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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your mind from housetop dot Com.

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Speaker 1: Three brothers named Franklin, Emmett, and Bill are together in

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Speaker 1: prison for a failed case of rail robbery in Oklahoma.

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Speaker 1: Their plan had been to make off with all the

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Speaker 1: packages from a US Post Office mail car, which they

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Speaker 1: reasoned would have some expensive merchandise on the way to

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Speaker 1: the west. Instead, they got tracked down by US marshals

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Speaker 1: and sentenced to thirty years in a federal penitentiary. On

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Speaker 1: the one year anniversary of their incarceration, the prison gets

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Speaker 1: a new warden. This warden, everybody says, is a soft

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Speaker 1: hearted academic social scientists type, and instead of harsh punishments,

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Speaker 1: he brings in new accommodations for the prisoners. One is

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Speaker 1: a newly stocked library and a collection of board games.

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Speaker 1: How sweet. One day, Bill, the youngest of the brothers,

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Speaker 1: brings his brothers a spirit board from the board game card.

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Speaker 1: He suggests they use it to ask how they can

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Speaker 1: escape the prison. Laughing, the older brother, Franklin, balks at

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Speaker 1: this otherworldly nonsense, but Bill convinces them to play, and

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Speaker 1: so the three brothers put their hands on the plant

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Speaker 1: of the spirit board. After several minutes of asking questions

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Speaker 1: and getting no answers, the plancher begins to move, ever

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Speaker 1: so slowly at first, but then gaining speed, and it spells,

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Speaker 1: I want to talk to Bill, so Franklin laughs, but

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Speaker 1: Bill is dead serious. He takes the board away in

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Speaker 1: the corner by himself and spends the rest of the

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Speaker 1: day with it. The next morning, out in the yard,

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Speaker 1: Bill is shot by guards while trying to climb over

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Speaker 1: the fence. Stupid, Franklin says, why would Bill have thought

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Speaker 1: he could make it? A month goes by Immett. The

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Speaker 1: middle brother brings the spirit board back, and he suggests

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Speaker 1: they use it to see if they can contact Bill

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Speaker 1: to ask him why he did such a stupid thing.

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Speaker 1: They do im it speaks to the air, Franklin shits quietly.

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Speaker 1: After several minutes of nothing, the plancha finally starts to

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Speaker 1: move its else I want to talk to Emmett. Emmett

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Speaker 1: takes the board by himself to the corner and spends

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Speaker 1: the rest of the day playing with it in silence.

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Speaker 1: The next morning, Emmett has wall cleaning duty on the

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Speaker 1: guard towers, and in the middle of this he tries

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Speaker 1: to jump from the tower over the fence and breaks

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Speaker 1: his neck. It was so high, why would he have

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Speaker 1: thought he could survive? Immediately afterwards, Franklin goes to the

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Speaker 1: prison library and retrieves the spirit board for himself. He

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Speaker 1: takes it to a quiet corner. He says, what have

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Speaker 1: you been telling my brothers? The plant you under his

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Speaker 1: fingers begins to move, and unfortunately that's all there is

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Speaker 1: of the story. Hey, welcome to stuff to blow your mind.

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Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. What

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Speaker 1: happens next? How can we leave it there? The just

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Speaker 1: the ragged ends of the story. We're bleeding all over

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Speaker 1: the place. What are we supposed to do? It leaves

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Speaker 1: us hungry for more? Joe, Uh, So, I wrote that story,

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Speaker 1: so that may have been a horrible story. I was

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Speaker 1: trying to inflict the pain that people feel when there

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Speaker 1: is a story that's set up that is not completed.

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Speaker 1: I know we all have this experience. You ever have

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Speaker 1: one of those great uh TV shows that gets one

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Speaker 1: season going, everybody likes it, and then it gets canceled

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Speaker 1: and you never know what what was going to happen? Yeah?

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Speaker 1: I seem to recall having the same experience with Stephen

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Speaker 1: King's Golden Years back in the day. I don't know

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Speaker 1: what that is. It was like a TV show that

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Speaker 1: he did about this guy that was getting older or

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Speaker 1: getting younger. It's been a long time, but they have

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Speaker 1: the David Bowe's song is the theme song. And uh,

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Speaker 1: it just it did not do well and it did

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Speaker 1: not get picked up, and I have no idea what happened, um,

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Speaker 1: and I never will. Wow, it's a horrible feeling. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean, even if the material is not that good,

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Speaker 1: it sticks with you. You you want to follow it through.

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Speaker 1: You want to have the complete experience of that story. Right.

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Speaker 1: So this episode We're gonna do today is about the

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Speaker 1: concept of incompleteness and unfinished ideas in art, in science,

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Speaker 1: and in psychology in general. But this was actually inspired

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Speaker 1: by a couple of events that you attended when you

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Speaker 1: were recently in New York City. But I think we

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Speaker 1: were actually in New York City around the same time,

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Speaker 1: the same week, Yeah, separately, and you I think you

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Speaker 1: left right before I arrived and we didn't actually realize

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Speaker 1: that this was happening. But but yeah, I was. I

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Speaker 1: was in New York for the World Science Festival, which

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Speaker 1: I tried to attend at least every couple of years.

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Speaker 1: And uh, I attended a fabulous discussion titled to Unweave

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Speaker 1: a Rainbow, Science and the Essence of Being Human. And

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Speaker 1: by the time this publishers, I believe the video is

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Speaker 1: actually available for everyone else. I'll make sure that we

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Speaker 1: include a link to it on the landing page for

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Speaker 1: this episode. UH. And I also attended a wonderful exhibit

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Speaker 1: at the Metropolitan Museum of Art titled The Unfinished Thoughts

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Speaker 1: Left Visible. This is crazy because when I was New York,

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Speaker 1: I all I went to the met but I did

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Speaker 1: not see this exhibit, and that drives me crazy, not

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Speaker 1: only because I was unable to finish seeing everything at

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Speaker 1: the DUM and thus my museum experience is left incomplete

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Speaker 1: and unfinished task, but also because this exhibit sounds really cool.

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Speaker 1: Oh yes, indeed, it's um It features a features a

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Speaker 1: vast gallery of incomplete works um by a number of

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Speaker 1: just really famous artists, and each work exposes something of

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Speaker 1: the artist process, uh, the realities of the artistic process,

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Speaker 1: and something of the the timescape in which each one

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Speaker 1: was produced. So um, yeah, it's a fascinating exhibit. It's

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Speaker 1: as as of this publication date, it's still ongoing through

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Speaker 1: most of this year, So if you're in New York

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Speaker 1: or you're making it up that way, go check it out.

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Speaker 1: But also, the the online presence for the exhibit is

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Speaker 1: is pretty strong as well. Any piece that we mentioned

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Speaker 1: here and all the ones that we do not mention,

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Speaker 1: they are all viewable at the METS website. Cool. So

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Speaker 1: I guess this episode is probably going to be a

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Speaker 1: little bit looser than many of them. Yeah, that's the

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Speaker 1: way I'm kind of envisioning it, that it's going to

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Speaker 1: be more sort of back and forth and just talking

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Speaker 1: about ideas here because both experiences, both the World Science

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Speaker 1: Festival panel and the exhibited to MET, really got me

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Speaker 1: thinking about the nature of incompleteness and finished unfinished works

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Speaker 1: and the human experience. So yeah, I thought we'd dive

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Speaker 1: dive into the topic of it here um and just

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Speaker 1: see where it takes us. Will we will get to

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Speaker 1: some more you know, sort of scientific material towards the

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Speaker 1: end in case, in case everything feels a little too

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Speaker 1: lucy doocy to you. Alright, So here we are. Let's

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Speaker 1: talk a little bit about human obsessions with completeness, and

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Speaker 1: the sort of unfinished nature of our lives. It's kind

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Speaker 1: of a weird paradox, isn't it. Yeah, why is it that?

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Speaker 1: It drove me crazy? When I was in New York

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Speaker 1: at the same time, I was going to museums. I

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Speaker 1: went to Brooklyn Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and

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Speaker 1: the American Natural History Museum. All fantastic. At the met

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Speaker 1: and the Natural History Museum, I was not able to

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Speaker 1: see everything in the museum in a day. Yeah, They're

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Speaker 1: gigantic museums, and that drove me crazy. I felt like

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Speaker 1: I was going insane because I was like, I've spent

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Speaker 1: a whole day here, I haven't even gotten through half

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Speaker 1: of it. Uh. But if I had gone to a

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Speaker 1: museum that was composed entirely of only the things I

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Speaker 1: was able to see at those museums, that would have

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Speaker 1: been a wonderful experience. Yeah. It was just the knowledge

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Speaker 1: that I hadn't finished it. I mean I even find

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Speaker 1: that towards the end, even the stuff that I have

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Speaker 1: time to to look at and try to absorb, by

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Speaker 1: the end of my my visit, I have I'm feeling

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Speaker 1: enough of a cognitive drain that I know that I'm

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Speaker 1: not properly assimilating all the information, So really I need

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Speaker 1: to always make it a point to just hit the

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Speaker 1: stuff is most interesting to me first and pray that

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Speaker 1: I don't run across something even more interesting later in

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Speaker 1: the visit, especially on the way out when you have

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Speaker 1: no time to see it at all. Yeah, So part

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Speaker 1: of this is of course just just you know, as

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Speaker 1: far as the broader human experience goes, it's just a

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Speaker 1: quest for like an understanding of the world. Uh, you

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Speaker 1: want to know where you are, you want to know

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Speaker 1: what's around the corner, and in a larger sense, you

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Speaker 1: want to a concise cosmology. We want to know where

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Speaker 1: we came from, where we're going. We want to know

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Speaker 1: how the world works and how we can exploit that

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Speaker 1: information to better carry out all those biological objectives that

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Speaker 1: we have mandated in our genes. But of course we

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Speaker 1: can't know all that, right, We're never going to know everything. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: we can fool ourselves into thinking we know all the

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Speaker 1: necessary information and it given time, such as what are

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Speaker 1: the main exhibits we want to see at the met

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Speaker 1: But then we turn a corner on our way out

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Speaker 1: and we realized there was something we wanted to see, uh,

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Speaker 1: and we just didn't know it was there. But that

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Speaker 1: same kind of obsession with having a complete picture, complete

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Speaker 1: view that comes in in art to get what's that

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Speaker 1: old expression, who is it who said that? You know? Uh,

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Speaker 1: poems or novels, maybe whatever it is, they're they're never

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Speaker 1: really finished, They're only abandoned. Yeah, yeah, that's and that's

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Speaker 1: I think that's an accurate statement to bring up. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: even even a work like that, which is a contained work,

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Speaker 1: a self contained universe in many senses, with a definite beginning, middle,

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Speaker 1: and end. Uh, even those are arguably all incomplete. Um.

