On The Supposed "Smallness" Of The World

It bothers me when people say "small world" in reaction to finding someone they know in a place they didn't expect, or finding out they share a friend with someone else. Like, "Hey, my cousin once sold you a hot dog! Small world!"

Fact: The world is not small. The world is, in fact, enormous. Think about the number of carpenters there are in the world. Now add that to the number of taxi drivers. Now add in all the electricians, the coffee shop employees, the alcoholics, the waiters, the lawyers, the insomniacs, the diabetics, the pilots. Realize you haven't even come close to being nearly semi halfway to being even approaching a hundredth of the way to thinking about all the people in the world.

If we actually lived in a small world, we would not say "small world" as a surprised or shocked reaction, or to mean "what a funny coincidence!". If we actually lived in a small world, encountering people we knew would be commonplace. We use the words "small world" to mean we are actually living in a huge world, a world so full of people and places it's amazing when we encounter someone we recognize. We use the words "small world" to express the opposite of what they mean.

On "This Is Water"

I recently watched David Foster Wallace's This is Water commencement speech (that's the transcript). Here is the video:

The speech resonated with me deeply, mostly because DFW says things I've been thinking about for a while, only in a much more eloquent, funny way.

As DFW says, here is a truth: Everything about my personal experience tells me that I am the center of the Universe. While others' feelings have to be communicated to me in some way, mine are right there. My emotions are immediate and urgent; yours are far away. I can feel the full profundity of my grief and ecstasy in a way that I can't even begin to understand yours. You are the same. We both perceive the other through our own frame of reference. A guy driving a Hummer cuts me off on the road -- how dare he get in my way? Perhaps, as DFW says, "the Hummer that just cut me off is being driven by a father whose little child is hurt or sick in the seat next to him, and he's trying to get this kid to the hospital, and he's in a bigger, more legitimate hurry than I am: it is actually I who am in his way."

There's a word, made up by the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, for the realization that every human being you see lives a life just as fulfilling, immediate, complicated, and filled with emotion as yours is: Sonder.

Feeling sonder can make you feel sad and small, but I think it's the way towards a true, genuine compassion that can transcend the most divisive boundaries. Make up stories about the people you hate. Give them all the excuses, while denying yourself those same excuses. Paint yourself as the villain, while giving them a rich, vivid life. You are only a background character. They are the hero.

DFW takes it a step farther. He says, "if you really learn how to pay attention, then... it will actually be within your power to experience a crowded, hot, slow, consumer-hell type situation as not only meaningful, but sacred, on fire with the same force that made the stars: love, fellowship, the mystical oneness of all things deep down." I'm not sure if more optimistic words have ever been spoken. The word choice is especially beautiful. The worldview DFW presents transforms an annoying, miserable situation into a sacred one, something on fire with love and fellowship. Amazing.

So what does DFW mean when he emphasizes the importance of repeating to ourselves, "This is water"? Well, at the beginning of the speech, he gives a parable about some fish:

Two young fish swim by an older one. Older one says, "The water's nice today." Younger fish says to the other, "What the hell's water?"

Repeating "This is Water" is our continual reminder to ourselves to notice the basic, human truths right in front of us. These are truths so fundamental to being human that everyone on the planet shares them. As DFW concedes, it is unimaginably hard to remain conscious of these truths. But sometimes we can catch a glimpse of it, the capital-T Truth peeking from behind the veil, and with it, understand more completely what it means to be alive and human.

-Me

Musings On A Machine-Driven Life

My current job (being a cashier) does not offer autonomy. Managers decide when I work, when I take my breaks, when I take my lunch, what I do when I work, if I'm doing a good job, and so on. At first, I thought that was the whole story -- people control what I do, and I'm fine with that, because there's nothing particularly difficult about it. A machine could do what I do with relative ease. Upon closer inspection, however, I realized people don't control what I do. Machines do. I undertake all interactions at my job through the conduit of the cash register. The register is everything. I use it to communicate with my managers and the customers I help. In a way, I am an extension of it -- and notably, not the other way around.

Computers write my schedule. They write my managers' schedules. They tell us when we can clock in, when we can clock out, when we can go to and return from lunch. They keep track of our inventory, how our store is doing, what we need to do as a result. They command us.

We have a self-checkout section in the store. Basically, the self-checkout registers do exactly what I do, except without me. The only thing stopping all the registers becoming self-checkout is the integrity of the customer. For some reason, this does not seem like a difficult obstacle to overcome.

At work, I perform the task of a machine, at the command of computers (other machines). But it doesn't end there. I come home and use the computer to communicate with people and to entertain myself. I rely on them utterly. If computers stopped working tomorrow, it would destroy my current lifestyle. Not just me, of course. It would ruin countless lives. It would straight up kill the millions in hospitals who depend on machines even more than I do. Most money would be gone. There would be nothing.

I'm not sure if I should be scared, or really scared.

