Links : Recursion & Human Thought : A Talk With Daniel L. Everett &
Living without Numbers or Time

JR Minkel talks about how Cosmic expansion may leave the future with no hint of Big Bang at all.

Link : A.D. 100 Billion: Big Bang Goes Bye-Bye

….The entire comedy of art is neither performed for our betterment or education nor are we the true authors of this art-world. On the contrary, we may assume that we are merely pictures and artistic projections for the true author, and that we have our highest dignity in our significance as works of art– for it is only as an aesthetic phenomenon that existence and the world are eternally justified– while of course our consciousness of our own significance hardly differs from that which the soldiers painted on canvas have of the battle represented on it. Thus all our knowledge of art is basically quite illusory, because as knowing beings we are not one and identical with that Being who, as the sole author and spectator of the comedy of art, prepares a perpetual entertainment for himself. Only in so far as the genius in the act of artistic creation coalesces with this primordial artist of the world, does he catch sight of the eternal essence of art; for in this state he is, in a marvelous manner, like the weird picture of the fairy-tale which can turn its eyes at will and behold itself; he is now at once subject and object, at once poet, actor, and spectator.

- Friedrich Nietzche in The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music

Ofilia is a 11 year old girl who loves reading fantasy stories and moves with a pile of books with her, who arrives with her pregnant mother at a countryside place where her step father Captain Vidal, a ruthless fascist, is trying to crush local resistance. There Ofelia meets a fairy which leads her to an ancient labyrinth and then to a Faun who recognizes her as Princess Moanna, heiress of an underground world where her father and her kingdom waits for her. But in order to return there she will be required to perform three difficult tasks. The Faun then presents her a book and her adventurous journey begins.

The movie scores heavily in the alluring and spellbinding fantasy world that it creates. All the fantasy characters are amazingly original and awe inspiring. Be it The goat faced Faun, The Pale man, The mandrake root or The giant toad, all the creatures here marvel with finest detail and enticing charm.

The enchanting fantasy world is evenly matched with the brutally gruesome war. Captain Vidal here is a perfect personification of fascism. Some scenes there actually are quite unwatchable as far children are concerned. There’s a scene in which Vidal uses a bottle and ruthlessly plains out the elevation of a man’s nose. In another scene after his mouth had been slit open he stitches it up and then applies a bandage, and then takes a shot of brand only to get his bandage wet first with alcohol and then blood.

One of the most important theme of Toro’s work(Pan’s Labyrinth and The Devil’s Backbone) is parallel portrayal of the fear of real and the unreal(fantasies , stories, metaphors et al.). And how fear inflicted by real life situations is much more grotesque than the unreal and how embracing the unreal makes us more stronger to face the reality. It just here some how reminds me of few lines from Kafka on the Shore- Haruki Murakami, which go as :
“At any rate you and your story are throwing a stone at a target that’s very far away. Do you understand that?”
I nod.” i know. But metaphors can reduce the distance”
“We’re not metaphors.”
“I know,” I say. “But metaphors help eliminate what separates you and me.”
A faint smile comes to her as she looks up at me. “That’s the oddest pickup line I’ve ever heard.”
“There’re a lot of odd things going on—but I feel like I’m slowly getting closer to the truth.”
“Actually getting closer to a metaphorical truth? Or metaphorically getting closer to an actual truth? Or maybe they supplement each other?”

Cutting it short here Pan’s Labyrinth is a great work of cinema both cinematically as well as in relation to the themes it carries. A must watch.
See the movie site here and catch here a post on mine on The Devil’s Backbone.

The ancients built Valdrada on the shores of a lake, with houses all verandas one above the other, and high streets whose railed parapets look out over the water. Thus the traveler, arriving, sees two cities: one erect above the lake, and the other reflected, upside down. Nothing exists or happens in the one Valdrada that the other Valdrada does not repeat, because the city was so constructed that its every point would be reflected in its mirror, and the Valdrada down in the water contains not only all the flutings and juttings of the facades that rise above the lake, but also the rooms’ interiors with ceilings and floors, the perspective of the halls, the mirrors of the wardrobes.

Valdrada’s inhabitants know that each of their actions is, at once, that action and its mirror-image, which possesses the special dignity of images, and this awareness prevents them from succumbing for a single moment to chance and forgetfulness. Even when lovers twist their naked bodies, skin against skin, seeking the position that will give one the most pleasure in the other, even when murderers plunge the knife into the black veins of the neck and more clotted blood pours out the more they press the blade that slips between the tendons, it is not so much their copulating or murdering that matters as the copulating or murdering of the images, limpid and cold in the mirror.

