The World Is Messy - Probabilistic - Relativism

Listened to this Hidden Brain on the commute this morning. 

https://hiddenbrain.org/podcast/why-youre-smarter-than-you-think/

The IQ part is of course interesting and how IQ can't measure desire or passion or interest of course leaves the concept wanting. 

I have always found myself going back to Kurzweil's definition of intelligence - the ability to solve problems with limited resources. 

Alas, problems for you might not be problems for me.

But the real kipper of the piece for me was when he used the word "messy."

The world is messy. 

Here is some of the context:

Shankar Vedantam:

You've also said that IQ tests fail to capture the full range of human potential, in that they focus on the explicit, the conscious, the controlled forms of thinking. What does this leave out, Scott?

Scott Barry Kaufman:

Absolutely. Well, one specific thing I did study in my dissertation is this idea called implicit learning, which is our ability to learn the probabilistic rule structure of the world automatically and implicitly without a level of awareness. This is deep implications. I mean, so you talk about the theme of your show, right here, we're getting to... this is very, very congruent. I mean, think about what is required to develop social intelligence. Sometimes when people smile, they mean this, sometimes they don't. Sometimes when people's eyes are like this, sometimes they don't. The world is messy.

Probabilistic rule structure of the world. 

There are no absolutes. From the hard sciences to the social sciences, not one truth.

And yet, we can be happy. We can move through the world with grace and patience and humility and smile and be smiled at. 

Relativism is your friend. 

Old systems, especially in an education system, but you also see it in organizations and hiring practices. It goes deep, this stuff, a lot of these assumptions we have about human potential that are really outdated and just wrong.

 

Are you thinking what I'm thinking? Religion is an old system, really outdated and unhealthy. We aren't fallen, we aren't born in sin, we aren't corrupt, we don't need saved, the body isn't bad. 

Time to let it go. Time to embrace the messy world with a new paradigm. A healthier paradigm. 

You'll thank me.

The Imagination - Bigger Than Me

 Atheists, like myself, can run the risk of protesting too much. It gets very Freudian, almost like a defense mechanism:

"Why all the atheism? Huh huh? Why all the mistrust of religion? Huh huh? Who hurt you? Huh huh."

Still, I do think about this stuff...and have since my late teens and my first philosophy class, back in 1990 or so.

One theme with the theists is the ole something as opposed to nothing. I won't tackle this one head on but I will morph this theme into something I consider kin:  the something bigger than me theme.

I think a fear among theists is that if there is no sense of something bigger than me, then there will be no order:

Mass hysteria will rule unless we humans accept something bigger than us. 

An interesting context here is, Alcoholics Anonymous and step 2 of the 12 steps (or traditions if you prefer):

"2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity."

So what is an atheist to do in the midst of such a, let us say, predicament/quagmire/conundrum? 

Maybe this atheist realizes something bigger than him, alone, in his closet studio every night. 

Stay with me.  

At night in my studio, I will play along to a rhythm track and solo. 

"Is this guy about to tell us he touches god with his stratocaster?"

Stay with me.

As I am playing I begin to hear things I want to play; sounds I want to realize and bring into the world, birth if you will.

"Is this guy about to have a guitar baby or some shit?"

Often times my technique will prevent the sounds from being realized - my fingers won't fly like I need them to, and the sound idea, parishes, if you will.

I tell you this because this sound idea, waiting to be born, is my imagination at work, and it is bigger than me.

This is the crux - my imagination is bigger than me - my imagination creates. From nothing - ex nihilo.

Let there be sound.

And here is the public health angle: I othered not a single person. I condemned not a single person to hell nor did I promise eternal salvation to like-minded folk. 

I simply found the head space to listen, and IMAGINE something not yet here and try to will/birth/create it. 

This is bigger than me. This is enough for me. The precludes mass hysteria and allows me to remain sane, whatever AA means by sane. 

"Is this guy actually going to try to save humanity with a pentatonic scale? Is this some bullshit fundraising in disguise for the National Endowment for the Arts?"

Of course not. I'm simply showing you that you can recognize something bigger than you without anthropomorphizing or indoctrinating or othering your fellow sapiens to hell. 

I like to think I'm offering you a public health opportunity. Because personal beliefs are a public health issue.

You're welcome. 

If you have some money burning a hole in your pocket, you can help others create something bigger than themselves.

 "I knew it, this motherfucker is after my money."

David Lee Roth - Breaking Down Walls, 4th Walls

 All three, count 'em three, kiddos in the car. Mass hysteria, as usual. I forget where we were going, because, it's mass hysteria with three kids in the car.

Anyhoo, Van Halen's Unchained comes on the Sirius XM Radio and because it's Van Halen, I dig it.