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Speaker 1: And of course all any of this is completely out

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Speaker 1: of step with our experience of reality. Our lives are

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Speaker 1: in a constant state of incompleteness. You know, we're all

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Speaker 1: half finished. Stories, are relationships, or values, are beliefs, They're

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Speaker 1: constantly in flux. And we have this this maddening, more

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Speaker 1: you know, empowering, depending on how you look at it,

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Speaker 1: ability to believe in multiple things that totally contradict each other.

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Speaker 1: So as much as we crave a complete narrative, as

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Speaker 1: much as we crave a complete cosmology, our own inner

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Speaker 1: experience is just a jumble that best we're able to

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Speaker 1: to to sort of deceive ourselves into thinking of as

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Speaker 1: part of a more complete war. Okay, so how does

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Speaker 1: this tie I can see how it ties into the

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Speaker 1: met exhibit with unfinished works of art, but how does

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Speaker 1: this tie into the discussion you saw at the World

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Speaker 1: Science Festival. Okay, So the talking question was to unweave

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Speaker 1: a rainbow science in the essence of being human, and

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Speaker 1: it featured a three way discussion between physicist Brian Greene

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Speaker 1: is also one of the founders of the World Science Festival,

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Speaker 1: neuroscientist Miguel Nicolaylis, and writer Leon weasel Tier weasel Tier.

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Speaker 1: So their their conversation wove in and out of this

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Speaker 1: very notion of basically with a focus on on science

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Speaker 1: and non scientific understanding of science and religion, science and philosophy,

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Speaker 1: talking about each one's ability to try and create a

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Speaker 1: complete picture or even just to go after a complete

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Speaker 1: picture of what the universe is, what the human experiences.

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Speaker 1: Weaseltier in particular took up the more the pro religion,

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Speaker 1: pro philosophy argue in here um and he just makes methods.

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Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, and he brought it up, you know, basically

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Speaker 1: and saying that you know, this is this is the

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Speaker 1: best way to trump what is the best way to

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Speaker 1: trump uncertainty in our lives? You know, we have science

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Speaker 1: and we have religion. We need to feel that our

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Speaker 1: lives or an outcome of something, so we want to

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Speaker 1: turn to something that has a complete answer. But of

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Speaker 1: course there's that we run into obvious problems there. First,

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Speaker 1: Let's stake science, right, um, sciences we understand it on

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Speaker 1: the show, and I think his most listeners understand it

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Speaker 1: is not a complete understanding of the universe. I think

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Speaker 1: one of the quickest ways you can tell someone is

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Speaker 1: not scientifically literate is when they say something like, oh,

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Speaker 1: scientists think that that science gives you all the answers. Uh.

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Speaker 1: That that is not what science is about. It is,

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Speaker 1: in fact, always uncertainty. Uh. And anybody who thinks like

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Speaker 1: that probably doesn't interact with science very much. Right and

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Speaker 1: and Weaseltier put a nice little summary over this discussed

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Speaker 1: by discussing an intern of science and vulgar science, saying

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Speaker 1: that you know, real science is questing after the answers

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Speaker 1: and is inherently incomplete, whereas vulgar science is more of

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Speaker 1: this sort of idea of science, this bumper sticker Um,

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Speaker 1: I love science level of scientific understanding where it's really

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Speaker 1: more like a religious understanding of science. It's just dogma's

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Speaker 1: science says we know X, rather than thinking about the

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Speaker 1: method itself. Right. But then in terms of religion, he

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Speaker 1: makes a distinction between religion and vulgar religion. The idea

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Speaker 1: here being that just as vulgar science believes that science

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Speaker 1: has all the answers and shouldn't be questioned, and is this,

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Speaker 1: you know, bumper sticker understanding of it, you also have

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Speaker 1: this version of religion that thinks, oh well, it's it's

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Speaker 1: written on a tablet somewhere, it's all taken care of,

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Speaker 1: it's all explained. Whereas you know it, at higher levels

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Speaker 1: of most faiths, you're going to encounter a lot more

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Speaker 1: consideration there is. I mean that when you get into

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Speaker 1: theological discussions of how this model of faith interacts with

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Speaker 1: the human experience and with our daily lives, it's gonna

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Speaker 1: be a little more nuanced and particularly and and possibly changing.

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Speaker 1: This is weasel weasel tears yea weasel tears argua. So

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Speaker 1: that religion also has a sort of quest for meaning

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Speaker 1: version that that leaves a sort of radical openness in

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Speaker 1: the same way science does. Yeah, radical openness. I think

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Speaker 1: that's a that's that's a good way to put it.

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Speaker 1: Uh So, so I really liked his argument that you

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Speaker 1: can find that radical openness on both sides. UM. Now,

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Speaker 1: as far as art goes there, there was actually some

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Speaker 1: direct references to Art in this talk. Uh. Miguel Nicolaylis,

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Speaker 1: who who's a very interesting neuroscientists by the way, involved

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Speaker 1: in a number of different UM projects that involve using

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Speaker 1: an exoskeleton device to assist severely paralyzed patients. Imagine he's

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Speaker 1: come up in your work. Yes, I've read about him

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Speaker 1: with with mind computer interfaces. Yeah, so he's he's a

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Speaker 1: great guy to here talk about sort of the limits

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Speaker 1: of the human mind. Sorry, more accurately, I should say

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Speaker 1: brain computer in Oh yeah, I mean with mind you

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Speaker 1: get into different territory. Yeah, And in this discussion, Nikolaalis

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Speaker 1: is definitely taking the brain approach, and uh and weasel

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Speaker 1: t here is more of the mind spokesman, I guess

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Speaker 1: you could say, but Nikolaals brings up this idea that

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Speaker 1: that art was once very precise. So you go, you're

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Speaker 1: going through the mat or any art museum. You're looking

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Speaker 1: at the older pieces and what not, the really old pieces.

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Speaker 1: But you know, so certainly Renaissance work, you're all representative. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you're seeing very almost photographic paintings of what people look like. Uh. People,

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Speaker 1: the artists are trying to create an image of the world.

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Speaker 1: Is everyone else sees it universal truth? Right? But then

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Speaker 1: we reached this point when artists want to paint their

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Speaker 1: own experiences of something rather than the universal experience of

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Speaker 1: the thing. Um so uh, you get into these areas

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Speaker 1: such as um uh. Well. On one specific example that

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Speaker 1: that was brought up was William Turner's steamboat painting. I

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Speaker 1: see you have a picture of this in here. I do,

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Speaker 1: and it's it looks kind of like a bunch of

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Speaker 1: hair going down the drain. Yeah, it's uh, if you

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Speaker 1: could say that, it's definitely kind of brownish, blackish, bluish

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Speaker 1: swirls with an illumination in the middle. And knowing that

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Speaker 1: it's about a steamboat, you can look at it and

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Speaker 1: you can see a steamboat, but it is not a

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Speaker 1: has no photographic clarity to it. In fact, it's in

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Speaker 1: fact it utilizes what is often referred to in art

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Speaker 1: as non finite intention something that is intentionally unfinished. Um.

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Speaker 1: And and sometimes that's like an obvious state of unfinished,

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Speaker 1: like portions of of a canvas or are not filled in.

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Speaker 1: But other times it's about the detail, like stuff is

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Speaker 1: left vague, stuff is left without that level of photographic detail,

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Speaker 1: because it's more about the the subjective experience of the

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Speaker 1: thing as opposed to an objective truth. I like this

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Speaker 1: Michuel Miguel Nicholales quote you have in here, where he

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Speaker 1: says all art is a collision of sight and conception

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Speaker 1: of reality. You could also say in the same way

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Speaker 1: that all vision is a collision of external and internal.

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Speaker 1: I mean vision is part photons but also part psychology exactly. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So this puts an interesting spin on on the the

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Speaker 1: idea of incompleteness and completeness and what we experience. As

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Speaker 1: weasel Tier brought up as well, there's there's no perfect

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Speaker 1: objectivity here, there's no view from nowhere. It's all an

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Speaker 1: amalgam of what comes from inside what comes from outside. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And in this we kind of get into It reminds

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Speaker 1: me a lot of Plato's theory of forms, right that

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Speaker 1: you have these there's an ideal version of something say, yeah,

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Speaker 1: you know, a sculpture of a woman, or a or

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Speaker 1: a or a chair or a you know, a governmental system,

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Speaker 1: whatever your your dream happens to be. There's an ideal

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Speaker 1: form that exists outside of our reality, and all we

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Speaker 1: can do is quest after it, but we can never

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Speaker 1: quite achieve it, right, all the stuff we've been countered

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Speaker 1: or imperfect strivings towards that ideal. Right, and if so,

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Speaker 1: if everything is imperfect, um, if everything falls short of

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Speaker 1: the the ideal from the realm reforms, then does it

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Speaker 1: matter where we stop. It's almost like if whatever you

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Speaker 1: do is going to be incomplete, like it's better to

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Speaker 1: try and figure out where is the artful level of incompleteness,

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Speaker 1: you know, like men, sometimes it's better to be to

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Speaker 1: keep things vague, right then to to absolutely list everything

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Speaker 1: that you know and therefore list the things that you don't,

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Speaker 1: If that makes sense. Yeah, But I could also see

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Speaker 1: how that same embracing of incompleteness could in the wrong

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Speaker 1: ecology of the mind lead to a sort of nihilism,

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Speaker 1: where well, what does it matter finishing anything? What does

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Speaker 1: it matter attaining goals? Now, from a neuroscientific point, Nicola

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Speaker 1: Lists said he want on to point out that the

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Speaker 1: brain and all of this is not a passive decoder,

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Speaker 1: of course obviously, Yeah, that that is an obsolete view

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Speaker 1: the brain as a quote, self adapting complex system, and

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Speaker 1: this is all built atop physics, of course. But but

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Speaker 1: he pointed out that you know, he he connects brains

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Speaker 1: to machines for a living. That's that's pretty much an

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Speaker 1: exact quote on that. Uh. And there's a there's a

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Speaker 1: tendency to discredit the unique aspects of human consciousness in

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Speaker 1: all of this. So if you try and work with

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Speaker 1: the brain as if it's a digital computer, it doesn't work. Well.

