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Ward Trotter
Trad climber
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The entire trajectory of the modern "anti-hero" bears no similarity whatsoever to the archetypal hero discussed by Jung or described in anthropological studies.
The anti-hero is a relatively recent literary invention. James Dean ?
The term "anti-hero" was concocted as an apologetic to explain the actions of protagonists not conforming to the cultural/psychological requirements that had hitherto formed the raison d'tre of the classic hero. The anti-hero (although that term was never used) in classic mythology was something that was arrayed against the hero-- to thwart his progress.
The anti-hero is not a hero , just an "anti" who is made so by a brutally conformist society opposed to his sacred individuality. The anti-hero, confronted with his own implausible alienation, seeks to desperately escape such an ignoble fate by employing method acting techniques.
I could be dissuaded from this view Sycorax.
Where'd ya go? Wha? Wha?
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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If a character appears in literature how likely is it that they are based on a real person with whom the writer is familiar? Or a composite of several such persons? Can there be any other way a fictional (real life - not fantasy) character emerges upon the page?
Another personality asserting itself on the stage of life?
Could be. How could we know? One way would be to look for patterns related to personality, such as how often certain words or phrases are used.
“The orthodox view was that Shakespeare didn’t collaborate at all. When the Oxford Shakespeare in 1986 proposed that eight plays of Shakespeare contained writing by other writers, some people were outraged. What has happened since 1986 is that the accumulation of new scholarship, techniques and resources has made it clear that, in 1986, we underestimated the amount of Shakespeare’s work that’s collaborative.”
Gary Taylor, Florida State University
quoted in The Guardian 23 Oct 2016
http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2016/oct/23/christopher-marlowe-credited-as-one-of-shakespeares-co-writers
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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The entire trajectory of the modern "anti-hero" bears no similarity whatsoever to the archetypal hero discussed by Jung or described in anthropological studies.
The notion of the anti hero goes back at least to antiquity: Achilles with his anger and rebellion against authority, Prometheus as a rebel against the authority of the gods. Later Dante's Paolo or Parsival as the reluctant Arthurian hero or how about David in the old testament. How many anti heros can you find in Shakespeare? Seems like there are any number of examples that define the notion of archetype... perhaps born out of the notion of the reluctant hero. Even Satan himself is seen as an archetype anti hero to some.
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i-b-goB
Social climber
Wise Acres
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"Be thankful unto him, and bless his name."
Psalm 100:4
Our Lord would have all his people rich in high and happy thoughts concerning his blessed person. Jesus is not content that his brethren should think meanly of him; it is his pleasure that his espoused ones should be delighted with his beauty. We are not to regard him as a bare necessary, like to bread and water, but as a luxurious delicacy, as a rare and ravishing delight. To this end he has revealed himself as the "pearl of great price" in its peerless beauty, as the "bundle of myrrh" in its refreshing fragrance, as the "rose of Sharon" in its lasting perfume, as the "lily" in its spotless purity.
As a help to high thoughts of Christ, remember the estimation that Christ is had in beyond the skies, where things are measured by the right standard. Think how God esteems the Only Begotten, his unspeakable gift to us. Consider what the angels think of him, as they count it their highest honor to veil their faces at his feet. Consider what the blood-washed think of him, as day without night they sing his well deserved praises. High thoughts of Christ will enable us to act consistently with our relations towards him. The more loftily we see Christ enthroned, and the more lowly we are when bowing before the foot of the throne, the more truly shall we be prepared to act our part towards him. Our Lord Jesus desires us to think well of him, that we may submit cheerfully to his authority. High thoughts of him increase our love. Love and esteem go together. Therefore, believer, think much of your Master's excellencies. Study him in his primeval glory, before he took upon himself your nature! Think of the mighty love which drew him from his throne to die upon the cross! Admire him as he conquers all the powers of hell! See him risen, crowned, glorified! Bow before him as the Wonderful, the Counsellor, the mighty God, for only thus will your love to him be what it should.
CHARLES SPURGEON
Isaiah 9:6-7
For unto us a Child is born,
Unto us a Son is given;
And the government will be upon His shoulder.
And His name will be called
Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the increase of His government and peace
There will be no end,
Upon the throne of David and over His kingdom,
To order it and establish it with judgment and justice
From that time forward, even forever.