Now I've written about Eddy on this hear blogarooski, but I can't remember if I've written about Diamond Dave.

Till now.

If you don't know Unchained, give it a listen:

Just killer isn't it. 1981 Killer stuff.

Three kids in the car but fourth walls being broken down.

What is the fourth wall?

Per your pals at wiki, it's: 

a performance convention in which an invisible, imagined wall separates actors from the audience. While the audience can see through this "wall", the convention assumes the actors act as if they cannot.

My first experience with this was, of course, one of my favorite movies: Airplane.

Ted Striker breaks down that fourth wall, looks at me, yeah me, and says, "What a pisser."

God I love Airplane. Airplane II too. 22.

What's all this got to do with Diamond Dave?

Well, Dave loved his little talky talk during Van Halen tunes: "What the fuck, I'll pay you for it; What do you think the teacher's gonna look like this year; Reach down between my legs and ease the seat back."

You remember.

But on Unchained, Dave ropes in Producer Ted Templeman. 

That's Ted, top left.

"C'mon Dave...gimme a break."

It comes into the music from the outside. From outside the studio, into the mix. 

Ted told me, "What a pisser," and broke down a wall, and per Dave, Ted Templeman told me, after a wall came down, that he wanted Dave to give him a break.

By instinct or creative genius (or a mix), Dave broke down a wall.

You may not think, behind all that flash and 80's schtick and the teased hair and groupies that Dave is an artist, but you'd be wrong.

He is...an artist. The myth is that one can't fun and be an artist. An artist is serious and concentrated and thoughtful and committed.

Maybe, definitely, behind the hair and the "outfits", Dave is all those things...and fun.

It's a forced dichotomy you doofus. I know it's hard to believe. 

But the record(s) speaks for its self. 

Truman Capote, AI, and Comedy

I recently reread Truman Capote's La Côte Basque from my Great Esquire Fiction book and it prompted my research into this story, which prompted this post on Artificial Intelligence and Comedy.

In researching this story and Capote, google kept popping up things about Capote's IQ. After I finished my research of this story (and how it basically ruined Capote's life and resulted in his slow suicide via drugs and alcohol) I went back to the Capote IQ.

Now the internet isn't exactly the place for unequivocal truth, but let's say that Capote's "internet" IQ of 215 is close to the truth. 

Now we know that AI can now write novels and poetry and there is cause to believe it can be "good" or "decent" writing. 

Because AI is a matter of pattern recognition. Recognize enough patterns and you can create, be it skyscrapers or stories. 

This is a crucial point. 

So I thought of comedy. If AI can recognize the parts/patterns of a joke, (set-up, punch line, etc.), it can in theory, create comedy.

So in time we can expect computers to be comedians?

Naw.

Part of what computers and AI can't access or pattern recognize, is feelings. Humans have feelings. And pain. Certainly what drove part of Richard Pryor's comedy was pain. Part of what drove George Carlin's comedy was anger.

Can computers pattern recognize their way to pain or anger?

In my estimation, no.

Pain and anger, (and I say this in my 51st year on the planet, and in therapy), require a biography, a full narrative to draw from.

Computers and AI don't have a past, replete with feelings and memories.

Can computers and AI pattern recognize their way to feelings and memories?

You can see where this is going. An infinite regress, a homonculus with a homonculus with a...

Kurzweil is probably correct about the future and the singularity may be near. And he's probably correct that we shouldn't fear it or the algorithms.

Probably.

I have always been more afraid of humans than anything else, being a student of history.

I certainly do not fear robots and AI creating anything artistic that will rival what humans can do. 

Capote, IQ of 215 and all, was, per Nietzsche, human, all too human, and imperfect and flawed and capable of sadness and regret and shame, in incredible proportions.

Ah feelings, nothing more than feelings.
Trying to forget my feelings...

AI can't feel or forget.

Our (human) art is safe.

Just not from humans.

Get it?

An Iota

 I was reading George Saunders’ new book last night and he is so incredible. The book is about writing and he basically takes the reader through his mind as he teaches a class on Russian short stories. The second of these stories is Singers by Ivan Turgenev. I won’t spoil too much here but Saunders teaches us that an artist, at some point, must choose himself and go with it, warts and all as they say. I’ve no doubt read this in other places but it’s the small anecdote he tells about wanting to be Hemingway and writing all this Hemingway-esque stuff but in so doing not choosing himself as an artist. But then one day while doodling essentially during a phone call, he creates little stories. After the phone call he thought of throwing them away but something caught him. The stories/cartoons wind up on the kitchen table and while off in the other room he hears his wife laughing. The proverbial light bulb goes off above his head and George chooses himself. And of course we are all better off.
Now of course it isn’t this easy. One might choose one’s self but not have the talent of Mr. Saunders. 
So I ask myself: How can I choose myself? 
No clue. 
Write what I like?
Like what I write?
Be who I am? Oof, what if I don’t like myself a whole lot?
Not gonna figure it out by not writing I know that.
Ok, we’ve got something to build on. An iota.

