Ken’s Blog

One afternoon quite a few years ago, when “Sex and the City” was still on the air, I saw Christopher Noth — the actor who plays Carrie Bradshaw’s love interest “Mr. Big” — walking with a friend near Columbus Circle in Manhattan. He was dressed in a nice suit, more or less like the one he generally wore on the TV show.

Objectively I knew that this was “Christopher Noth, the actor”, not “Mr. Big, the character”, yet as I saw him dressed like that, with the glamorous backdrop of Manhattan all around us, part of me could not help but think I was witnessing a TV character come to life.

This morning as I was walking along in Manhattan, I found myself, for the first time in years, thinking back on that moment. Perhaps it was because this is Valentine’s Day, when many New York couples dress up and act out their romantic fantasies — their own personal brand of “Sex and the City” come to life.

Then, early this evening, just after boarding a Eighth Avenue local heading uptown, I saw a man in a suit running to catch the train as the doors were closing — he made it through the doors barely in time. It was Chris Noth himself, the embodiment of a certain fantasy of New York romance. I think I was the only passenger in that crowded subway car who recognized him.

I don’t believe in the supernatural, but seeing the man himself standing there, blessing all of those young Valentine’s couples with his presence, was way cool. Particularly on the very day I had been thinking about him.

I wonder how often that sort of thing happens.

Recently, as I started watching a movie on video, a scene came up just before the opening credits of a character having a supremely happy and exciting experience. In that moment, I knew for certain that the character was doomed — in fact would probably not survive past the opening credits.

In another recent viewing experience, I saw a supremely self-possessed character — one who had never been defeated — go confidently into battle, expecting an easy victory. Before the contest had even begun I was already cringing with dread at the horrible defeat I knew the character would suffer. The only question in my mind was how much the writers would pile on the shame and ignominy.

I don’t think it’s that I have ESP. Rather, I believe each of these scenes was designed in such a way that the audience is subliminally tipped off about what happens next.

In a sense, most commercial films are designed on rails: The audience wants to be surprised, but the filmmakers artfully ensure that on an unconscious level the audience will see the surprise coming. I believe this is thought of as good commercial filmmaking.

What if a commercial film were to offer a true surprise — without secretly telegraphing its punches? Could it still be successful?

Darwin today turns two hundred and four.
A great man who, sadly,
      Is with us no more.

Yet so much of existence is now understood
‘Cause he traveled the world
      As a scientist should,

His time on the Beagle productively spent
Developing theories
      Of species descent,

The practical uses of which still abound.
Yet his message is deeper
      And far more profound:

That whoever you are, and wherever you go,
You are joined with all life.
      That’s important to know.

We’ve all experienced it: Sometimes you are inspired — fire seems to flow from your fingertips, and ideas emerge from your brain a mile a minute. Then there are those oddly fallow patches, when nothing comes.

I suspect this pattern is repeated in pretty much the same way across many creative fields — writer, poet, sculptor, architect, composer, to name just a few.

Has anyone ever done a systematic study of possible causes of this ebb and flow of creative inspiration? What can influence it? Are we more creative when we are happy or sad? When we are well rested or falling asleep? Drunk or sober?

Or is it something more complex? Does each of us have a unique key that unlocks our particular inner flow of ideas? If so, and assuming we want to keep this flow going, how can we each best learn to locate our own inner key?

Today, while having lunch in a restaurant, I happened to notice that my fellow diners around the restaurant were of a wide variety of ages, from early childhood to perhaps late seventies.

As I looked around the room I caught myself classifying everyone by age, and I realized that I do this all the time, reflexively.

So I started to study individual faces, and tried to imagine them at different times of life — either younger or older. I looked in the face of a man in his sixties and was able to make out the rough contours of the young man he had been — and perhaps still was in his own mind. I saw a young girl, and tried to imagine her as a mature woman.

Then I had an odd thought. Perhaps one day, when we are all seeing the world through augmented reality lenses, we will be able to choose how old we appear to others on any given day, or how old others appear to us.

Maybe one’s apparent age will become as mutable as any other article of fashion, something simply to put on, like a new pair of shoes.

If that happens, I wonder whether it will change the way we think about things.