At times the mirror increases a thing’s value, at times denies it. Not everything that seems valuable above the mirror maintains its force when mirrored. The twin cities are not equal, because nothing that exists or happens in Valdrada is symmetrical: every face and gesture is answered, from the mirror, by a face and gesture inverted, point by point. The two Valdradas live for each other, their eyes interlocked; but there is no love between them.

Above is one of the several cities described by Italo Calvino in Invisible Cities.

The book moves as conversations between Marco Polo, an explorer, and Kublai Khan, the emperor. Khan tired of the stories brought to him by his messengers across the empire intently listens to Polo, though not always believing him.

On almost every second page there’s a new city, every city is a new story, every story is a peak, a peak in the neverland.
And every turn of the page seems like a betrayal. A betrayal that the father presents his child, while holding the back of the cycle, as he leaves him midway.

Well, am just half way through the book as of now. And yeah i read almost all the pages twice and sometimes more.
Btw here are few links : here n here.
Rest later.

Ok. lets first get to what we call fair. lets consider an examination, a fair examination, where all get equal time, same questions and same evaluation process. But is it fair? What if we say the conditions for preparation were unfair to him and demand that they should also be same i.e similar books, same teachers and also same hours of study. But then one would ask for same mental and physical conditions, i mean some are born lucky so how can we call it fair. And also many other things like similar social atmosphere, same family condition etc etc will be questioned for.
But this can’t go on and on.
So what’s the solution.

Isn’t a fair test essentially a test of inequality and also that for it to be functional an unfair condition must exist before hand. In a fair test someone is bound to have the fairest of deal among all and someone also the other way round.

Ok then Lets now conduct the test for the 2nd time but while interchanging the preceding conditions for the luckiest and the luckiest person i.e the luckiest person will get all the preconditions of the unluckiest person and vice versa.
Now what do we get. A fair deal. Isn’t it. A fair deal with for both the persons with respect to each other.
Also for the deal to be totally fair both the tests must be isolated from each other i.e none effecting the other and also with both guys not knowing that there will be another test i.e fairness is being provided to then in such manner. Crude but a necessary price for fairness.

Now coming back, we have millions of species on earth all very much different from each other. Some having the worst luck, some having not so bad a deal and there are also humans unarguably the luckiest of them all. And then in each specie there’s again the levels of luck. And this with a common test called life.
So whats the parameter of fairness here?
Yeah you guessed it right. Its rebirth with no knowledge of previous birth.

So to speak if there’s really an intelligent creator, who actually sits up there and has words like fairness in his dictionary then we will be going through this thing, i mean life, again. Sad but fair.

The much celebrated chapter of book, The Grand Inquisitor, presenting the idea of freedom as a tormentor of mankind and religion as a possible solution, was quite astounding. Also was exemplary the way Dostoevsky examines the three temptations of Christ and their effect on mankind. Though one can’t refute Inquisitor’s arguments against freedom as man’s ability to distinguish between Good and Evil as a whole is unarguably questionable but his idea of religion being the solution for it is quite debatable.
He writes:.

..For the mystery of man’s being is not only in living, but in what one lives for. Without a firm idea of what he lives for, man will not consent to live and will sooner destroy himself than remain on earth, even if there is bread all around him.

That is so, but what came of it? Instead of taking over men’s freedom, you increased it still more for them! Did you forget that peace and even death are dearer to man than free choice in the knowledge of good and evil? There is nothing more seductive for man than the freedom of his conscience, but there is nothing more tormenting, either. And so, instead of a firm foundation for appeasing human conscience once and for all, you chose everything that was unusual, enigmatic, and indefinite, you chose everything that was beyond men’s strength, and thereby acted as if you did not love them at all-and who did this? He who came to give his life for them! Instead of taking over men’s freedom, you increased it and forever burdened the kingdom of the human soul with its torments. You desired the free love of man, that he should follow you freely, seduced and captivated by you. Instead of the firm ancient law, man had henceforth to decide for himself, with a free heart, what is good and what is evil, having only your image before him as a guide-but did it not occur to you that he would eventually reject and dispute even your image and your truth if he was oppressed by so terrible a burden as freedom of choice? They will finally cry out that truth is not in you, for it was impossible to leave them in greater confusion and torment than you did, abandoning them to so many cares and insoluble problems. You see, then, you yourself sowed d the seeds for the destruction of your kingdom and no one else is to blame….