-Me

On Opposites

The word "opposite" means something diametrically different from another thing. Black and white. Happiness and anger. When you are an opposite, you have something that opposes you. Something antithetical to your nature.

But opposites are more alike than we realize. Consider a list of three words: "black", "white" and "Tuesday". Notice how Tuesday obviously doesn't belong in this list. Why? "Black" and "white", despite being diametrically different, have a lot in common. They're both colors, used to describe something perceived through sensory means. They're both present on a zebra. Meanwhile, "Tuesday" has none of those things in common.

That one's pretty obvious, so consider another list: "black", "white", and "green". Now these words are all colors, so why does green feel like it's the odd one out? I submit the following reason: Opposites belong together. Opposites, in addition to being different, complement and fill one another's voids.

There is a concept in the Chinese philosophy/religion of Taoism called yin-yang. Here's the pictoral representation:

Yin is the dark, yang is the light. Notice how they complete one another. Also notice how yin is present in yang and vice versa. The idea is this: Opposites do not merely belong together; they are a part of one another. If you look closely at the nature something, you will find its opposite hidden somewhere inside.

"Black" needs "white" to exist in a way it does not need "Tuesday" to exist; in other words "White" constitutes some part of what defines "black". A Maori proverb I like says, "Turn towards the Sun and the shadows fall behind you." Take the Sun away, and the shadows disappear. Take the shadows away, and there is nothing to turn towards anymore.

In happiness, there exists some element of grief. We can not have one without the other, because to be happy all the time is to lose our ability to contextualize what that means, what happiness is. Likewise, in absolute silence, there is a profound noise, a voice talking to me I call "me", and which you would also call "me" (but you would call my voice "you"). There is nothing louder.

I'm entranced by the paradox of opposites being part of one another. It adds dimension and profundity to an otherwise flat universe. If two diametrically opposed concepts can be more similar to each other than Tuesday can, there is some underlying harmony to the universe. Look for opposites in their opposites -- e.g. find war in peace, find strife in bliss, find tranquility in chaos, then do it the other way around -- and you'll see what I mean.

-Me

The Stanley Parable: Part Three: Our Relation To The Narrative:

There's a part in TSP where, after Stanley has thoroughly thrown The Narrator off track, The Narrator becomes agitated and decides to restart the game. As it turns out, the "restart" is fake; everything following it is all part of a preset storyline. This ties in with the illusion of choice, the last part of this series, but what's more brilliant is this: The player does not know the restart was fake. I had my suspicions, but after a few seconds of sameness I started to think it was an actual restart. When The Narrator started spouting new dialogue, I was surprised, and happy the game managed to decieve me.

When we take part in a narrative -- a book, a play, a movie -- we implicitly agree to a relationship with it. We are the entertained; the narrative is the entertainer. In the moment I described above, TSP reminded me: I was not the entertainer. I was never the entertainer. The game has a few preset, railroaded storylines. The only thing I get to control is what storyline I experience. When the game is capable of altering some aspect of the gamestate without my knowledge, it shows me just how little control I have in comparison to it. My relation to the narrative is not give and take. It is not fifty fifty. 

Example two: There is another ending in TSP where you're stuck in a small room. A prompt comes onto the screen telling you to push the "q" button. You push it. The Narrator delivers a small bit of dialogue, remarking on your lack of autonomy. Another prompt, telling you to push "t". You push it. A prompt, you follow, Narrator. Lather, rinse, repeat until The Narrator begs you not to push the button, to spare yourself, to prove that you are free.

Nothing forces you to push the button; in fact, The Narrator actively tells you not to. At the same time, nothing happens until you do push the button. The room doesn't change. There is no additional dialogue. So what happens? Eventually, you push the button. You sacrifice your autonomy for progression's sake. Nothing is the railroad that gets you back on track. It's refreshing to see railroading stripped down to its most basic element: Progression.

Let's look at Stanley's job in the story. He pushes a button when a machine tells him to. He then feels happy because a mind control device tells him to. We look at this job with disdain and laugh at how ridiculous it is; clearly it's ridiculous. But TSP has made us Stanley. We push the button. We feel happy. TSP is the mind control device. In a way, all video games are the mind control device that tells us to push a button and rewards us with happiness in the form of rewarding gameplay and a compelling story. This is our relation to the narrative.

-Me

The Stanley Parable: Part 2: The Illusion Of Choice And Determinism:

If you haven't already, go check out Part 1 of this series.

So my second favorite moment of TSP is when Stanley, after thoroughly wrecking The Narrator's story, arrives at two doors. The Narrator wants control back and so, after much internal deliberation, forcibly opens the door on Stanley's right. Stanley enters and sees a massive timeline of the story, indicating every choice -- every bit of The Narrator's dialogue, every instance at which you chose to wreck the story -- was predetermined.

Here's the best part: If you, the player, turn around, you see two doors behind you -- the same two doors you just saw, one of which you thought was forced upon you. Stanley's entrance into the room was inevitable, regardless of The Narrator's decision to open the door on the right. This minor detail reflects what the timeline is already showing you, only in a more powerful way. Every outcome has a script. You don't know when you are in control, and when the game is railroading you onto a narrative. You have no say over your autonomy.