It might be worth mentioning here that the pedagogical upshot of the first Russian short story is this: an artist takes responsibility.

Damn.

If You Gotta Ask..

Remember when I wrote about art here and asked what is the process that is necessary and sufficient for someone to be called an artist? 

Then I read this (and these lines... 

When you’re truly creating you don’t have time to think about what to call it.

Who thinks of what they’ll name the baby while they’re fucking?

&

Too many musicians and not enough artists.

&

You can’t practice art.

In order for it to be true, one must live it.)

On Why Jazz Isn’t Cool Anymore . . . .

Posted on November 27, 2011 

Jazz died in 1959.

There maybe cool individuals who say they play Jazz, but ain’t shit cool about Jazz as a whole.

Jazz died when cool stopped being hip.

Jazz was a limited idea to begin with.

Jazz is a label that was forced upon the musicians.

The musicians should’ve never accepted that idea.

Jazz ain’t shit.

Jazz is incestuous.

Jazz separated itself from American popular music.

Big mistake.

The music never recovered.

Ornette tried to save Jazz from itself by taking the music back to its New Orleanian roots, but his efforts were too esoteric.

Jazz died in 1959, that’s why Ornette tried to “Free Jazz” in 1960.

Jazz is only cool if you don’t actually play it for a living.

Jazz musicians have accepted the idea that it’s OK to be poor.

John Coltrane is a bad cat, but Jazz stopped being cool in 1959.

The very fact that so many people are holding on to this idea of what Jazz is supposed to be is exactly what makes it not cool.

People are holding on to an idea that died long ago.

Jazz, like the Buddha, is dead.

Let it go, people, let it go.

Paul Whiteman was the King of Jazz and someday all kings must fall.

Jazz ain’t cool, it’s cold, like necrophilia.

Stop fucking the dead and embrace the living.

Jazz worries way too much about itself for it to be cool.

Jazz died in 1959.

The number one Jazz record is Miles Davis’ Kind Of Blue.

Dave Brubeck’s Time Out was released in 1959.

1959 was the coolest year in Jazz.

Jazz is haunted by its own hungry ghosts.

Let it die.

You can be martyrs for an idea that died over a half a century if y’all want.

Jazz has proven itself to be limited, and therefore, not cool.

Lot’s wife turned to a pillar of salt from looking back.

Jazz is dead.

Miles ahead.

Some may say that I’m no longer the same dude who recorded the album with Doc Cheatham.

Correct: I’m not the same dude I was 14 years ago.

Isn’t that the point?

Our whole purpose on this planet is to evolve.

The Golden Age of Jazz is gone.

Let it go.

Too many necrophiliacs in Jazz.

You’re making my case for me.

Some people may say we are defined by our limitations.

I don’t believe in limitations, but yes, if you believe you are limited that will define you.

Definitions are retrospective.

And if you find yourself getting mad, it’s probably because you know Jazz is dead.

Why get upset if what I’m saying doesn’t ring true?

I can’t speak for anyone else, but I don’t play Jazz.

I play Postmodern New Orleans music.

Louis Armstrong and Danny Barker play Traditional New Orleans Music.

Ellis Marsalis and James Black play Modern New Orleans music.

Kidd Jordan and Clyde Kerr play Avant-garde New Orleans music.

Donald Harrison plays Neoclassical New Orleans music.

I play Postmodern New Orleans music.

I am a part of a lineage.

I am a part of a blood line.

My ancestors didn’t play Jazz, they played Traditional, Modern and Avant-garde New Orleans Music.

I don’t play Jazz.

I don’t let others define who I am.

I am a Postmodern New Orleans musician.

I create music for the heart and the head, for the beauty and the booty.

The man who lets others define him is a dead man.

With all due respect to the masters, they were victims of a colonialist mentality.

Blacks have been conditioned for centuries to be grateful for whatever crumbs thrown to them.

As a postmodern musician, it’s my duty to do better than my predecessors.

To question, reexamine and redefine what it is that we do.

They accepted it because they had to.

Because my ancestors opened the door for me, I don’t have to accept it.

Louis bowed and scraped so Miles could turn his back.

It’s called evolution.

It’s the colonialist mentality that glorifies being treated like a slave.

There is nothing romantic about poor, scuffling Jazz musicians.

Fuck that idea.

It’s not cool.

Jazz is a lie.