The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Jgill: Jung's "Original Patterns" - like The Hero - seem to me to still require the writer to identify actions so implied with either actual humans or the portrayal of such human characters in prior ways.
I hope a few posts here might dissuade you from this view. But, you are a mathematician, a scientist of sorts, and so you probably feel compelled to see what is literal. (It will not open up the field of literature to you very much.)
The narrative of a hero is a presentation of a character who must destroy himself in some way or another to discover who and what he (she) really is. Heroes abound in everyday life. Anyone who, or anything that, transcends / evolves to its next level, destroys itself to create anew.
As for templates or models that are deeply recessed in the human psyche, . . . inherent fears, instincts, emotional sensations and responses, etc. might suggest otherwise to one.
Not everything is (nor could be) learned through experience. It would appear that some things (desires, fears, apperceptions) human beings seem to be born with. There appears to be some generalized characteristics of being a human beyond a physical body. People do not seem to be wildly different from one another even in the earliest stages of life. We do not seem to come into of be in this world tabula rasa.
. . . And then there is karma.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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I am in considerable agreement with what you have to say, Mike. That was not my point. I asked how a writer conjures up a fictional persona having, let's say, the quality of heroism. Yes, the characteristic of heroism may be an evolutionary result, but when a writer begins a story about a hero the writer must draw upon a memory or observation of a human or composite of humans to create this central character. And it may be that the subconscious is in play in this process, but my point was that without fleshing out the fictional figure the abstract quality of heroism has no meaning in the story. How does the writer begin to visualize their creation? one way would be to imagine themselves in the role. Another would be to imagine someone they know or have some familiarity with. By itself heroism is an abstract quality.
Suppose you wish to write a story about a character who displays heroism. How do you decide what this character looks like or how he thinks? Does that description come out of thin air? Probably it would be a composite of persons, both real and fictional, with whom you have some familiarity.
This was not a trick question and has nothing to do with abstract logic.
Tell me how you describe your hero, his physical appearance. How did you arrive at that description? Was it purely through abstract archetypes?
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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I don't answer for Mike, but from what he said, the answer seems clear. A writer creates a character out of what they know of themself and of other people. The same way that Mike created a character from the post of jgill which suits Mike's ideas about jgill. I wonder whether Mike will see where his idea of jgill could be written anew.
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Gentlemen:
I see. Ok. I understand, I think, your points of view.
Where does improvisation come from? Where and how do ideas arise? How can anyone do anything truly creative that breaks the bounds of what is known? Is incrementalism the answer? If it is, then isn’t this somewhat like the problem of how macro events don’t adhere to the same physical dynamics as do super-micro events (ala, quantum mechanics)? In a close examination of incrementalism, aren’t the same problems showing up that Zeno’s paradoxes illustrated? How does anything get from one place to another? I know how it *seems to get* from one place to another, but how does it really? What is time? What is space? What are objects? How can things change? If things change, then are they really things after all?
My sense of these things is that a person plays.
Artistically, I refer you to written works on various subjects concerning artistic creativity. But they won’t be very satisfying, I suspect. Much of artistic creativity simply “shows up” for artists who become obsessed by certain images or views. They can’t put their fingers on what they see, much less where it comes from. But express they must. I can tell you from my side the process constitutes a real struggle. But a struggle with what? Me? How can I struggle with myself? I must be a combination or an agglomeration of different complexes (the ego only being one). The object of your artistic expression “talks to you.” A conversation emerges—a real one. But with who or what??
Have you ever had a dream that was novel for you? Doesn’t seeing one thing (and the associated evaluations and feelings that come from see that thing) give rise to what you DO want or DON’T want? Personal experiences are few when compared to all that we know either explicitly, implicitly, or unconsciously. The breadth and depth of the imagination cannot be defined or said.
Take a look at two of Mary Watkins’ works on Amazon: “Invisible Guests,” or “Waking Dreams.” (There are other books.)
All these notions about the creative urge and expression appears facilitated or communicated through symbolism, metaphors, and images, which religion, myth, and psyche operate and use.
There is a different sense of reality that comes from the heart than that which comes from the intellect. The imagination covers both of these domains, I’d say. There appears to be no limit to the imagination.
