The Nature of Existence

I forgot to mention that I did attend the local screening of The Nature of Existence, the new movie from Roger Nygard in which he traveled the world asking various people grand questions about the meaning of life, etc. It was entertaining, and it is subtly subversive of religious views, so I will recommend it. But I do have a few reservations that I was also able to bring up in the Q&A after the movie.

One thing that was alarmingly obvious when watching it is that almost all the gurus and authorities and religious figures that he interviewed were male. There were exceptions — the 12 year old daughter of his neighbor (who was an unrepentant atheist, and I thought the most sensible voice in the whole movie), a lesbian priest, the wife of a pastor — but otherwise, this show is one long sausage-fest. When I pointed this out, Nygard was apologetic and recognized that this is a significant omission, but explained that he simply hadn’t noticed when he was filming the material. Isn’t that the whole problem, that we’re oblivious to these omissions of half the population of the planet?

Another problem was actually a tactical decision, and I can actually understand why it was done this way. All of the interviews were friendly; Nygard made a conscious decision to be entirely non-confrontational and just allow the interviewees to speak without criticism. It’s a policy that opened doors and allowed him access, and encouraged the people to speak at length. I can’t imagine him making this movie any other way, but still…there were parts where the lack of a critical interrogation meant the subjects were able to effectively hide the more hateful parts of their beliefs. For instance, he interviewed the odious Zakir Naik, the Muslim fanatic who thinks it is a religious obligation to kill opponents of Islam (apostates should merely be imprisoned), and who also considers homosexuality grounds for execution. He also interviewed pompous ol’ Orson Scott Card, and his raving homophobia was left unexposed.

So I was left with rather mixed feelings. The movie only illuminates the middle ground of religious belief, and while it exposes the absurdity while avoiding being judgmental, it also manages to bury the worst aspects of religion. That’s tactically sensible and I consider it an overall good because it will get the movie watched by more people, but man, it’s not my style, and it sort of grated on my nerves. It was nice. I kept waiting for something to explode.

Roger Nygard in Morris

The University of Minnesota Morris has a special guest coming to town: Roger Nygard, the filmmaker best known for making the movie Trekkies, about the Star Trek culture. He’s here as a guest of our philosophy department, though, because his latest movie is The Nature of Existence, in which he asks various people about the meaning of life.

I don’t know. Wandering around the world asking strange weirdos to explain why the world was created sounds like a lousy way to do philosophy, and an even worse way to do science, but it might be a great way to do entertainment. We’ll have to see.

He’s going to be doing a marathon screening of the companion series to the film from noon to 9pm on Sunday (tomorrow!) 30 January, in Imholte 109. This event is free and open to the public.

But wait! There’s more! And all totally free!

On Monday, 31 January, you can meet with Roger Nygard from 3:30-4:30 in the McGinnis Room of the university library. And then at 7pm, in Imholte 109, there will be a screening of the movie The Nature of Existence…again, open to the public. This event is sponsored by the Midwest Philosophy Colloquium, the International Programs Committee, and the Morris Freethinkers.

I’ll be dropping in on some of the events, depending on whether I can get all caught up in my lecture prep for the coming week (with my current load, I will die if I don’t have most of the work laid out on the weekend); I’ve also got to get some preliminary work done organizing some talks for the week after, which contains Darwin Day, in case you’d forgotten. I will peel myself away for at least a little while, though, to be entertained but probably not enlightened.

Are you writing a vampire novel, too?

Last night before bed, I downloaded and started to read a light piece of fluffy fiction, one of these urban fantasy novels that are so popular right now. I won’t name it because I really just want to complain about a phenomenon I’m seeing a lot of in this whole genre, as much as I’ve read, anyway.

The driving conflict of this story is supposed to be the horror of the undead: the protagonist is both tainted with the curse of partial undeadness and trying to protect friends from being similarly afflicted. This is a reasonable premise for a fantasy novel, and could make for a good story.

However, there is one little problem. The taint (vampirism, in this case) makes the victim inhumanly strong, with lightning reflexes and acute senses, and also immortal and immune to mundane threats like bullets, poison, knives, and suffocation — decapitation and being burned to ash are the only serious threats (and granted, her enemies know this and are trying to chop her head off). Meanwhile, the traditional weaknesses of vampires — sunlight, garlic, wooden stakes, holy water, etc. — are all dismissed as superstitious misconceptions of the Middle Ages. They don’t affect her.

Also, it turns out, vampirism gives its victims a hypnotic glamor that makes them irresistible, and also an awesome sexual stamina. There is a cost, in that they have to drink blood, but it turns out that nipping a pint from a willing and enthusiastic partner once a week, preferably during the throes of orgasmic ecstasy, is enough to fuel all those superpowers.