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Speaker 1: You have here is a probabilistic turing machine, a hyper

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Speaker 1: computer that's an order above digital computers or normal touring

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Speaker 1: machine that relates to some to something we talked about

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Speaker 1: in our P versus NP episode with probabilistic machines versus

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Speaker 1: deterministic machines all all of our computers today or deterministic machines. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: And so as such, any experience of beauty, it all

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Speaker 1: depends on experience as a As Nicolas points out, a

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Speaker 1: functional brain involves exchanges at various levels. So there's no truth,

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Speaker 1: there's only this just this best approximation of the truth

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Speaker 1: that our minds can make. So even our mind states

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Speaker 1: are ever changing, ever evolving, and of course ever incomplete,

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Speaker 1: and therefore it makes perfect sense that that incompleteness is

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Speaker 1: sometimes part of the design, as in these incomplete works

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Speaker 1: of art. Well, let's take a look at some of

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Speaker 1: these incomplete works of art. So there are obviously a

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Speaker 1: lot of different reasons that you could have a work

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Speaker 1: of art that isn't finished. I mean, we're we're talking

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Speaker 1: here about this nonfinite technique where it's intentionally sort of

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Speaker 1: left unfinished in order to convey something. But there's a

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Speaker 1: lot of accidental unfinished nous too, right, Yeah, And some

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Speaker 1: of these are pretty obvious like that, Like you can

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Speaker 1: easily imagine, oh, well, if this work was incomplete at

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Speaker 1: the time of the artist's death, and that happens a lot.

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Speaker 1: They just don't get around to finishing it and it

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Speaker 1: never gets done. Um. But then other times that's they

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Speaker 1: abandon it. It was just kind of a sketch to

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Speaker 1: begin with, Maybe they never intended to finish it. Other times,

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Speaker 1: especially with with with with portraits, Uh, there's a financial

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Speaker 1: disagreement with a patron, there's a political disagreement, personal issuing

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Speaker 1: in about that mole on my lip, yeah, or you know,

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Speaker 1: or or illness or death ends up taking the patron

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Speaker 1: or at least the subject of the painting out of

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Speaker 1: the picture and just can't picture it finish it. Um.

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Speaker 1: And it was one of the interesting things in that

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Speaker 1: the exhibit, too, is just how often you sel patron

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Speaker 1: problems with with artists that would go on to just

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Speaker 1: be too you know, complete famous names like you wouldn't

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Speaker 1: think of this individual ever having a situation where their

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Speaker 1: painting is rejected like two or three times by the patron,

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Speaker 1: But but it occurs. I believe that that in particular,

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Speaker 1: there was one by Gustaf Clint uh and uh and

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Speaker 1: you just you don't think about someone saying, I don't know,

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Speaker 1: goof staff, this just doesn't look great. Can you take

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Speaker 1: another another crack at it and then get back to me.

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Speaker 1: All of our listeners out there, you who are graphic

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Speaker 1: designers and have this frustrating experience over an over, that's

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Speaker 1: not what I want. Yah, take comfort in this, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: in the company of Clint. Yeah. No matter how how

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Speaker 1: skilled you are during your life, you're gonna be You're

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Speaker 1: gonna have your your work returned multiple times. It's only

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Speaker 1: after you've you've died that everyone will take every little

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Speaker 1: scrap of paper that you did a doodle on and

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Speaker 1: start selling it. Now, one of the examples you included

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Speaker 1: here in our outline for for this is really interesting.

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Speaker 1: I was not familiar with this painting, but I think

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Speaker 1: it is gorgeous and awesome. I love it. Yeah, Okay,

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Speaker 1: So the painting and question is the Puniment Punishment of

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Speaker 1: Marcia's also known as the Flaying of Marcillas by Italian

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Speaker 1: Late Renaissance artist Titian. And I had seen this one

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Speaker 1: before because it's grizzly, and that tends to be my

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Speaker 1: main entry point into classic words of art is if

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Speaker 1: they're violent and weird. And this one has like a

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Speaker 1: number of of fauns and staters standing around, and so

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Speaker 1: somebody being there's in they're inverted and they're being flayed alive.

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Speaker 1: So Marcias is actually a sadder, right, He supposed to

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Speaker 1: be like a fawn kind of creature who who gets

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Speaker 1: into a he has he has beef with Apollo, right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that they for some reason have a contest of playing music,

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Speaker 1: I believe, is that right? Yeah? And Apollo wins, and uh,

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Speaker 1: and whichever whichever contestant wins gets to do whatever he

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Speaker 1: wants to to the other one. And I guess what

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Speaker 1: Apollo wants to do to this poor sat Or is

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Speaker 1: flay him alive? It's um. You know, you see this

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Speaker 1: a lot in in Greek mythology, right, You have an

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Speaker 1: individual who challenges a god to or accept the god,

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Speaker 1: accepts the god's challenge to some sort of a competition,

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Speaker 1: or they just end up in a in some sort

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Speaker 1: of a spat with a deity. Always a bad devil

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Speaker 1: went down to Georgia. Yeah, like devil went down to

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Speaker 1: Georgia's like that actually ends up okay. But if that,

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Speaker 1: if the devil went down to Georgia was a was

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Speaker 1: an ancient Greek myth, he would have you know, wound on, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and the devil would play him with a pill. Right.

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Speaker 1: That was it was, That was the That was how

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Speaker 1: their cosmolo she worked. So this particular painting is one

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Speaker 1: of several that Titian produced later in life that displays

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Speaker 1: horrific scenes of murder, misery. Um. And here recreated all

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Speaker 1: of these with the intentional imperfect detail. So I guess

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Speaker 1: the idea is that the mind can't quite take it

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Speaker 1: all in because it's just so grizzly, just so depressing,

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Speaker 1: just so mind rending, lee awful, that things kind of

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Speaker 1: blur out. Yeah, I think it accomplishes that well. Now,

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Speaker 1: there are obviously different ways that paintings can have an

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Speaker 1: unfinished style, and I think this one is considered unfinished

428
00:23:30,320 --> 00:23:33,440
Speaker 1: just in the level of sort of resolution of detail.

429
00:23:34,200 --> 00:23:37,240
Speaker 1: It's blurry, it's not like there's a missing corner or something,

430
00:23:37,280 --> 00:23:40,600
Speaker 1: but there's stuff like that too. Yeah. Yeah. And and

431
00:23:40,640 --> 00:23:44,200
Speaker 1: another key example and one of my favorites from the piece,

432
00:23:44,280 --> 00:23:47,239
Speaker 1: because it definitely gets into some discussions here we can

433
00:23:47,280 --> 00:23:51,360
Speaker 1: have about literature and film and other media, but it's

434
00:23:51,400 --> 00:23:54,600
Speaker 1: it involves another work by Titian. Uh, And what we

435
00:23:54,680 --> 00:23:57,800
Speaker 1: have here is an unfinished portrait of an unknown lady

436
00:23:57,880 --> 00:24:02,600
Speaker 1: and her daughter, probably mens of Titian's family, but it

437
00:24:02,640 --> 00:24:05,359
Speaker 1: was it was left uncomplete, incomplete at the time of

438
00:24:05,400 --> 00:24:11,040
Speaker 1: his death. So what happened, Well, this particular painting was

439
00:24:11,080 --> 00:24:15,320
Speaker 1: setting around and then um, somebody came along and decided

440
00:24:15,359 --> 00:24:18,240
Speaker 1: to finish it for him, somebody who maybe wasn't as

441
00:24:18,240 --> 00:24:21,040
Speaker 1: good an artist as definitely not as good as good

442
00:24:21,240 --> 00:24:24,560
Speaker 1: maybe I'm probably thinking of it, you know, as you know,

443
00:24:24,600 --> 00:24:27,720
Speaker 1: somebody else working in the studio and underlying came along

444
00:24:27,760 --> 00:24:30,919
Speaker 1: and says, oh, well, look this is almost completed. Um,

445
00:24:30,920 --> 00:24:34,040
Speaker 1: but I feel pretty talented. I'm gonna take this, complete

446
00:24:34,080 --> 00:24:36,280
Speaker 1: it and then I can sell it. Right then it's

447
00:24:36,280 --> 00:24:40,080
Speaker 1: going to be a value. And so the painting was

448
00:24:40,119 --> 00:24:44,240
Speaker 1: altered in the studio to depict Tobias and the Archange

449
00:24:44,320 --> 00:24:49,680
Speaker 1: del raphael um. So it doesn't look up pictures of this, Yeah,

450
00:24:49,760 --> 00:24:53,600
Speaker 1: the original one that's kind of striking, the redone one?