America is a lie.

Playing Jazz is like running on a treadmill: you may break a sweat, but ultimately you ain’t going nowhere.

Some people may say we are limited.

I say, we are as limited as we think.

I am not limited.

Jazz is a marketing ploy that serves an elite few.

The elite make all the money while they tell the true artists it’s cool to be broke.

Occupy Jazz!

I am not speaking of so-called Jazz’s improvisational aspects.

Improvisation by its very nature can never be passé, but mindsets are invariably deadly.

Not knowing is the most you can ever know.

It’s only when you don’t know that “everything” is possible.

Jazz has nothing to do with music or being cool.

It’s a marketing idea.

A glaring example of what’s wrong with Jazz is how people fight over it.

People are too afraid to let go of a name that is killing the spirit of the music.

Life is bigger than music, unless you love and/or play Jazz.

The art, or lack thereof, is just a reflection.

Miles Davis personified cool and he hated Jazz.

What is Jazz anyway?

Life isn’t linear, it’s concentric.

When you’re truly creating you don’t have time to think about what to call it.

Who thinks of what they’ll name the baby while they’re fucking?

Playing Jazz is like using the rear-view mirror to drive your car on the freeway.

If you think Jazz is a style of music, you’ll never begin to understand.

It’s ultimately on the musicians.

People are fickle and follow the pack.

Not enough artists willing to soldier for their shit.

People follow trends and brands.

So do musicians, sadly.

Jazz is a brand.

Jazz ain’t music, it’s marketing, and bad marketing at that.

It has never been, nor will it ever be, music.

Here lies Jazz (1916 – 1959).

Too many musicians and not enough artists.

I believe music to be more of a medium than a brand.

Silence is music, too.

You can’t practice art.

In order for it to be true, one must live it.

Existence is not contingent upon thought.

It’s where you choose to put silence that makes sound music.

Sound and silence equals music.

Sometimes when I’m soloing, I don’t play shit.

I just move blocks of silence around.

The notes are an afterthought.

Silence is what makes music sexy.

Silence is cool.

- Nicholas Payton

That Without Which A Thing Cannot Exist

Got the feels last night. Big time. Feels I haven’t had for a long, long time. 

But before we get to the feels, let’s talk about a long, long, time – like 30,000 years.

Student came in yesterday and we end up talking about her ec’s (extra curriculars to folks not in higher ed) and she mentions theatre so we start rapping about acting and what-not and somehow I find my way to the importance of art and reference the documentary Cave of Forgotten Dreams. (It was about now when her eyes started to roll back in her head and she mumbled something about getting to class and ran out of my office.)

Think about this, some 30,000 years ago, there were people fighting the elements and beasts and expecting to die before a 30^th birthday but astoundingly, found it necessary to put art on cave walls.

Why? 

Simple: art is essential to what it means to be human. Unequivocally essential. Sartre taught us that we are beings such that our being is in question and there is no greater proof of this than art. You and me we are not simply organisms playing out the life-clock with physiological tasks like nutrition intake and homeostasis. No no, we question our existence. We ask why we are here and what it all means, what am I supposed to do and that art on those cave walls from 30,000 years ago is nothing but the mirror of the human predicament, the embodiment of those questions. Nothing but.

Why else would humans from 30,000 years ago take the time to render the materials and put art on those walls when there are so many other seemingly pressing matters like oh I don’t, know, survival?

So art is essential (from the greek ontos – that without which a thing cannot exist).

Now fast forward to October 6, 2016 and we return to the feels.

My wife and I went to see the band Lake Street Dive last night. You probably haven’t heard of Lake Street Dive and for that I am actually thankful because I got to see them at a really small venue – in this case Fete Music Hall in Providence, which holds just over 700 people. For my Athens peeps, think upstairs at the Blue Gator.

Just stepping into the venue, jam packed with bodies, working your way through the mass, to get to the bar with the opening band blasting their horn section, took me back to my live music days in an instant. The rush of not only performing but just being close to performers in a small venue where the bass gets under your skin and the room becomes a collective musical/emotional ear filled me with the aforementioned feels.

And then there was Lake Street Dive. Now I could go on about the talent of Lake Street Drive and I could wax poetic about the harmonies and how they get so very much out of the so very minimal, really I could. But it is better just to show you and let your ears tell you.

With art being essential to our human condition, this means that artists are essential. And we love to be in the presence of artists. We admire talented artists, we smile at their music and we revel in our feels when they rock a side pony 

or when we know what they mean when they sing that they wished they had met you when they were 17. 

So get out there, even if it is a Thursday and you have to pay a sitter an ungodly amount of money; go see some artists. Or better yet, create some of your own art. It’s essential.