So I’m having a little difficulty getting into the story. Every time the protagonist moans about her curse and these evil, rotten vampires who must have their heads ripped off before they eat her baby sister or whoever, I’m thinking the story should be about getting this poor crazy woman into a mental hospital to address her self-esteem issues, and about how she should be joyfully trying to share her gift with her family and friends. It’s very confusing.

Just a suggestion if you’re writing one of these stories: could you either make the curse a real curse that generally puts one into an undesirable situation, or could you write a story about happy, enlightened, lucky people who are overjoyed at their amazing new abilities? ‘Cause the whiny gripey moaney stuff over objectively glorious circumstances is gettin’ old.

Thank god for Ricky Gervais

It sounds like Ricky Gervais was wonderfully caustic in his turn hosting the Golden Globes awards last night — so brutally acerbic that I wouldn’t be surprised if there aren’t many celebrities lined up to complain about their treatment to the organizers. I wonder if he’ll ever host an award show ever again?

Among the amusements, though, was his closing thank yous. God finally gets the credit he deserves.

The universe conspires to make me humble

Earlier I had claimed that cable networks had bottomed out by conspiring with the Catholic church to make an exorcism show.

I was wrong.

TLC is making a reality show with Ted Haggard.

I will refrain from saying that now they’ve hit bottom, because if I do, some cable executive somewhere will step forward to plumb depths I can’t even imagine.

I think I understand why religion is so successful

It’s because it is the absolute bottom floor of any descent into crepitude. That’s all I can conclude from looking at the fate of various cable television channels: they all seem to start out well with commendable goals, and pretty soon they’re all selling out to the cheapest, sleaziest advertisers and producing the worst shows they can imagine, all to pander to the lowest common denominator. Look at The Learning Channel (you won’t learn anything watching it anymore), the History Channel (yeah, if your idea of history always has Nazis in it), and the SciFi channel, which now isn’t even trying and has renamed itself the SyFy (what?) channel and hosts what I once thought was the lowest of the low, Ghosthunters.

But the Discovery Channel has out-bottomed even the SyFy channel: they have made a deal with Satan the Catholic Church and will be producing a show on exorcisms.

This is why NetFlix will conquer the home entertainment universe: all the broadcast and cable channels have become the domain of the dumb.

Enhance!

Oh, man, my least favorite pseudoscientific cliche from movies and TV is the hackneyed “zoom in on that reflection in the eye of the guy we caught on the el cheapo RS-170 B&W surveillance cam and recorded on VHS…if we blow it up enough, we’ll be able to identify the killer!” It’s painfully common, too, as you’ll see in this montage of enhancing moments:

“Do you have an enhancer that can bitmap?” Somebody slap those writers.

(via Kevin Zelnio)

How hard is that SF?

I got a request to collect participants for an online survey on science fiction — take a look and help out if you want. It’s long, and a little depressing: it’s a list of science fiction movies and TV shows, and you’re supposed to rate their scientific accuracy. I think I’m rather picky about that, so just about all of ’em got slammed when I did it.

I am conducting a small pilot-study on the properties of various sci-fi works (focusing on film and TV in particular). For the purposes of this study I designed two web forms (Web-form 1 & Web-form 2) that ask participants to rate sci-fi works in terms of different sci-fi properties. Web-form 1 asks how accurately a sci-fi work portrays scientific facts and Web-form 2 asks what the work’s general attitude towards science is. The number of sci-fi works that a participant is supposed to rate (121) is substantial (one needs about 20 min to complete one web-form) but it is necessary for the kinds of analyses I’d like to be able to do.

I am in dire need of study participants, as you might imagine. Specifically people who are above average in terms of scientific literacy and who are also fond of sci-fi. I’m more than certain your blog would provide me with just the right sample population- if you’d kindly »nudge« your »hordes« to go and fill out the two web-forms I provided:

WEB-FORM #1: Soft vs. Hard sci-fi
If you were born on an ODD day of the month (say the 1st, 3rd, 5th, 7th etc.) then please fill out VERSION 1 of web-form 1:
https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?hl=en&formkey=dDZXTmM0dFJnQm1sV2ZzWl8yblpkWHc6MQ#gid=0

If you were born on an EVEN day of the month( say the 2nd, 4th, 6th, 8th etc.) then please fill out VERSION 2 of web-form 1:
https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?hl=en&formkey=dDBSYWstbDB0bzlhM1FUMXkyZDBBTFE6MA#gid=0

WEB-FORM #2: Optimistic/Utopian vs. Pessimistic/Dystopian
If you were born on an ODD day of the month (say the 1st, 3rd, 5th, 7th etc.) then please fill out VERSION 1 of web-form 2:
https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?hl=en&formkey=dDNuWE9NdnBzeVpXeEdjcDVkVUxWM2c6MA#gid=0