451
00:24:54,320 --> 00:24:59,120
Speaker 1: What could it looks insipid? Yeah? It clearly even to untrained,

452
00:24:59,480 --> 00:25:02,359
Speaker 1: you know, mostly untrained eyes such as my own, you

453
00:25:02,400 --> 00:25:04,720
Speaker 1: can tell that there's a big dip in quality. It

454
00:25:04,800 --> 00:25:08,960
Speaker 1: goes from you know, looking like an unfinished masterpiece to uh,

455
00:25:09,000 --> 00:25:11,679
Speaker 1: just another paintings. Yeah, just another painting of an angel

456
00:25:11,720 --> 00:25:15,840
Speaker 1: and a boy, uh, just standing there. Uh. So it

457
00:25:15,920 --> 00:25:19,120
Speaker 1: wasn't until the second half of the twentieth century, uh

458
00:25:19,160 --> 00:25:21,680
Speaker 1: that they were able to restore and this is kind

459
00:25:21,680 --> 00:25:24,560
Speaker 1: of this is kind of crazy, restore the completed work

460
00:25:24,600 --> 00:25:29,639
Speaker 1: to its original incomplete status um, which is which is

461
00:25:29,720 --> 00:25:32,280
Speaker 1: lovely because what does this say about our first of all,

462
00:25:32,280 --> 00:25:36,320
Speaker 1: about our desire to complete works, But then about our

463
00:25:36,359 --> 00:25:39,760
Speaker 1: feelings regarding a completed work, especially if it's completed by

464
00:25:39,760 --> 00:25:42,040
Speaker 1: someone other than the artists. Well, I feel like this

465
00:25:42,119 --> 00:25:46,159
Speaker 1: is very different between an artist who is still living

466
00:25:46,240 --> 00:25:48,399
Speaker 1: and an artist who has been dead for a while,

467
00:25:48,560 --> 00:25:51,120
Speaker 1: Because once an artist has been dead for a while

468
00:25:51,160 --> 00:25:54,119
Speaker 1: and becomes part of art history, I think maybe that

469
00:25:54,280 --> 00:25:57,119
Speaker 1: there is a different motivation and interacting with each of

470
00:25:57,119 --> 00:26:01,040
Speaker 1: their works. It's less to experience a single completed work,

471
00:26:01,080 --> 00:26:04,280
Speaker 1: but to get a complete and true view of the

472
00:26:04,440 --> 00:26:08,280
Speaker 1: artist's career, in which case the unfinished work that's a

473
00:26:08,280 --> 00:26:11,040
Speaker 1: true reflection of the artist is more a part of

474
00:26:11,080 --> 00:26:16,080
Speaker 1: this completeness paradigm we want than a truly finished portrait

475
00:26:16,160 --> 00:26:18,800
Speaker 1: that doesn't look like that artist style. Yeah, because in

476
00:26:18,840 --> 00:26:21,480
Speaker 1: many cases an incomplete painting it it gives us insight

477
00:26:21,520 --> 00:26:25,719
Speaker 1: into their technique, how they went about creating these particular paintings,

478
00:26:25,760 --> 00:26:27,840
Speaker 1: Like what did they complete first? What? Whether did they

479
00:26:27,880 --> 00:26:30,320
Speaker 1: do the background? Did they do the foreground, did they

480
00:26:30,320 --> 00:26:34,320
Speaker 1: do some sort of you know, scaffolding blueprint underneath it?

481
00:26:34,680 --> 00:26:38,080
Speaker 1: You know, it's all tremendously interesting when you're trying to

482
00:26:38,240 --> 00:26:41,560
Speaker 1: figure out who this artist was and how they conducted

483
00:26:41,560 --> 00:26:44,920
Speaker 1: their craft. Yeah, but tying into what I just said,

484
00:26:44,960 --> 00:26:47,040
Speaker 1: I mean, that's sort of lets us know that there

485
00:26:47,040 --> 00:26:50,320
Speaker 1: are different levels of completeness we seek. Do you want

486
00:26:50,400 --> 00:26:55,600
Speaker 1: completeness at the individual works scale, or do you want

487
00:26:55,600 --> 00:26:59,520
Speaker 1: completeness at the artist's biography scale? Or do you want

488
00:26:59,520 --> 00:27:03,480
Speaker 1: complete this from a historical periods understanding scale? You know,

489
00:27:03,640 --> 00:27:06,720
Speaker 1: you want to see this as part of the Italian Renaissance.

490
00:27:07,520 --> 00:27:09,880
Speaker 1: I don't know what all the eras of paintings are,

491
00:27:09,920 --> 00:27:13,520
Speaker 1: but uh, you see what I mean. Yeah, But like

492
00:27:14,200 --> 00:27:16,359
Speaker 1: a literary example that I can't help it come to

493
00:27:16,960 --> 00:27:20,760
Speaker 1: is that of Frank Herbert's Dune saga Oh Boy, which

494
00:27:20,760 --> 00:27:25,479
Speaker 1: we discussed a little open talking about today. So this,

495
00:27:26,320 --> 00:27:29,800
Speaker 1: the Dune Saga was of course left incomplete at the

496
00:27:29,840 --> 00:27:32,320
Speaker 1: time of Frank Herbert's death. Now, how many books did

497
00:27:32,359 --> 00:27:36,040
Speaker 1: Herbert himself, right, what is it? Five or six? I

498
00:27:36,080 --> 00:27:37,840
Speaker 1: don't have the list in front of me, and I

499
00:27:38,920 --> 00:27:41,680
Speaker 1: they begin to kind of bleed together from me towards

500
00:27:41,760 --> 00:27:46,639
Speaker 1: the end, but he wrote several. But then, yeah, the

501
00:27:46,640 --> 00:27:49,520
Speaker 1: saga itself was left incomplete. He had notes, and then

502
00:27:49,600 --> 00:27:52,400
Speaker 1: his son Brian Herbert and co author Kevin J. Anderson,

503
00:27:52,640 --> 00:27:56,120
Speaker 1: they picked up the work years after his death and

504
00:27:56,320 --> 00:27:59,840
Speaker 1: finished the Saga based on his notes, and of co

505
00:28:00,119 --> 00:28:02,080
Speaker 1: wrote a ton of other Dune notes. I mean, at

506
00:28:02,080 --> 00:28:04,800
Speaker 1: this point Brian Herbert has written at Brian Herbert and

507
00:28:04,880 --> 00:28:07,840
Speaker 1: Kevin J. Anderson have written more Dune books than than

508
00:28:07,880 --> 00:28:11,320
Speaker 1: Frank Herbert ever wrote um which is which is interesting.

509
00:28:11,320 --> 00:28:12,760
Speaker 1: But it's also one of these areas that is very

510
00:28:13,320 --> 00:28:16,440
Speaker 1: divisive because you have Dune fans that you know, refer

511
00:28:16,480 --> 00:28:19,439
Speaker 1: to themselves as orthodox Dune fans. They're only going to

512
00:28:19,520 --> 00:28:23,760
Speaker 1: read the the Frank books, only the prophet himself, right,

513
00:28:24,280 --> 00:28:25,919
Speaker 1: But then you have but then you have plenty of

514
00:28:25,920 --> 00:28:29,960
Speaker 1: fans who embrace the Brian Herbert Kevin J. Anderson books

515
00:28:29,960 --> 00:28:33,200
Speaker 1: in this expanded view of the universe. But but yeah,

516
00:28:33,280 --> 00:28:37,240
Speaker 1: at the at the at the heart of it, like

517
00:28:37,760 --> 00:28:41,200
Speaker 1: the complete saga is not a Frank Herbert creation. It's

518
00:28:41,200 --> 00:28:44,880
Speaker 1: a Frank Herbert, Brian Herbert, Kevin J. Anderson creation. Like

519
00:28:44,880 --> 00:28:49,320
Speaker 1: it becomes a different thing right by by completing it,

520
00:28:49,640 --> 00:28:53,480
Speaker 1: they have sort of transformed into something else. But also

521
00:28:54,000 --> 00:28:58,200
Speaker 1: is a franchise ever completed, That's true. I think of

522
00:28:58,240 --> 00:29:02,800
Speaker 1: our age of Star Wars, what if George Lucas were

523
00:29:02,840 --> 00:29:05,040
Speaker 1: to have gotten to a point where he said, Okay,

524
00:29:05,560 --> 00:29:08,960
Speaker 1: maybe imagine an alternate universe George Lucas makes nine Star

525
00:29:08,960 --> 00:29:11,680
Speaker 1: Wars movies or whatever, and then he says, Okay, we're done.

526
00:29:13,040 --> 00:29:15,920
Speaker 1: Um I would the fans be okay with that? Or

527
00:29:15,960 --> 00:29:19,760
Speaker 1: would they keep wanting more Star Wars stuff? Well, I

528
00:29:19,760 --> 00:29:21,600
Speaker 1: mean it seems to me that now that we're in

529
00:29:21,720 --> 00:29:24,680
Speaker 1: Disney's hands, there is going to be Star Wars until

530
00:29:24,720 --> 00:29:27,400
Speaker 1: the end of time, right, there will never not be

531
00:29:27,560 --> 00:29:31,360
Speaker 1: new Star Wars stuff. Yeah, but but yeah, what what

532
00:29:31,400 --> 00:29:33,239
Speaker 1: would have happened if he was if he just did

533
00:29:33,280 --> 00:29:35,600
Speaker 1: the three movies and said him done? Or what if

534
00:29:35,800 --> 00:29:39,360
Speaker 1: or what if something had happened and he didn't get

535
00:29:39,440 --> 00:29:42,040
Speaker 1: something past the Empire strikes Back? Like what if Empire

536
00:29:42,080 --> 00:29:45,479
Speaker 1: Strikes Back had been a bomb? Just no, But nobody

537
00:29:45,600 --> 00:29:47,480
Speaker 1: loved it at the time, and we only grew to

538
00:29:47,560 --> 00:29:49,520
Speaker 1: love it, say in recent years we said, hey, this

539
00:29:49,560 --> 00:29:53,120
Speaker 1: is a masterpiece. What I wonder what the next installment

540
00:29:53,120 --> 00:29:54,880
Speaker 1: would have been? Like, what would have happened if we

541
00:29:54,880 --> 00:29:59,120
Speaker 1: had actually followed Luke through and and you know, actually

542
00:29:59,400 --> 00:30:02,719
Speaker 1: figured out kind of come back the rebels were going

543
00:30:02,760 --> 00:30:07,680
Speaker 1: to have. Lucas's son would write it and well, why

544
00:30:07,880 --> 00:30:10,520
Speaker 1: it often does seem like it's an hereditary enterprise. Didn't

545
00:30:10,560 --> 00:30:13,760
Speaker 1: the same thing happen with Tolkien after Tolkien's death, didn't

546
00:30:13,800 --> 00:30:18,200
Speaker 1: his son takeover? Well, that's an interesting example to bring up,

547
00:30:18,200 --> 00:30:19,840
Speaker 1: And I, you know, I don't. I don't know a

548
00:30:19,880 --> 00:30:24,320
Speaker 1: lot about that because my Tolkien experience is basically um

549
00:30:24,360 --> 00:30:26,920
Speaker 1: basically revolves around just the Lord of the Rings and