I am thoroughly enjoying the Netflix production “House of Cards”. I’ve seen only four episodes of the thirteen they have posted, and have been desperately holding myself back from watching them all at once. You know, it’s like when you open a box of fine chocolates and you tell yourself you won’t eat them all in one sitting. But of course you really want to.

It’s not a perfect show. There are plot contrivances that are clearly cooked up, and minor characters who respond in ways convenient to the plot, rather than to any recognizable reality. But that’s all part of the crazy gothic fun.

The basic premise is to place a superhero of amorality — Kevin Spacey doing his perfect-pitch Richard the Third — into modern Washington D.C. (which everyone already suspects is a bastion of deals from hell), and to run full-tilt with the premise. The writing is deliciously knowing and evil, and the direction no nonsense and perfectly on point.

This is “Dr. Horrible gets the girl”, with no apologies whatsoever, and I’m loving it.

I found Rhema’s comment on yesterday’s post very insightful. It seems quite plausible that it is the virtuous loop of instant high bandwidth feedback when meeting somebody in person that allows our brains to function at higher capacity, as we feel each other out in real time.

Which suggests a more refined version of my original question: Could we systematically add and subtract various aspects of “being there” to figure out which elements of meeting in person are the most important?

For example, perhaps we can separate people by a pane of glass, or have them interact through video of varying latency or resolution, or with varying sound fidelity, or with/without stereo depth, etc.

At some point we might discover a decisive dimension which holds the key, more than other dimensions, to the sense of “being there” when meeting somebody.

Of course, we still need to come up with an objective criterion: What question shall we ask, to understand how much our two participants were fully “present” in their mutual encounter?

I am open to suggestions!

I attended a talk today at the AnthroTech MeetUp — a MeetUp that combines Anthropology and Technology — where the speakers were discussing the phenomenon of on-line dating. My favorite question from the audience was about the disparity between the profile someone presents on-line, and what happens when you meet them in person.

His very words, I believe, were “You often know what somebody is like in the first five seconds after you meet them in person.”

I then asked a follow-up question, which I posed as a research problem: “Would it be possible for an on-line experience to convey the information we somehow manage to absorb about a person in the first five seconds that we meet them in person?”

I think it’s an interesting research problem not only because it might produce a useful practical result, but because I am genuinely unsure whether such a thing would be possible. After all, we don’t really understand all of the factors that go into our ability to size up a person in just a few seconds. Is it some subtlety in their voice, their body language, their scent, the way their eyes move when we look at them?

Is it all of these things together, somehow processed by our brains below the level of consciousness, or is it something else that science has not yet identified?

I really have no idea. But wouldn’t it be interesting to try to figure it out?

We all have a memory of our past. I’m sure you can summon up, after a little thought, a host of recollections on the order of “On this year/month/birthday here I was, and this is what I was doing.”

Of course the person we see in our memories is not exactly who we are now, but rather a somewhat related entity. If I were to meet my younger self from years ago, I suspect I might be startled by how much my earlier incarnation and I disagree about various things, as well as ways in which our tastes differ.

At some point it will be possible, through advanced computer technology, to create an ongoing in-depth map of the current state of one’s personality. As such techniques mature, it will be possible to measure and to chart the personality drift of a given person over the different times of their life.

I suspect that some people will turn out to have changed radically over time, whereas other will be seen to exhibit a remarkable lack of change through the years.

For the life of me, I can’t figure out which would be better.

For the last two days I have been subscribed to a discussion forum, something I generally don’t do. It wasn’t quite intentional — I wanted to attend a meeting of this professional community, so I joined up, and the default state is to receive an email whenever somebody posts.

I doubt I will stay in this forum, because I am getting far more emails than I am interested in getting, but meanwhile it is intriguing to witness the mechanics by which a community continually sorts itself out. Everybody who posts means well, but there are quite a few clashes between well-meaning newbies and indignant old pros.

I suspect some of these old pros don’t realize just how mean they sound, as they castigate some unfortunate newbie for breaking some rule of decorum or other. Apparently “Don’t be gratuitously insulting to well intentioned newcomers who don’t know any better” is not one of those rules of decorum.

Imagine a world where such a rule was built into every community. I wouldn’t mind living in that world for a while. 🙂