If you were born on an EVEN day of the month( say the 2nd, 4th, 6th, 8th etc.) then please fill out VERSION 2 of web-form 2:
https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?hl=en&formkey=dExsMDhtWkRqbTN5b1J6aENYU1preGc6MA#gid=0

Important EXTRA instructions for participants:
Each of these two web-forms asks you to rate 121 different sci-fi works. While this may seem a lot it is also a prerequisite for a certain type of data analysis I’d like to do so please bare with me. The works are all English-language movies and TV series made in the period between 1950 and 2009. If one is at least a casual watcher of sci-fi most of these titles should be quite familiar. You will need about 20-25 min to complete one web form.

I’d kindly ask you to complete one web form in a single “run” (do not take big pauses when you are in the middle of it). You can complete the other web form after a break (even say the next day), but please do not forget to fill out BOTH forms or your input will be of very little value.

Please only fill out the forms once and please only fill out the VERSION appropriate for your birth date. The only reason for the different versions is so certain biases in the way the data is gathered will average out. The versions otherwise gather the SAME data and ask the SAME questions.

I hope I am not asking for something completely out of order and that you can help me gather enough participants. I am currently tethering on the edge of 30 respondents but this is nowhere near the number I’d need to get valid results.

With kind regards,
Jurij Dreo
Ljubljana, Slovenia

Episode CXXXXIV: He had it coming

Don’t say I never do you any favors, acolytes of the endless thread. I’m about to spare you the need to see the latest cheap, unimaginative Hollywood dreck to hit the theaters by showing you the ending of the new Yogi Bear movie. Bring the kids around, tell ’em to see what the new kiddie movie is all about, and watch their little faces fall and the tears flow and the screaming begin.

Of course, if they get really excited and demand to go see it right now, you’ll also know that you need to book a psychiatrist, stat.

(Current totals: 11,523 entries with 1,215,620 comments.)

The commonality of bad movies and bad religion

Face it. Star Wars sucked. Even the original movie, which I remember fondly and vastly enjoyed watching, was horribly written — that George Lucas did not have an ear for dialog, and once he drifted away from a simple mythic archetype couldn’t put a plot together to save his life, was something that became increasingly evident throughout the series.

And Star Trek? Embarrassingly bad science, hammy acting, and an over-reliance on gobbledygook and the deus ex machina. There was maybe a small handful of episodes that were more than cheesy dreck.

So why do people adore those shows so fanatically?

Here’s one interesting explanation: cult movies plug into the same cognitive keyholes as religion does. The article is a bit superficial — comparing Star Wars to Catholicism, Star Trek to protestantism, and the recent Star Trek retcon/reboot to Mormonism is stretching the analogy way too much. But there’s something to it.

The Star Wars/Star Trek phenomena are a bit odd; I watch bad movies sometimes for entertainment, but I never lose myself in apologetics for them. They’re bad movies. They’re fun for the comic opera klutziness of them, and half the pleasure is being able to stand above them and outside them, and appreciate the sincerity of the exercise in slapping together a weird piece of crap in spite of little obstacles, like a lack of money or talent. But Star Wars/Star Trek have serious fans who devotedly study the lore and get into arguments about which is better, and even think they represent some high quality story telling.

I will boldly predict that some people will be arguing for that in the comments. Of course, they’re wrong. They sucked. Just like religion.

So the question is why do people cling to them…and it seems to me that our brains are equipped with a kind of ideological inertia, which is probably a good thing, since you don’t want to too casually flip-flop on ideas before you’ve worked out their viability. But sometimes we seem to be prone to a pathological degree of attachment, where because once we favored some strange object of worship, whether it’s Jesus or Spock or America or the Green Bay Packers, we can’t let go. Changing our minds would be an admission that we were wrong and could be wrong about something we regard as important in our lives, and there’s a reasonable fear that opening the door to that kind of uncertainty might lead to chaos.

There’s also a peculiar inability to separate the parts from the whole. You can like classical sacred music without endorsing the silliness about magic crackers and Original Sin, just as you can enjoy a light sabre battle on the screen without getting goofy over The Force.

So what is religion? It’s a parasite on a couple of useful features of how the mind works, its tendency to try and model the world around us as a coherent whole and its reluctance to abandon models that fail to work. It’s a particularly successful parasite because it can be introduced early, with mother’s milk, well before they get plonked down in front of the boobtube, and so it generally outcompetes Captain Picard…and it also gets relatively little pushback from the culture once the child leaves the breast to spend more time with outsiders, who are all praising the same mysterious being, and so far Yoda worship isn’t very common.