550
00:30:27,080 --> 00:30:30,800
Speaker 1: the Hobbit. But I understand that a lot of of

551
00:30:30,880 --> 00:30:33,720
Speaker 1: his of the subsequent work has been sort of a

552
00:30:33,760 --> 00:30:36,440
Speaker 1: mix of like it's been a little bit literary. It's

553
00:30:36,520 --> 00:30:39,080
Speaker 1: kind of like commentating on and well, yeah, I think

554
00:30:39,160 --> 00:30:42,440
Speaker 1: he's edited together took some of his father's notes and

555
00:30:42,680 --> 00:30:45,080
Speaker 1: edited them into books or something. Yeah. But then there

556
00:30:45,160 --> 00:30:47,720
Speaker 1: was that there was like a complete saga that came

557
00:30:47,760 --> 00:30:50,040
Speaker 1: out and I never read it, Pose of the Children

558
00:30:50,080 --> 00:30:54,360
Speaker 1: of Hurine or something, no idea, but certainly that you

559
00:30:54,360 --> 00:30:56,920
Speaker 1: could see that as a as a as a as

560
00:30:56,960 --> 00:30:59,000
Speaker 1: an example with this though it would have been more

561
00:30:59,120 --> 00:31:01,800
Speaker 1: I think clearly in a example, I say, you know,

562
00:31:01,840 --> 00:31:03,640
Speaker 1: he had not actually finished The Lord of the Rings

563
00:31:03,640 --> 00:31:05,760
Speaker 1: and someone had to come along and finish it. And

564
00:31:05,800 --> 00:31:10,000
Speaker 1: we we do find other examples of fantasy saga's uh

565
00:31:10,080 --> 00:31:14,280
Speaker 1: ending up incomplete. Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series, for example,

566
00:31:14,840 --> 00:31:18,560
Speaker 1: was actually completed by Brandon Sanderson. Uh. And this was

567
00:31:18,800 --> 00:31:21,680
Speaker 1: by the deceased author's design, like he picked the individual

568
00:31:21,760 --> 00:31:25,360
Speaker 1: to finish these books. And UH, I have not read them,

569
00:31:25,680 --> 00:31:27,600
Speaker 1: but I was reading about them. I was actually talking

570
00:31:27,600 --> 00:31:31,160
Speaker 1: to our coworker Tyler, who has read them. And UH.

571
00:31:31,240 --> 00:31:33,400
Speaker 1: It seems like most of the reactions to this are

572
00:31:33,440 --> 00:31:38,120
Speaker 1: far more positive. There's less um schism among the Wheel

573
00:31:38,120 --> 00:31:41,680
Speaker 1: of Time fans. Um. Most people say that the new

574
00:31:41,680 --> 00:31:46,240
Speaker 1: authors style you know, shines through and some applaud has increased.

575
00:31:46,600 --> 00:31:49,680
Speaker 1: Increased pace is willingness to tie up loose ends, which

576
00:31:49,720 --> 00:31:53,360
Speaker 1: of course is important when you're trying to finish a saga. Uh.

577
00:31:54,080 --> 00:31:56,360
Speaker 1: Some add point out that maybe he didn't have the

578
00:31:56,640 --> 00:31:59,680
Speaker 1: knack for descriptions and detail that Jordan had, But for

579
00:31:59,720 --> 00:32:03,560
Speaker 1: the part, it seems like everyone embraced this completion of

580
00:32:03,600 --> 00:32:06,320
Speaker 1: the incomplete work. Well, I know what all of you

581
00:32:06,360 --> 00:32:11,520
Speaker 1: are yelling at your ear budget now, germ right, it's

582
00:32:11,520 --> 00:32:15,120
Speaker 1: all about what's going to happen with Game of Thrones,

583
00:32:15,320 --> 00:32:19,480
Speaker 1: A Song of Ice and Fire, George R. Martin's currently

584
00:32:19,600 --> 00:32:24,840
Speaker 1: incomplete UH series of novels and the slightly more complete

585
00:32:25,040 --> 00:32:28,200
Speaker 1: HBO series based on those novels. Yeah, so the show,

586
00:32:28,440 --> 00:32:30,400
Speaker 1: the TV show you probably already know this, but the

587
00:32:30,440 --> 00:32:35,360
Speaker 1: TV show Game of Thrones is actually outpaced, uh Martin's novels.

588
00:32:35,600 --> 00:32:38,280
Speaker 1: It's ahead of the novels that it's based on. He

589
00:32:38,320 --> 00:32:41,000
Speaker 1: has not released the one that he was planning on

590
00:32:41,080 --> 00:32:43,720
Speaker 1: releasing that would contain some of the same stuff as

591
00:32:43,720 --> 00:32:46,960
Speaker 1: the current season of the show Winds of Winter, I believe. Yeah,

592
00:32:47,080 --> 00:32:50,680
Speaker 1: and so, so how old is George R. Martin. He's

593
00:32:50,720 --> 00:32:53,360
Speaker 1: sixty seven years old and he's taking about ten thousand

594
00:32:53,440 --> 00:32:56,520
Speaker 1: years to write each book. So people have I mean

595
00:32:56,560 --> 00:32:59,480
Speaker 1: not to be I wish him great health and long life,

596
00:32:59,480 --> 00:33:02,560
Speaker 1: but people do speculate, like what if he dies before

597
00:33:02,560 --> 00:33:05,719
Speaker 1: he finishes writing these books? Yeah, and everybody wants to

598
00:33:05,720 --> 00:33:08,160
Speaker 1: know the end? Yeah, I mean, I mean the reverse

599
00:33:08,240 --> 00:33:10,760
Speaker 1: is also true. I feel with any book or film series,

600
00:33:10,760 --> 00:33:14,160
Speaker 1: what if I die before I get to complete watching

601
00:33:14,360 --> 00:33:18,000
Speaker 1: or reading this thing? I mean, so it's it's coming

602
00:33:18,040 --> 00:33:20,600
Speaker 1: from that place of us craving completeness in our works.

603
00:33:20,600 --> 00:33:23,560
Speaker 1: But yeah, if he if he dies before completing the books,

604
00:33:24,160 --> 00:33:28,640
Speaker 1: will fans uh you know, embrace whoever the chosen writer

605
00:33:28,840 --> 00:33:31,440
Speaker 1: is to to finish it. How will we feel about

606
00:33:31,480 --> 00:33:34,840
Speaker 1: the the the the the HBO series as it completes

607
00:33:34,880 --> 00:33:37,520
Speaker 1: the soka before the books? What if? What if the

608
00:33:37,840 --> 00:33:42,320
Speaker 1: what if the book series remains incomplete, um, you know,

609
00:33:42,400 --> 00:33:45,960
Speaker 1: for the foreseeable future. What if artificial intelligence has to

610
00:33:45,960 --> 00:33:49,480
Speaker 1: finish it later on? You know, Oh, it won't do

611
00:33:49,520 --> 00:33:52,360
Speaker 1: a very good job, will it. Uh? Well, I mean,

612
00:33:52,360 --> 00:33:55,520
Speaker 1: who knows. Maybe maybe, as long as it can make good,

613
00:33:55,720 --> 00:34:00,800
Speaker 1: solid descriptions of Western oast food while you know, laying

614
00:34:00,800 --> 00:34:02,640
Speaker 1: out with a bunch of political details, I think you

615
00:34:02,680 --> 00:34:05,920
Speaker 1: can do a good job. I am firmly of the

616
00:34:05,960 --> 00:34:09,319
Speaker 1: opinion that any artificial intelligence good enough to write an

617
00:34:09,600 --> 00:34:15,080
Speaker 1: entertaining and compelling work of fiction will eradicate the human species.

618
00:34:16,760 --> 00:34:19,880
Speaker 1: Now this being said, you know, there are plenty of

619
00:34:19,920 --> 00:34:23,600
Speaker 1: examples of incomplete works out there, and and most of

620
00:34:23,600 --> 00:34:26,319
Speaker 1: them it seems like we're pretty okay with them. We're

621
00:34:26,320 --> 00:34:29,759
Speaker 1: probably getting more into that territory of an incomplete work

622
00:34:29,800 --> 00:34:31,640
Speaker 1: by a master who has been dead for a while.

623
00:34:31,760 --> 00:34:34,480
Speaker 1: But some of the works that come to mind A

624
00:34:34,560 --> 00:34:37,920
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty Days of Sodom by the Marquis assad

625
00:34:38,640 --> 00:34:43,600
Speaker 1: Billy Bud, the Mysterious Stranger The Pale King by David

626
00:34:43,640 --> 00:34:48,640
Speaker 1: Foster Wallace. Um The Mysterious Stranger, of course, being um

627
00:34:48,960 --> 00:34:53,560
Speaker 1: Mark Twain's story. And I believe they're like three different drafts. Um,

628
00:34:53,600 --> 00:34:55,359
Speaker 1: all of them are kind of incomplete, and you can

629
00:34:55,360 --> 00:34:57,319
Speaker 1: sort of cobble together a finished product from that, but

630
00:34:57,360 --> 00:35:00,960
Speaker 1: it's still ultimately incomplete. You know, Charles Pickens The Mystery

631
00:35:01,040 --> 00:35:04,640
Speaker 1: of Edwin Drew, that's an unfinished work of fiction. That

632
00:35:05,239 --> 00:35:09,320
Speaker 1: and crazy that it's unfinished because it's a mystery. Oh so,

633
00:35:09,320 --> 00:35:11,719
Speaker 1: so nobody knows? How how ads you don't know the

634
00:35:11,760 --> 00:35:15,000
Speaker 1: solution to the mystery? Well, in the musical version of

635
00:35:15,040 --> 00:35:18,080
Speaker 1: the Mystery of Edwin Drew, it actually allows the audience

636
00:35:18,120 --> 00:35:21,200
Speaker 1: to select the ending, So the audience gets to vote

637
00:35:21,360 --> 00:35:24,080
Speaker 1: on who the who the murderer turns out to be?