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WBraun
climber
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Where does improvisation come from?
Neurons fire in certain sequence and tell the brain.
Youtube and Sam Harris will show you how.
:-)
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Youtube and Sam Harris will show you how.
Sure, but then I asked them how WBraun works and they combusted.
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Wayno
Big Wall climber
Seattle, WA
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21. The high mission of any art is, by its illusions, to foreshadow a higher universe reality, to crystallize the emotions of time into the thought of eternity.
What think you?
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 7, 2016 - 11:22am PT
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I consider it a valid question per where does any thing come from. If you work off a machine-causation model then what seems creatively new - a line in a story, a new equation, etc. - will be seen as a recombination or reconfiguration of some thing(s) or latent content already IN the machine. If something actually new were to show up, how would that ever square with the causal notion that only some other thing(s) can "create" some other thing, new or otherwise. If something actually new were to suddenly appear, where would it come from, since mechanical output has to come from somewhere, some physical source.
This is of course reductionist thinking - that any thing, thought, line, equation - derives from smaller, more fundamental things.
Some of my progressive science friends are quick to point out what they consider to be the error in considering any of this in absolute terms, and for good reason. No object or thing or force can be described or understood as stand-alone, or independent of the whole shooting match. We can artificially tease out seemingly singular things, like a baseball, a boulder, or a boson, but if you keep digging down deep enough you end up with either energy or mass, and neither apparently exist either separate from the other (try and locate "pure energy"), and neither can be defined in and of themselves, but only in terms of action, flux, movement, forces, etc. Nobody has an final definition of either matter or energy themselves because neither seems to exist as an independent thing. In fact there apparently are no non-contingent things.
So when we ask, "Where did that line of poetry come from," we perhaps are entirely mistaken to believe we can reverse engineer any phenomenon back to this or that, neither of which actually exists in the way we are implying - as real X's and Y's or discrete things that "cause" this or that.
JL
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jogill
climber
Colorado
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No object or thing or force can be described or understood as stand-alone, or independent of the whole shooting match
I agree. There is always context. Even an object sitting in repose and isolation in interstellar space is embedded in that space, which may itself have a sponge-like character.
Welcome back, Wizard. As usual your statements about physics are interesting. Perhaps Ed, when he returns from sabbatical, will comment and clarify.
And Mike, it's interesting how some fiction authors paint an extensive verbal portrait of their central character, leaving little to the imagination of the reader, while others are minimalists in this regard, allowing the reader to fill in the blanks using their imagination.
The question I proposed initially was whether an author could create a character without regard to a model or composite model. For example, when creating a heroic figure is there the possibility that an image arrives in the mind of the writer through transcendental or astral implantation. I would say, no. When that would appear to be the case, the actual image formulation would come through the subconscious, and would always be a product of the author's experiences.
Reductionism, yes. To a point. Might you or JL think otherwise?
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WBraun
climber
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actual image formulation would come through the subconscious, and would always be a product of the author's experiences.
Another absolute made by those who always claim there are no absolutes.
Another scientism by modern so called scientists ......
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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If you work off a machine-causation model then what seems creatively new - a line in a story, a new equation, etc. - will be seen as a recombination or reconfiguration of some thing(s) or latent content already IN the machine.
What machine are you talking about, here?
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 7, 2016 - 04:28pm PT
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As usual your statements about physics are interesting.
John, I'm not really talking about physics, just borrowing that language and the words of friends since coming from the experiential angle gets little traction on this thread, and seems to confuse more than make clear. I am not remotely qualified to make any statements about physics in any detailed way. However my first love was biology (I come from a family of doctors, including my oldest daughter) and I've always loved to read about science. Particularly what all the equations are purportedly referring to.
One of the most intriguing issues is addressed in this quote:
"Although it is far less common today, one still sometimes hears of Einstein's equation (E=MC squared) entailing that matter can be converted into energy. Strictly speaking, this constitutes an elementary category mistake.
In relativistic physics, as in classical physics, mass and energy are both regarded as properties of physical systems or properties of the constituents of physical systems. If one wishes to talk about the physical stuff that is the bearer of such properties, then one typically talks about either matter or fields."
So go and look up matter and you will find, "Matter has many definitions, but the most common is that it is any substance which has mass. All physical objects are composed of matter, in the form of atoms, which are in turn composed of protons, neutrons, and electrons."