Dostoevsky then says abouts man’s desire to follow something universally unquestionable as one of his main point, which he tries to validate by quoting history of religions and rulers whereby each one tried to make itself universal. As he writes:

..It is precisely that requirement of shared worship that has been the principle source of suffering for individual man and the human race since the beginning of history. In their efforts to impose universal worship,men have unsheathed their swords and killed one another. The have invented their gods and challenged one another:”Discard your Gods and worship mine or i will destroy both you and your gods”..

Bread also becomes an integral part of his scheme which man has endlessly desired and freedom has never granted. And then he gives universal religion as a solution which will relieve man of the burden of freedom and free will. It will also take care of his bread as well. No doubt men have fought terrible wars over religions and having a universal religion will at least relieve man kind of the sufferings by these wars. But then a universal religion will never be a peaceful solution considering the rebellious nature of man which Dostoevsky himself also acknowledges in the chapter very well.

Apart from Grand Inquisitor chapter rebellion chapter was also quite good. Grad Inquisitor chapter will require a re reading i guess.
Well, its still 300 pages to go and i guess Alyosha, who’s the central character and also quite acquainted with both Ivan’s and Elder Zoshima’s philosophy will come up with either something reconciling both philosophies and may be something different.
Probably Three days at most.

In the times of Bush we loose an important moralist like Kurt. Sigh.

Here’s NYT ‘s piece on him.

My films are intended as polemical statements against the American ‘barrel down’ cinema and its dis-empowerment of the spectator. They are an appeal for a cinema of insistent questions instead of false (because too quick) answers, for clarifying distance in place of violating closeness, for provocation and dialogue instead of consumption and consensus.

– Michael Haneke

Watched Michael Haneke’s Caché (Hidden)this week. Its one of the best contemporary film that i got to watch in last some time. On the surface its a thriller talking about an affluent, self contained and peaceful looking family of three(George, Anne and son Pierrot) which one day starts receiving surveillance tapes of their front gate. These tapes then while later accompanying disturbing sketches lead way to a hidden past which is revealed as the movie progresses. The identity and the motives of the ppl/person behind the tapes is not revealed straightforward though a few clues are thrown about. The clues are themselves a test for audience’s involvement and concentration. Among the two clues i could only catch the 2nd one which lies in the last scene of the movie and had i been not told about that earlier i would have surely missed it too. But given that too we only come to know about the identity of the culprits or rather so called culprits.The motive and the psychology behind remains for the audience to unravel.

The movie moves in long shots taken most of the time from a distance as if the spectator is promoted to a bystander. The long shots with complete lack of background score not only provide an unassuming space but also a resistive restlessness, which mounts as the pace gets hindered, deliberately done so as to suppress the natural instinct of the audience to cling to any plot. Also many loose threads are spawned throughout the movie without any effort of bridging between them. As the movie progresses the tapes and the normal sequence shots threateningly start looking alike with only a background sound or fast forwarding sometimes distinguishing them. There are also two sudden yet short acts of violence which just leave the audience gasping.

The movie in its core moves with a political undertone about colonialism and political oppression. The hidden past pf George is symbolically linked to the colonial and racist history of France, with the 1961 police massacre of anti-colonial protesters featuring as a main point of the hidden past. Few scenes of riots and bombings shown in the backdrop, on the television, specifically add to underlying tone and tension. Also adding to all these are the riots that happened in France in the recent past.

The way George behaves as his past comes haunting him, his noncommittal attitude to take responsibility of it, his reluctance to confide with his wife and his refusal to hold the blame or any bad conscience all very sharply show the mindset of the present society. Haneke uses George’s childhood as the building block of the apparent racism as childhood is symbolic to the age of non reason as there is never a reason for racism which just happens. But the refusal of coming to terms to it and holding any responsibility even when one confronts it and that to in the educated bourgeois comes as one of the main themes of the movie. Several other threads and themes, one of Majid’s and his son’s acts, frailty of family relations with Pierrot sense of abandon and the weight of trust in George’s and Anne relation, from the part of the movie .

On the whole its a great movie with how it handles both its subject and the audience.