638
00:35:25,000 --> 00:35:28,040
Speaker 1: And then what about music? Are there musical? Is there

639
00:35:28,040 --> 00:35:31,920
Speaker 1: a musical equivalent to an either an incomplete or intentionally

640
00:35:31,960 --> 00:35:34,319
Speaker 1: incomplete work? Well, yeah, I think there are. I mean,

641
00:35:34,440 --> 00:35:37,440
Speaker 1: I I'm a big fan of the going back to

642
00:35:37,600 --> 00:35:41,480
Speaker 1: my nineties catalog, the album B thousand by Guided by Voices.

643
00:35:41,640 --> 00:35:44,439
Speaker 1: A lot of the early Guided by Voices songs, uh,

644
00:35:45,040 --> 00:35:47,560
Speaker 1: they sound like half of a song, like so the

645
00:35:47,600 --> 00:35:50,560
Speaker 1: song will come on and it plays one verse and

646
00:35:50,680 --> 00:35:54,719
Speaker 1: one chorus and that was about, you know, seventy five

647
00:35:54,760 --> 00:35:57,160
Speaker 1: seconds long, and then it moves on to the next

648
00:35:57,200 --> 00:35:59,960
Speaker 1: song and it never comes back. That's just it. That's

649
00:36:00,200 --> 00:36:03,960
Speaker 1: all there is. And this was published during the artist lifetime.

650
00:36:04,400 --> 00:36:06,440
Speaker 1: I mean, so it's it's not a matter of them

651
00:36:06,719 --> 00:36:08,319
Speaker 1: of some coming along and saying, oh, here are some

652
00:36:08,320 --> 00:36:10,359
Speaker 1: recordings around finished it, let's make a few bucks off

653
00:36:10,400 --> 00:36:13,319
Speaker 1: of it. It's just what the song is. Huh. Okay,

654
00:36:13,360 --> 00:36:15,560
Speaker 1: So that would but that would seem to be more

655
00:36:15,640 --> 00:36:20,600
Speaker 1: than an intentionally incomplete um mode of creation then, But

656
00:36:20,800 --> 00:36:23,920
Speaker 1: like the sketch as art, I think that it creates

657
00:36:23,920 --> 00:36:25,960
Speaker 1: a good effect. I mean, one reason I think I

658
00:36:26,000 --> 00:36:29,520
Speaker 1: love that album is that no song gets tiresome. None

659
00:36:29,560 --> 00:36:32,919
Speaker 1: of them last long enough for you to like really say, okay,

660
00:36:32,960 --> 00:36:36,600
Speaker 1: I've heard the chorus four times now. It just doesn't happen.

661
00:36:36,760 --> 00:36:38,960
Speaker 1: And so every time a song is over, you kind

662
00:36:38,960 --> 00:36:41,920
Speaker 1: of wish it was still going on. Interesting, and I'm

663
00:36:41,920 --> 00:36:44,319
Speaker 1: sure that our listeners out there will come up with

664
00:36:44,440 --> 00:36:49,319
Speaker 1: the numerous examples of unfinished art, fiction, music, etcetera. To

665
00:36:49,400 --> 00:36:51,520
Speaker 1: share with us. We're gonna take a quick breaking when

666
00:36:51,520 --> 00:36:53,880
Speaker 1: we come back, we're gonna get into the psychology of

667
00:36:53,920 --> 00:36:57,920
Speaker 1: this why our brains while our why our minds crave

668
00:36:58,280 --> 00:37:07,480
Speaker 1: that complete work? All right, we're back, So Robert it

669
00:37:08,239 --> 00:37:12,400
Speaker 1: what why do we crave completion enclosure? Why do we

670
00:37:12,480 --> 00:37:16,600
Speaker 1: have to see the end of a thing? Well, that's

671
00:37:16,600 --> 00:37:19,200
Speaker 1: the big question, right, I mean, because, as we've discussed,

672
00:37:19,320 --> 00:37:22,040
Speaker 1: our lives are these unfinished stories. But then we read

673
00:37:22,120 --> 00:37:24,319
Speaker 1: these finished stories and then we sort of think about

674
00:37:24,320 --> 00:37:27,000
Speaker 1: our own lives in terms of a story, and we

675
00:37:27,040 --> 00:37:32,080
Speaker 1: imagine ourselves as the central character in this story. Um.

676
00:37:33,120 --> 00:37:36,040
Speaker 1: One uh. One description that I think helps shine a

677
00:37:36,040 --> 00:37:38,879
Speaker 1: little light on it is that from a cognitive point

678
00:37:38,880 --> 00:37:44,520
Speaker 1: of view, we're all quote, information seeking, prediction loving cognitive systems.

679
00:37:44,719 --> 00:37:46,520
Speaker 1: So this gets into the whole idea that we're trying

680
00:37:46,560 --> 00:37:49,239
Speaker 1: to survive in this world, and in order to do so,

681
00:37:49,400 --> 00:37:52,320
Speaker 1: we want to understand our our situation. We want to

682
00:37:52,360 --> 00:37:54,720
Speaker 1: know what came before, we need to know what comes after.

683
00:37:55,360 --> 00:38:00,320
Speaker 1: So this particular quote comes from Flora Lichtman, co author

684
00:38:00,360 --> 00:38:03,960
Speaker 1: of Annoying The Science of What bugs U and Uh.

685
00:38:04,400 --> 00:38:06,040
Speaker 1: This is a book that deals with the number of

686
00:38:06,080 --> 00:38:08,160
Speaker 1: just you know, all the various pet peeves and what

687
00:38:08,280 --> 00:38:11,800
Speaker 1: sort of the psychological or scientific underpinnings where them happens

688
00:38:11,800 --> 00:38:14,680
Speaker 1: to be. But one thing that she particularly brings up

689
00:38:14,760 --> 00:38:19,239
Speaker 1: is that overhearing another person's phone call is inherently engaging

690
00:38:19,280 --> 00:38:24,600
Speaker 1: and mindlessly irritating because we're tuning into an incomplete conversation,

691
00:38:25,160 --> 00:38:26,759
Speaker 1: we can only hear part of it, and then we

692
00:38:26,800 --> 00:38:29,560
Speaker 1: have to just maddeningly guess at what the rest of

693
00:38:29,600 --> 00:38:32,239
Speaker 1: it consists of, indeed, like what the point of the

694
00:38:32,440 --> 00:38:35,520
Speaker 1: entire call happened to be to begin with. Yeah, so

695
00:38:35,800 --> 00:38:38,160
Speaker 1: that's crazy because I I would tend to think that

696
00:38:38,440 --> 00:38:42,000
Speaker 1: because of that, in completeness, hearing half of a phone

697
00:38:42,000 --> 00:38:46,360
Speaker 1: call is way more distracting than hearing a complete conversation

698
00:38:46,480 --> 00:38:48,520
Speaker 1: going on in the room with you, with both parties,

699
00:38:48,520 --> 00:38:51,000
Speaker 1: And I wonder if that's born out well indeed, Yeah,

700
00:38:51,000 --> 00:38:54,160
Speaker 1: there's a Cornell University study that actually looked into this idea.

701
00:38:54,640 --> 00:38:58,440
Speaker 1: Uh Andy. They conducted it by taking a conversation, garbling

702
00:38:58,480 --> 00:39:02,120
Speaker 1: half the words so that the subjects only heard half

703
00:39:02,120 --> 00:39:05,080
Speaker 1: of the conversation, and they found the overhearing half a

704
00:39:05,120 --> 00:39:08,400
Speaker 1: conversation a half a log, as they referred to it,

705
00:39:08,440 --> 00:39:12,160
Speaker 1: is more distracting than other kinds of conversations because we're

706
00:39:12,160 --> 00:39:14,600
Speaker 1: missing that other side of the story and we can't

707
00:39:14,600 --> 00:39:17,440
Speaker 1: predict the flow of the conversation because if you overhear

708
00:39:17,560 --> 00:39:19,640
Speaker 1: somebody just you know, a couple of people talking about

709
00:39:19,640 --> 00:39:22,359
Speaker 1: a TV show you don't watch, say you, you can

710
00:39:22,440 --> 00:39:24,960
Speaker 1: very quickly realize, oh, they're just talking about this episode

711
00:39:24,960 --> 00:39:27,400
Speaker 1: of the show. I know exactly what they're talking about

712
00:39:27,400 --> 00:39:29,800
Speaker 1: it and about and I don't care. I can I

713
00:39:29,840 --> 00:39:31,680
Speaker 1: can see exactly how this is going to play out.

714
00:39:32,040 --> 00:39:35,440
Speaker 1: But what if you just here, oh yeah, yeah, he

715
00:39:35,440 --> 00:39:38,600
Speaker 1: he dies in that episode? Uh huh? And then you're like,

716
00:39:38,920 --> 00:39:41,319
Speaker 1: what what what show did I have? Is it a

717
00:39:41,320 --> 00:39:43,960
Speaker 1: show I watched? Did they just spoil me? Do I

718
00:39:44,080 --> 00:39:46,040
Speaker 1: dare listen more? Because what if it's a show I

719
00:39:46,040 --> 00:39:49,360
Speaker 1: haven't watched yet? And then you just start screaming no spoilers,

720
00:39:49,360 --> 00:39:52,960
Speaker 1: no spoilers like a madman. But yeah, so I'm very

721
00:39:52,960 --> 00:39:57,000
Speaker 1: basically of our brains require complete information because you know,

722
00:39:57,360 --> 00:40:01,920
Speaker 1: at risk of getting into uh um in perfect comparisons

723
00:40:01,960 --> 00:40:05,440
Speaker 1: to a computer, our brains are that hypercomputer that that

724
00:40:05,640 --> 00:40:09,480
Speaker 1: needs data input in order to choose its next move.