We can see that one definition (mass) depends on reference to the other (matter), and visa versa. And when we look at what matter itself is apparently composed of, we are told that matter is built from atoms, and that basically, any substance built of atoms consists of matter.
While protons, neutrons, and electrons are the building blocks of atoms, these particles are themselves based on fermions. Quarks and leptons typically aren't considered forms of matter, although they do fit certain definitions of the term.
Then, there are things that either have no mass or at least have no rest mass. Things like:
Light
Sound
Heat
Thoughts
Dreams
Emotions
Consciousness
Photons have no mass, so they are an example of something in physics that is not comprised of matter. They are also not considered "objects" in the traditional sense, as they cannot exist in a stationary, stand-alone state.
Then we keep plugging and find that (fermions) which constitute the actual stuff of atoms is not stuff at all. There is no thing or stuff separate from the properties, meaning it is the properties that we are calling "things" or stuff.
This was made clear by my friend Josh over at JPL who said there was no such thing or object or stuff called a photon. A photon is simply energy/radiation. Put differently, there is no such "thing" as a photon that HAS radiation. There is only the radiation. You can call radiation a thing, because we can measure it, but what we are measuring is not some object that has a property. We are measuring the property itself.
And per so-called "fields," a field is not (I am told) some object, stuff or thing, rather a field is a quantification of energy, typically a number or tensor, that has a value for each point in space and time.
In other words, the stuff, the matter, the objects that we usually think of as causing or giving rise to this or that are not stand alone objects that have properties, they are apparently simply properties that themselves have none of the non-contingent stuffness that we think and imagine they have.
It is interesting to consider all of this as if reality was the on-going interplay of relative forms arising falling away, and when a form does appear, it is a temporary assertion of the whole damn process. That there is no actual separating reality into independent pieces of stuff.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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In other words, the stuff, the matter, the objects that we usually think of as causing or giving rise to this or that are not stand alone objects that have properties, they are apparently simply properties that themselves have none of the non-contingent stuffness that we think and imagine they have.
Ah hah.
However, some objects can be made of quite different stuff, from tubes to transistors to neurons to tinkertoys, and they will still do logic.
The question of how stuff works is a little different than the question of what the stuff is.
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Jgill: whether an author could create a character without regard to a model or composite model . . . . the actual image formulation [of that character] would come through the subconscious, and would always be a product of the author's experiences.
That’s not Jung’s or depth psychologists’ view of the unconscious. They appear to be arguing for sets of kinds of platonic forms, universals or models upon which many variations can be generated.
Similar questions have been raised, theories created and tested, and articles published in cognitive psychology, cognitive science, and language studies with regard to family resemblances, categorizations, and exemplars. Although not specifically considered stored and arising out of the unconscious, the development and application of categories have stumped researchers for decades. I mean they have theories and all, and some really great competing theories, but they cannot say how it is that people create and use categories so successfully. (Think about if you could not categorize; ha-ha, then you’d be in my world.)
Which comes first? The instantiations upon which categories are built; or categories into which instantiations are subsumed? The remarkable thing about this (not unlike Chomsky’s claims about the inherent capability of humans for language) is that humans create and use categories without even knowing how they do so. How do you know a thing is a particular kind of thing if it’s the first time you’ve seen the particular instantiation? How do people get the categorizations right among one another so successfully when we don’t know the basis for the categorizations?
In Mary Watkins’ book, “Invisible Guests,” she reports that various artists say that the works they created were the result of taking dictation or guidance from beings that others could not perceive. Really. I don’t think this is an extraordinary declaration.
Northrup Frye argued for four literary archetypes as endemic and enduring themes that resonate throughout mankind (tragedy, comedy, romance, and irony). Literature, Frye wrote, is "the place where our imaginations find the ideal that they try to pass on to belief and action, where they find the vision which is the source of both the dignity and the joy of life."
The Ideal. . . .Vision.
How does one reach beyond his or her grasp?
I don’t think that remarkable artists copy from experience. They create their visions from an internal model that transcends (yet encapsulates) the imagination. What is orly creative or new goes beyond what one knows or experiences.
In the last analysis, of course, I must say that I don’t know.
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