Here’s a good article about Haneke’s sense of cinema. Reading it am more than tempted to go for his other movies. Few more links(Here, here and here) through which i actually came to know about Haneke and went for the screening.

Completed My God died Young – Sasthi Brata and The Sea, The Sea – Iris Murdoch this week. The Sea, The Sea began quite fine but then slowly turned into a muddle. Though Iris pulls up in the end but still not quite that well. What downed it was too many people and too much among them though it begins with a man searching solitude, pretty ironic it was. 500 pages was too much of it. Some how i just managed through after few thoughts of abandoning it midway.
Also read about half of The Unbearable lightness of being - Kundera which has just been a fantastic read till now.

Alone in my room, i wonder sometimes if these people can or should be answered. How does one explain the whole business of alienation in a short sentences; the sheer tearing pain of not being able to belong to the very place where one wants to send down roots.?This side of the twentieth century we have seen refuges galore, leaving behind them a wild trail of heroism and tenacious nationalism. But what does one do about those non-politicals who were not threatened with arrest; those voluntary exiles who were born in a home they found foreign and came to a land which shocked and unsettled them? How does one go about building a house when the timber that holds the roof and the walls together seems so fragile, when there is no mother to cry to any more, no wife to love, no children with whom to play those games which alone makes us want to live another day?

Above is the last paragraph from My god died Young which is an autobiography of Sasthi Brata written when he was 27 year’s of age, published two years later. Right from the outset My God died Young is a fiery and angry story of an anachronistic young man who was born and brought up in an conservative Brahmin family and then later educated in a strict catholic school. Both of them with their ethos of constraints and boundaries contributed to his sense of angst, trauma and more importantly deprivation.He writes:

..I sometimes make strenuous effort to appear natural and gay. The result is often a double-take, a pathetic display of adolescent ferment..[..].. There are few things i can do without an incipient feeling of sin. Thanks to the twin pressures of a Brahmin home and a nonconformist schooling, most of the times I moved in the steel braces of subconscious inhibitions.

Sasthi writes exclusively about the taboos, superstitions, logics and illogics of both the worlds which were pressing him b/w them. There’s his mother who’s deeply religious and a model Indian wife, whom he loves very much but slowly as he comes of age or grows up enough to accept his rage, began to hate. Another figure in his growing up age which helped churn out the rebel in him was the catholic school Headmaster. Sasthi talks about his strictly manners and his ways of punishing students and how much fear those things used to evoke in him.

Ready to change his religion right before his completion of school education his Uncle managed to persuade him into a six month stint of reading Upanishads. They both went through The school of Shankra. The impact that period had on his was that he no longer felt ashamed of his being an Hindu or Brahmin But was still not that much enthralled or enchanted enough to embrace it as a way of living.
He writes:

Ironically , the philosophy of Shankara successfully weaned me from religion. I was interested in it as an intellectual exercise but not as a way of life. The evil work of school was undone. I began to turn agnostic..I became less nervous of sinning. My mother, the dogmas of my masters, my secret prayers and feelings of guilt, began to loose their hold. The rains were over..

His college life began with his Love of debating flowering, winning him few accolades and also landing him into much revered British Council debating circles. Though he began to grow in confidence though confusion and frustration never left him. As he moved ahead the deprivation and mental wreck that his upbringing had on him made every walk of his burdened and heavy. He writes :

I won laurels at college, was known to be charming, witty and clever. Yet there was the persistent feeling of unease lest the mask should crack. My passions were second rate, my mind a jumbled cliches collected from others. Yet i strained my self, wanted to rise above the insipid level of what i knew to be my very mediocre capacities..[..]..I was the shadow of the shadow. It was always hard to build life on such frail foundations.

He later had an whirlwind of a romance with a girl while in college about which he writes exclusively. As expected he moved towards west after the college completed. But then the west also had its own set of ethos which just added to his every present sense of dissatisfaction.
I guess the alienation that any society brings out in a man gives him a few nerves of discontent which run in his body like live wires always waiting to get in to a frenzy. And only Utopia can soothe them down.
Not only the story of Sasthi very much likable or rather relatable, his amazing flair in writing just makes it impossible to put it down. As the pages only tell the tale till his 27th year we can very much can imagine the later ones as how much the world has changed for better. He writes in the preface to the 2006 edition :

If My God Died Young, then he(Nietzsche notwithstanding) has had cyclic resurrections and recurring burials since his obituary appeared in my book in 1968.