725
00:40:09,560 --> 00:40:11,600
Speaker 1: And if we're getting incomplete data in there, it just

726
00:40:11,640 --> 00:40:15,759
Speaker 1: starts going a little Haywire. Right. Yeah, So another psychology

727
00:40:15,800 --> 00:40:18,480
Speaker 1: concept that I think might be relevant to our our

728
00:40:18,520 --> 00:40:23,280
Speaker 1: relationship with incompleteness and unfinished things is something we've actually

729
00:40:23,280 --> 00:40:25,319
Speaker 1: talked about a little bit on the show before, the

730
00:40:25,440 --> 00:40:28,759
Speaker 1: Zygarnic effect, which we mentioned it briefly in our two

731
00:40:28,760 --> 00:40:31,480
Speaker 1: part episode about the science of Tetris, and it played

732
00:40:31,480 --> 00:40:34,520
Speaker 1: into that because we were, I think picking up on

733
00:40:34,640 --> 00:40:36,560
Speaker 1: somebody else had made this point and we were we

734
00:40:36,560 --> 00:40:39,959
Speaker 1: were sort of repeating the idea that um Tetris has

735
00:40:40,040 --> 00:40:44,520
Speaker 1: something to do with the Zigarnic effect. Now, the Zigarnic effect,

736
00:40:44,920 --> 00:40:48,400
Speaker 1: it's a phenomenon that was identified by the Russian psychologist

737
00:40:48,520 --> 00:40:53,160
Speaker 1: bloom Movie Zygarnic. She lived nineteen hundred to night, and

738
00:40:53,239 --> 00:40:56,759
Speaker 1: it posits that we tend to have better recall for

739
00:40:57,040 --> 00:41:02,120
Speaker 1: unfinished tasks than we do for finished ones. Uh. And

740
00:41:02,200 --> 00:41:04,840
Speaker 1: so that, of course that would figure into Tetris because

741
00:41:04,840 --> 00:41:08,120
Speaker 1: Tetris is never finished. There's no end of the game.

742
00:41:08,239 --> 00:41:11,600
Speaker 1: It is a perpetually unfinished job. They just play to

743
00:41:11,880 --> 00:41:17,400
Speaker 1: tell extinction playing. So, yeah, what a Tetris and gambling

744
00:41:17,440 --> 00:41:20,560
Speaker 1: have in common. There's only one way for it to

745
00:41:20,600 --> 00:41:23,400
Speaker 1: be over, and it's when you cannot conject when you

746
00:41:23,440 --> 00:41:27,640
Speaker 1: have lost uh so, yeah. So a standard evaluation of

747
00:41:27,680 --> 00:41:30,160
Speaker 1: the Zigaronic effect would go something like this. You get

748
00:41:30,200 --> 00:41:33,000
Speaker 1: test subjects and you ask them to complete a number

749
00:41:33,400 --> 00:41:37,560
Speaker 1: of mental and or physical jobs, for example, solving jigsaw

750
00:41:37,600 --> 00:41:40,840
Speaker 1: puzzles or stringing beads. So if they're solving jigsaw puzzles,

751
00:41:40,840 --> 00:41:44,000
Speaker 1: there might be details on the jigsaw puzzle that they're solving.

752
00:41:44,040 --> 00:41:48,320
Speaker 1: Maybe it's a picture of a bunch of dinosaurs writing

753
00:41:48,480 --> 00:41:51,200
Speaker 1: on jet skis, or you know, whatever it is. And

754
00:41:51,239 --> 00:41:54,200
Speaker 1: in half of the tasks, the subject will be allowed

755
00:41:54,239 --> 00:41:57,200
Speaker 1: to finish, and in the other half, the subject will

756
00:41:57,239 --> 00:42:00,440
Speaker 1: be interrupted and asked to move on to another task

757
00:42:00,560 --> 00:42:04,000
Speaker 1: before the one they're currently working on is completed. And

758
00:42:04,320 --> 00:42:07,160
Speaker 1: then they get asked to remember details about both types

759
00:42:07,200 --> 00:42:10,960
Speaker 1: of jobs. And you can express this differential recall as

760
00:42:10,960 --> 00:42:14,040
Speaker 1: an I see ratio the number of details remembered about

761
00:42:14,080 --> 00:42:18,880
Speaker 1: incomplete tasks versus the number of details remembered about completed tasks,

762
00:42:18,920 --> 00:42:22,399
Speaker 1: and Zigarnick herself found this ratio to be more than

763
00:42:22,480 --> 00:42:25,600
Speaker 1: one point. Oh, people had a better memory for incomplete

764
00:42:25,600 --> 00:42:30,360
Speaker 1: and unfinished things. But why so a number of different

765
00:42:30,400 --> 00:42:33,200
Speaker 1: interpretations have been offered throughout the years that you people

766
00:42:33,239 --> 00:42:35,960
Speaker 1: have said that ambition plays a role in the extent

767
00:42:36,000 --> 00:42:39,399
Speaker 1: to which people have differential recall. Here people positive, well,

768
00:42:39,440 --> 00:42:42,960
Speaker 1: maybe interruption by the experiment or causes a feeling of

769
00:42:43,000 --> 00:42:46,760
Speaker 1: irritation that heightens the emotion, and that heightened emotion causes

770
00:42:46,760 --> 00:42:49,600
Speaker 1: a greater recall. Who who knows exactly what it is?

771
00:42:49,640 --> 00:42:53,040
Speaker 1: There are a lot of interpretations, but there have been

772
00:42:53,120 --> 00:42:56,359
Speaker 1: many subsequent evaluations of this effect throughout the years which

773
00:42:56,360 --> 00:42:59,920
Speaker 1: have sort of complicated the picture because we don't all

774
00:43:00,040 --> 00:43:04,560
Speaker 1: always remember incompleted tasks better so, according to the Dictionary

775
00:43:04,600 --> 00:43:07,480
Speaker 1: of Theories, Laws, and Concepts in Psychology by John A.

776
00:43:07,800 --> 00:43:11,320
Speaker 1: Rock Aline uh studies have indicated that the Zigaric effect

777
00:43:11,360 --> 00:43:13,960
Speaker 1: is less likely to take place if the subject is

778
00:43:14,080 --> 00:43:18,200
Speaker 1: quote ego involved in the task, and more likely to

779
00:43:18,239 --> 00:43:22,399
Speaker 1: take place if the subject thinks the task is ultimately possible,

780
00:43:22,480 --> 00:43:27,759
Speaker 1: of possible to achieve, or possible to finish. And hill

781
00:43:27,800 --> 00:43:30,040
Speaker 1: Guard in nineteen sixty six found that the I S

782
00:43:30,280 --> 00:43:33,719
Speaker 1: memory differential is short term, like it lasts for only

783
00:43:33,760 --> 00:43:36,800
Speaker 1: a period of less than twenty four hours, and apparently

784
00:43:36,840 --> 00:43:40,440
Speaker 1: it also doesn't work for all types of tasks. Now,

785
00:43:40,480 --> 00:43:43,120
Speaker 1: there's one study I looked at from nineteen nine one

786
00:43:43,200 --> 00:43:48,600
Speaker 1: by uh, Seifert and Padalano called memory for incomplete tasks

787
00:43:48,600 --> 00:43:52,920
Speaker 1: a re examination of the Zigarnic effect, And so essentially

788
00:43:52,960 --> 00:43:56,919
Speaker 1: that said that zigarnics original findings have been both replicated

789
00:43:57,040 --> 00:44:00,520
Speaker 1: and not replicated by subsequent studies, so that that seems

790
00:44:00,520 --> 00:44:03,080
Speaker 1: to suggest there's a sort of complex effect going on.

791
00:44:03,160 --> 00:44:06,560
Speaker 1: The different variables are interacting with it in different ways,

792
00:44:07,200 --> 00:44:09,120
Speaker 1: and the results have been explained a lot of times

793
00:44:09,120 --> 00:44:13,560
Speaker 1: in terms of social psychological variables. But Seiford and Patalano

794
00:44:13,640 --> 00:44:19,320
Speaker 1: attempted to replicate these effects adjusting variables affecting cognitive problem solving,

795
00:44:19,400 --> 00:44:22,280
Speaker 1: like the nature of the interruption what happens when somebody

796
00:44:22,280 --> 00:44:24,879
Speaker 1: comes in and interrupts you, or the time spent during

797
00:44:24,920 --> 00:44:28,279
Speaker 1: processing the job, and the set size of the the

798
00:44:28,400 --> 00:44:32,560
Speaker 1: number of tasks. So in the first experiment they did,

799
00:44:32,560 --> 00:44:35,759
Speaker 1: they found that in solving word problems, interruption after a

800
00:44:35,920 --> 00:44:40,440
Speaker 1: short interval of active problem solving actually lead to better

801
00:44:40,560 --> 00:44:44,520
Speaker 1: memory for completed tasks than uncompleted ones. Actually the opposite

802
00:44:44,520 --> 00:44:48,200
Speaker 1: of Zigonic if you don't spend much time on the tasks.

803
00:44:48,239 --> 00:44:51,960
Speaker 1: But this kind of makes sense, right, Uh, Intuitively, that

804
00:44:52,000 --> 00:44:54,400
Speaker 1: sounds right to me if I'm not spending much time

805
00:44:54,400 --> 00:44:56,640
Speaker 1: on a problem, I'd remember the problem better if I

806
00:44:56,719 --> 00:45:00,120
Speaker 1: finished it. Uh. And and they sort of acknowledge that

807
00:45:00,120 --> 00:45:02,279
Speaker 1: that that seems kind of obvious, but all right. And

808
00:45:02,320 --> 00:45:07,200
Speaker 1: the second experiment replicates Zigarnic. They found that if you

809
00:45:07,239 --> 00:45:10,560
Speaker 1: allow subjects to take as long as they need and

810
00:45:10,600 --> 00:45:15,120
Speaker 1: then abandoned problems they're unable to solve, it does hold

811
00:45:15,160 --> 00:45:17,160
Speaker 1: that they have a better memory for the ones that

812
00:45:17,200 --> 00:45:20,560
Speaker 1: they weren't able to complete. Uh. Thus, here's piece of

813
00:45:20,560 --> 00:45:24,040
Speaker 1: evidence that our recall is better for things for unfinished

814
00:45:24,040 --> 00:45:27,120
Speaker 1: tasks that we gave up on than for unfinished task

815
00:45:27,200 --> 00:45:30,400
Speaker 1: we were sort of ripped away from by circumstances. So

816
00:45:30,480 --> 00:45:33,600
Speaker 1: I send this zigarnic effect presents a complicated picture. It

817
00:45:33,640 --> 00:45:36,200
Speaker 1: depends on the subject, It depends on the type of task.

818
00:45:36,640 --> 00:45:41,000
Speaker 1: But another difference is that it applies to tasks and

819
00:45:41,400 --> 00:45:44,360
Speaker 1: like problems to be solved or jobs to be completed.