Often, the illusion of choice satisfies us as much as an actual choice would. Truly open sandboxes are frightening; you've got all this sand and no idea what to do with it. Better to have a few tools and a set of loose blueprints than nothing. Better to have a clear goal than no goal. Better to embrace the illusion of choice than have bad options.

Writers often say the scariest part of their profession is the blank page.

The illusion of choice extends farther. Do we have any free will whatsoever?

That's a difficult question, so let's try to arrive at the answer in gradual fashion. The Socratic method will help us.

Imagine someone you really, really dislike. Think about all the vile, horrible things they do that cause you to dislike them. Now, ask yourself: If you had been raised in that person's circumstance, i.e. with the same genes, with the same family, with the same environment, would you act any differently? I don't think I would.

What makes you you? It must be your genetics, your family, your environment. People have been telling you what's right and what's wrong since you were born. Notice how none of these things are under your control. Your thoughts originate from exterior inputs. Your actions, every one of them, are traceable to situations beyond yourself.

Suppose after reading this, you say to yourself, "Wow, Weiliang is so wrong. I'll show him I have free will. I'm going to go outside and choose to pick up a particular rock. No one told me to go pick up that rock, but I did. This means I have free will." Yet the only reason you went out to pick up that rock was because you were reading this blog. You are only able to read this blog because I wrote it. This circumstance was outside of your control entirely. Meanwhile, the reason I started writing this blog was because I wanted to share my thoughts with other people; in other words, because of your existence.

It might be scary to think about the fact that we don't have free will (this idea is called determinism), but I think it's rather liberating. Imagine a judicial framework which subscribes to this theory. Such a system would recognize that a human being doesn't simply choose to become a criminal. Rather, criminals are borne out of the exterior influences of their environment. Such a system would focus on getting rid of the causes of crime, rather than punishing individuals for committing it. It would emphasize rehabilitation over degradation.

Think about what determinism says about love as a part of the human experience. Familial and friendly loves are woven into the fabric of existence. Romantic love is better. The universe conspires, on a daily basis, to ignite fires of passion and committment which bring even the most divergent people together. Look at someone you care about -- determinism says you are destined to have them in your life. Love is more powerful when we realize we have no choice but to experience it.

-Me

The Stanley Parable: Part 1: Relinquishing Free Will:

I recently played the game The Stanley Parable, and wanted to share my thoughts on it. I have a lot of thoughts, so these posts will come in no less than two parts. The second part will come later this week.

I highly recommend you play the game before you read this. However, I understand that many of you won't, so I'll tell you about it anyway. If you ever plan on playing this game, or even watching someone play this game, do not read on. I will ruin everything for you.

Here's the plot of TSP: A guy named Stanley works all day pushing buttons in an office. Then, one day, he finds his office building entirely abandoned.

This is where the player gets control. You, playing as Stanley, walk out of your office and eventually see a set of two open doors.

Accompanying you on your adventure is The Narrator. When you get to the two doors, The Narrator informs Stanley that he takes the door on his left.

This is the crux of the game. You, the player, get to choose which door Stanley takes. You can follow The Narrator's instructions, or disobey them. Your choices impact the story and every time you choose something different from the last time you played, you experience a different story. I want to talk about one of these stories, as I found it brilliant and thought provoking.

My favorite path was when you follow The Narrator's instructions every time. This story has Stanley finding a mind control device deep underground which controlled the emotions of the workers in the office building, keeping them happy while they pushed buttons endlessly. Stanley, upset and aghast that he had no autonomy all this time, turns the device off and finally becomes free from its influence.

Here's what's so brilliant about the ending: You, the player, were not free whatsoever. You obediently followed the narrator's every instruction; you pushed the buttons the computer told you to. You were doing what Stanley does, day after day. You sacrificed every part of your own autonomy. Even better, you lose all control of Stanley at the end of the story and have to just watch him walk around, all while The Narrator sings about how free he is. The game functioned as a mind control device for you -- the mind control device Stanley supposedly turned off in the story.

There's more. TSP is a commentary on video game design. Video games with stories often provide the player with the illusion of choice; however, everyone who plays the game experiences the exact same story in the end. This phenomenon is known as railroading. TSP mocks railroading while simultaneously asking, "Could it be worth it to sacrifice your autonomy to experience a story?". After all, the game designers worked so hard on the game.

If you answered yes to the above question, another follows: "Are we, as humans, willing to sacrifice our own free will just to be happy?" We typically think of free will as one of the most precious elements of the human experience. If someone offered to make all your decisions for you, and this caused you to be the happiest you've ever been, would you take the deal? Would you willingly become Stanley, pushing buttons all day under the influence of a mind control device?

Why not? After all, if you've experienced this ending, you've already made that choice.

-Me