to "problem solving." Magical rituals are about taking external action to change one's situation.
"Nostalgia" counters our bias towards change (as a member of the local underclass). In a time of stress or turmoil, low status individuals /should/ see this as an individual opportunity for advancement. Nostalgia reigns in their desire for change or to upset the social order. Not sure I can come up with a plausible non-group-evolution argument for this. Maybe confusion of local versus general stress to the environment?
maybe it's the world-building impulse that pushes things towards realism. To make a fantasy world feel real, you have to look at the real world. And history. (escapsim and realism have a complex relationship I think. escapism is actually strengthened by strong doses of realism)
Also, maybe our histories are less romantic than the histories of Tolkein's era?
Maybe people in general are just more cynical about order and power than the used to be. I wonder if there's a change in American-penned Fantasy that tracks in time with the Vietnam war and Watergate?
I don't think it's silly to psychoanalyze anything of human creation. Human's have minds that are complex and particular things. Anything thought of by humans is a function of that weird machinery encountering the world. So look at the idea, look at the world, and also look at the psyche.
I think there is an outdated romantic bias against rationality. But I also think standard ideas about how irrationality, logic, rationality, and creativity relate to one another are wrong.
Truly great ideas require strong logic, and creativity.
Creativity seems to me talent for making unusual and fruitful associations. It seems to be based on an automatic interior process of remixing. It may not useful to talk about whether this is rational or irrational. Pragmatically, it works. But it is not a process that runs on strong rational logic, unless my understanding of those terms is flawed.
Magical thinking, and bad dangerous ideas are based on rational-style thinking based on flawed logic (but logic nonetheless).
I think all this thinking is basically the same kind of stuff. The difference is how rigorous you are about seeing if you are in fact correct.
(I'm not trying make a definitive statement here. this is just in the spirit of talking these ideas out.)
I find it interesting that the initial premise of this article starts off talking about social orders and how magic tends to recreate standing social orders but instead of delving into THAT more and how technology (logistically? oppositely?) could create a different/better/whatever social order, the article spins off to pine about nostalgia etc. I like what Neal Soldofsky had to say and some of what mjgeddes said about creativity. I think the article's view of magic is simplistic to say the least. In general I tend to believe that a lot of what magic explains in one way, science is trying to explain in another but they are a lot closer (talking about unseen forces) than either might like to admit. The way they are studied definitely differs. In terms of whether magic recreates the same OLD social order hmmm. "Magic" can be traced back in and through as threads of many different cultures. of whom their social orders radically differed. So if "Magic" is trying to recreate a social order, maybe it isn't just of one type. But if many people relate to the idea of magic maybe it is because at one point in our long and varied histories, our own cultures had some sort of association with such an idea and it wasn't like it was a bad word all the time to be spit out of the side of your mouth with complete disregard. I am using that word "Magic" since that is the word tossed out in the article. But there could be other words to substituted in its place: a way of describing unseen forces, a way of describing an occurrence that seems to be operating under laws more unpredictable than those usually visible, etc.
I don't know much about the genres, but here's a list of Hugo awards for best novel from 1953 to the present:http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...
please explain: duels.
this section is getting very cryptic. I get the sense there are ideas here, but it's hard to engage with them when they are so minimally proposed.
I think they are just much longer lived or have memories of past lives so what you find nostalgic they find moderne.
maybe it’s the world-building impulse that pushes things towards realism. To make a fantasy world feel real, you have to look at the real world. And history. (escapsim and realism have a complex relationship I think. escapism is actually strengthened by strong doses of realism)Also, maybe our histories are less romantic than the histories of Tolkein’s era? Maybe people in general are just more cynical about order and power than the used to be. I wonder if there’s a change in American-penned Fantasy that tracks in time with the Vietnam war and Watergate?I definitely think fantasy and history are less romantic, and that that is a change for the better. Certainly part of it is our increasingly anti-authoritarian society. I think another factor is simply that fantasy has existed for a long enough time that people have been able to spend more time thinking about the themes and what they imply. In earlier times people wrote stuff just because it felt cool, and then a legion of fans analyzed it. New writers grew up with those analyses and incorporated them.
