So much very subtle and quiet hype about the end of the bound stack of paper sheets known as 'the book'. There have been many books over the years, and I think everyone can agree that they were not always perfect, nor ever had an overwhelming reputation for improving the world. But there's a certain something to books and even if they are dying, take heart: our generation will be able to come by books cheaply for the duration of our existence, unless they begin burning bales of books.
If the global stock of books is significantly destroyed in the next twenty years, or publishing is severely repressed by economic or colluded forces, then at the very least books will have predicted that. Basic reading and communication skills will not likely be replaced, so language will continue, and the flow of ideas will merely take on another, potentially better form. Or our eyes will atrophy from an unmitigated hegemony of digital screens, flashing lights, and confused information.
Maybe there will be a tidal-wave of information in the future which will overwhelm us. Maybe it will get the better of us. We could be changed forever.
Or the book could go on well into the future, as some type of elitist symbol that nobody understands. Probably this view of the book's future is already some cliche that has been analyzed and exploited in hundreds of books. Maybe the book will suffer a renaissance in a few years, or maybe all the news sensationalism and existential dawdling will come to naught, and the book will be as ubiquitous and burdensome as ever – perhaps forever.
In the end, if it goes, the memory of the book will either be exterminated, merely forgotten, or enshrined by some freakish bibliophilia committee as the centerpoint of some futurist, knowledge-based cargo cult. And however it goes, the book will remain as at least a symbol.
But in the meantime there is all kinds of mawkishness about books and print media in general. It seems that the publication industry gets more fatalistic while the technology industry fills with empty hype. There is no real confrontation between the two industries. Largely, the recent history of the matter is that the print industry has had to accept and learn to work with tech, gadget, and electronics industries. It's not really the same as the music industry and the internet, though there are similarities.
So these publishers and maybe even some bibliophiles are very worried and the internet is very unconcerned. That's basically the gist of the story. In my mind television, the postal service, and radio are the real danger zones, and they're still around more than ten years after the internet. Writing killed or perverted most oral tradition anyway, so whatever happens at this point is fair and not unprecedented.
12/21/11
12/14/11
The Atom Analogy
In my mind and less in my speech, and of course also in the writing and speech of others, I really enjoy and admire the atom analogy. Steak and gravy go together like carbon and hydrogen atoms. People are really like atoms. Really. They are lone individuals but they form compounds and bonds. And since everything is made of atoms the analogy is undeniable. You'd have to be contrary and perverse and maybe even ignorant to deny it.
You have essential unity via essentially individual units [chaotic unity, of course, but you get what you get]. The universe and its near-infinite children. Surely this is a cliche so utterly used up that it can no longer be regarded for its innate profundity. And this is an era in which truly profound things are rarely unexploited, and many go unnoticed, and explanations are plentiful but useless.
This is no trick of relativity, either; it is the flow of energy in a near-infinite system, a constant. So humans are like atoms and minds are like particle waves, and it makes sense to an ignoramus such as myself because there are particle waves and atoms which constitute existence. And a dam in the flow, another cliche: the river of life, of time, as symbol.
And what happens when too many atoms get together? When they are large atoms in a small space, strange things may be known to happen. Weird events unfold and pathetic explanations are offered half-heartedly. In the face of such overwhelming reality any response is valid, but no response is perfect. So an atomic blast can be likened to the cultural, but especially political and scientific, mentality that created and employed them.
It could also be likened to any crisis, or any situation. All it would take is a little ingenuity and time and flexibility. The analogy doesn't have to be terrifying, or depressing, or uplifting. In the end it is only so much information, among so much other information, that may or may not convey an idea or relation.
The information cliche has to be recalled - information age, intellectual property, the internet. The fatal overdose and over-reliance on indirect information. And yet without indirect information we would be as good as blind, liable to agree to any sort of political or social manipulation. And 'chemical realism' proposes: a statistically mediocre, unfair, yet still incredible life that may or may not be understandable. Everything else is secondary, to use another cliche.
In such a reality, runaway events are not unknown. Their products can be disturbing or beautiful. All outcomes are possible and likely, variety and monotony are equals, there is the positive sense of an open-ended question that has been posed since our eyes opened. Status is part illusion and part deception when elementary similarity is the only trustworthy rule. The question is do we use Occam's Razor, or Occam's Lathe?
You have essential unity via essentially individual units [chaotic unity, of course, but you get what you get]. The universe and its near-infinite children. Surely this is a cliche so utterly used up that it can no longer be regarded for its innate profundity. And this is an era in which truly profound things are rarely unexploited, and many go unnoticed, and explanations are plentiful but useless.
This is no trick of relativity, either; it is the flow of energy in a near-infinite system, a constant. So humans are like atoms and minds are like particle waves, and it makes sense to an ignoramus such as myself because there are particle waves and atoms which constitute existence. And a dam in the flow, another cliche: the river of life, of time, as symbol.
And what happens when too many atoms get together? When they are large atoms in a small space, strange things may be known to happen. Weird events unfold and pathetic explanations are offered half-heartedly. In the face of such overwhelming reality any response is valid, but no response is perfect. So an atomic blast can be likened to the cultural, but especially political and scientific, mentality that created and employed them.
It could also be likened to any crisis, or any situation. All it would take is a little ingenuity and time and flexibility. The analogy doesn't have to be terrifying, or depressing, or uplifting. In the end it is only so much information, among so much other information, that may or may not convey an idea or relation.
The information cliche has to be recalled - information age, intellectual property, the internet. The fatal overdose and over-reliance on indirect information. And yet without indirect information we would be as good as blind, liable to agree to any sort of political or social manipulation. And 'chemical realism' proposes: a statistically mediocre, unfair, yet still incredible life that may or may not be understandable. Everything else is secondary, to use another cliche.
In such a reality, runaway events are not unknown. Their products can be disturbing or beautiful. All outcomes are possible and likely, variety and monotony are equals, there is the positive sense of an open-ended question that has been posed since our eyes opened. Status is part illusion and part deception when elementary similarity is the only trustworthy rule. The question is do we use Occam's Razor, or Occam's Lathe?
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