I think one of the reasons fantasy harks back to simpler social structures is that world-building is hard.
IIRC, Pratchett gave this as one reason for writing the diskworld as fantasy. If he used magic to achieve some things, he did not have to worry about how plausible they were, given the technologies already in the diskworld.
What would you propose as a modern-day duel? That is already an interest of Eliezer's using an analogy to untested martial arts.
The Harry Potter series deals with personal growth and morality. The main character learns to shoulder his responsibility towards his community, discover how much strength he really has, and needs to make tough choices along the way. There are also a number of moral lessons about tolerance and against racism. There's not really anything new there, but it deals with change on a personal level.
Tolkien is, I believe, more or less pure escapism. His stories exist to entertain and distract, not to teach.
please explain re: baysian priors. my googling is proving unhelpful to understand what you mean in this context.
Creativity supersedes rationality (it includes rationality but extends beyond it). I think it's the ability to categorize and generate fruitful analogies, and no, IQ does not correlate with this skill.
'Imagination is more important than knowledge' - Einstein
“Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence’ -H. L. Mencken
To use rationality, you need the correct Bayesian priors. Rationality can't supply them (at least, not in a computable sense).
The secret to magic is all in the priors baby.
Aren't the origins in traditional myths? Even Homer was reciting stories about a long-gone golden age.
Speaking of which, I've never heard of a Greek analogue to the Venerable Bede/Gildas giving an account of the onset of dark ages. I would have thought there would be at least a mythical version of that (such as Geoffrey of Monmouth's).
Conjectures:
"Magical thinking" combats our bias towards recent events--specifically, if we suffer misfortune or failure, we are more likely to ascribe it to our own limited capabilities or develop an external locus of control. Magical thinking is an opposing bias which offers an actionable method to alter the situation (even if an ineffective one), thus pulling our locus of control inward and switching our mind from "self-evaluation" to "problem solving." Magical rituals are about taking external action to change one's situation.
"Nostalgia" counters our bias towards change (as a member of the local underclass). In a time of stress or turmoil, low status individuals /should/ see this as an individual opportunity for advancement. Nostalgia reigns in their desire for change or to upset the social order. Not sure I can come up with a plausible non-group-evolution argument for this. Maybe confusion of local versus general stress to the environment?
maybe it's the world-building impulse that pushes things towards realism. To make a fantasy world feel real, you have to look at the real world. And history. (escapsim and realism have a complex relationship I think. escapism is actually strengthened by strong doses of realism)
Also, maybe our histories are less romantic than the histories of Tolkein's era?
Maybe people in general are just more cynical about order and power than the used to be. I wonder if there's a change in American-penned Fantasy that tracks in time with the Vietnam war and Watergate?
I like your last idea. Maybe we should also be looking at the origins of the fantasy genre and thinking about why they were looking to the past.
I don't think it's silly to psychoanalyze anything of human creation. Human's have minds that are complex and particular things. Anything thought of by humans is a function of that weird machinery encountering the world. So look at the idea, look at the world, and also look at the psyche.
some thoughts on this:
I think there is an outdated romantic bias against rationality. But I also think standard ideas about how irrationality, logic, rationality, and creativity relate to one another are wrong.
Truly great ideas require strong logic, and creativity.
Creativity seems to me talent for making unusual and fruitful associations. It seems to be based on an automatic interior process of remixing. It may not useful to talk about whether this is rational or irrational. Pragmatically, it works. But it is not a process that runs on strong rational logic, unless my understanding of those terms is flawed.
Magical thinking, and bad dangerous ideas are based on rational-style thinking based on flawed logic (but logic nonetheless).
I think all this thinking is basically the same kind of stuff. The difference is how rigorous you are about seeing if you are in fact correct.
(I'm not trying make a definitive statement here. this is just in the spirit of talking these ideas out.)