820
00:45:44,920 --> 00:45:49,040
Speaker 1: And I wonder if our relationship with art, fiction, music,

821
00:45:49,200 --> 00:45:51,160
Speaker 1: et cetera, and the way we've been talking about is

822
00:45:51,320 --> 00:45:54,520
Speaker 1: like this when we're the audience, And thus does the

823
00:45:54,600 --> 00:45:58,719
Speaker 1: Zigarnic effect in any way have any sway over our

824
00:45:58,760 --> 00:46:03,000
Speaker 1: participation with work of art? Yeah, I can't help but

825
00:46:03,160 --> 00:46:05,919
Speaker 1: think that it does. Because on one hand, I'm thinking

826
00:46:05,920 --> 00:46:08,719
Speaker 1: about the experience of reading a book. So if you're

827
00:46:08,760 --> 00:46:10,239
Speaker 1: just like a couple of pages into a book and

828
00:46:10,280 --> 00:46:13,040
Speaker 1: you set it down, like generally, it's pretty easy to

829
00:46:13,160 --> 00:46:15,120
Speaker 1: not pick that book up again, to just leave it

830
00:46:15,160 --> 00:46:17,120
Speaker 1: on the table or on the shelf. But if you've

831
00:46:17,120 --> 00:46:20,200
Speaker 1: read a half or you know, or even you know

832
00:46:20,360 --> 00:46:22,920
Speaker 1: a good two thirds of the book, there's often that

833
00:46:23,000 --> 00:46:27,040
Speaker 1: just maddening uh compulsion to complete it, even if you're

834
00:46:27,080 --> 00:46:29,279
Speaker 1: not digging it anymore. It's like, I've put so much

835
00:46:29,320 --> 00:46:31,680
Speaker 1: time into it, You've got to finish it. Or I've

836
00:46:31,719 --> 00:46:34,400
Speaker 1: encountered that with TV shows before. TV shows that you

837
00:46:34,440 --> 00:46:36,719
Speaker 1: know go multiple seasons and I'm not going to name

838
00:46:36,760 --> 00:46:41,680
Speaker 1: any in particular, but but they go multiple seasons and

839
00:46:41,680 --> 00:46:44,560
Speaker 1: then you really are losing interest. But there are the

840
00:46:44,640 --> 00:46:47,960
Speaker 1: remaining mysteries. There's you've got to know if they make

841
00:46:48,000 --> 00:46:52,279
Speaker 1: it to their their destination, and you keep watching just

842
00:46:52,360 --> 00:46:55,719
Speaker 1: out of the that the need to finish it. Yeah,

843
00:46:55,760 --> 00:47:00,319
Speaker 1: I I can totally agree. I mean, I think I'll

844
00:47:00,320 --> 00:47:02,880
Speaker 1: call out one TV show lost put its hooks in

845
00:47:02,920 --> 00:47:06,800
Speaker 1: me this way. I This is a controversial position. A

846
00:47:06,880 --> 00:47:08,960
Speaker 1: lot of people who like the show will probably want

847
00:47:08,960 --> 00:47:10,960
Speaker 1: to tear my head off. But I don't think Lost

848
00:47:11,080 --> 00:47:14,160
Speaker 1: was actually all that great of a show, you know.

849
00:47:14,239 --> 00:47:17,640
Speaker 1: I think that it had a lot of storytelling problems, uh,

850
00:47:17,800 --> 00:47:21,320
Speaker 1: and some of its characterization was kind of shallow and

851
00:47:21,320 --> 00:47:24,920
Speaker 1: and obvious looking back on it, But it had its

852
00:47:24,920 --> 00:47:27,200
Speaker 1: hooks in me. I couldn't stop. I had to keep

853
00:47:27,200 --> 00:47:30,160
Speaker 1: going to see the completion of this narrative because they

854
00:47:30,160 --> 00:47:33,520
Speaker 1: had set up tons of unfinished problems in it. The

855
00:47:33,560 --> 00:47:37,799
Speaker 1: show was just a litany of of setting up a

856
00:47:37,800 --> 00:47:42,280
Speaker 1: problem that was not resolved, and and you'd continue thinking

857
00:47:42,360 --> 00:47:44,319
Speaker 1: that it would be resolved. I'll leave that up to

858
00:47:44,400 --> 00:47:46,399
Speaker 1: you two if you ever want to watch the show

859
00:47:46,440 --> 00:47:48,600
Speaker 1: to find out if these things are resolved or not.

860
00:47:48,760 --> 00:47:53,080
Speaker 1: But I will just say that personally, I've found myself

861
00:47:53,200 --> 00:47:56,160
Speaker 1: very frustrated in the end. You know. It's interesting to

862
00:47:56,160 --> 00:47:58,279
Speaker 1: think of this in terms of TV, because that's the

863
00:47:58,360 --> 00:48:03,680
Speaker 1: classic TV model is very cyclical. A classic sitcom formula

864
00:48:03,719 --> 00:48:06,200
Speaker 1: involves a complete reset at the end of each episode,

865
00:48:06,239 --> 00:48:10,759
Speaker 1: so there's there's no zigaronic reason to come back and

866
00:48:10,760 --> 00:48:12,800
Speaker 1: watch it the next week, except that you're going to

867
00:48:12,840 --> 00:48:16,000
Speaker 1: get the more or less the same experience, experience, everything's

868
00:48:16,000 --> 00:48:18,759
Speaker 1: going to reset to the same place, and there's virtually

869
00:48:18,920 --> 00:48:22,960
Speaker 1: no overarching narrative that you need to concern yourself with. Yeah, though,

870
00:48:22,960 --> 00:48:25,520
Speaker 1: I think we should also be aware of the possibility

871
00:48:25,600 --> 00:48:29,400
Speaker 1: that we are just misapplying this concept and that it

872
00:48:29,480 --> 00:48:32,440
Speaker 1: really has to do more with jobs you're working on

873
00:48:32,680 --> 00:48:36,759
Speaker 1: than than participation with narratives. But I don't know. I mean,

874
00:48:36,800 --> 00:48:39,719
Speaker 1: i'd be interested to hear from you psychologists out there, like,

875
00:48:39,840 --> 00:48:42,720
Speaker 1: do you do you think the zigaronic effect, in any way,

876
00:48:42,760 --> 00:48:45,880
Speaker 1: to whatever extent it does hold true for humans, applies

877
00:48:45,960 --> 00:48:53,960
Speaker 1: to our participation with works of art and and external narratives. Indeed, now,

878
00:48:54,760 --> 00:48:56,719
Speaker 1: at the same time, is there anything that is we're

879
00:48:56,760 --> 00:49:01,560
Speaker 1: discussing all this if we're taking in incomplete stories, complete stories,

880
00:49:01,600 --> 00:49:06,160
Speaker 1: cyclical and linear stories. Um, the brain is writing tons

881
00:49:06,360 --> 00:49:11,040
Speaker 1: of incomplete stories itself. Of course. According to philosopher cognitive

882
00:49:11,040 --> 00:49:16,200
Speaker 1: scientists Daniel Dennett, the human brain, as a computational device

883
00:49:16,480 --> 00:49:19,920
Speaker 1: is constantly processing all sorts of information at different rates

884
00:49:20,160 --> 00:49:24,080
Speaker 1: and in different locations, and this produces what he refers

885
00:49:24,120 --> 00:49:28,120
Speaker 1: to as multiple incomplete narrative drafts, and these are all

886
00:49:28,200 --> 00:49:35,360
Speaker 1: just continually synthesized into a coherent but highly unstable narrative equilibrium.

887
00:49:35,520 --> 00:49:38,319
Speaker 1: And it's within this unstable narrative that we devote our

888
00:49:38,400 --> 00:49:41,839
Speaker 1: sense of of we we develop our sense of eye

889
00:49:41,960 --> 00:49:46,480
Speaker 1: and self. I really love Daniel Dennett's analogies for cognitive

890
00:49:46,920 --> 00:49:50,320
Speaker 1: cognitive philosophy and philosophy of mind. I feel like that

891
00:49:50,480 --> 00:49:54,640
Speaker 1: they're often very helpful. Yeah, it's it's it's interesting to

892
00:49:54,760 --> 00:49:56,919
Speaker 1: to to to look at this argument, and especially after

893
00:49:57,040 --> 00:50:00,440
Speaker 1: just talking about TV, to think of our basic variance

894
00:50:00,480 --> 00:50:04,920
Speaker 1: of ourself and our immediate reality is like a flimsy

895
00:50:05,280 --> 00:50:10,320
Speaker 1: TV narrative that's cobbled together from a number of bad

896
00:50:10,440 --> 00:50:14,000
Speaker 1: scripts that did all land on the showrunner's desk and

897
00:50:14,040 --> 00:50:15,360
Speaker 1: they're like, all right, a little of this one, a

898
00:50:15,400 --> 00:50:18,439
Speaker 1: little of that one. Uh, let's run with this script, Joe.

899
00:50:18,840 --> 00:50:21,239
Speaker 1: And then and then everyone's saying, well, this doesn't really

900
00:50:21,239 --> 00:50:24,200
Speaker 1: make sense. There's some big story problems here. Who is

901
00:50:24,239 --> 00:50:26,840
Speaker 1: this main character. It seems that on one hand that

902
00:50:26,840 --> 00:50:28,919
Speaker 1: he thinks he's some sort of a hero, but then

903
00:50:28,920 --> 00:50:30,719
Speaker 1: he's this and as well, and then just run with it,

904
00:50:30,760 --> 00:50:33,400
Speaker 1: just let's film it and call it a day, And

905
00:50:33,440 --> 00:50:36,440
Speaker 1: that's kind of what we do. But it's sort of

906
00:50:36,520 --> 00:50:39,160
Speaker 1: like a script for a lost episode is just got

907
00:50:39,160 --> 00:50:41,359
Speaker 1: tons of it's got a polar bear there, and you're like,

908
00:50:41,400 --> 00:50:44,960
Speaker 1: surely I'm going to find out where this thing came from. Yeah,

909
00:50:45,000 --> 00:50:47,800
Speaker 1: I mean at the end, it is still this continual journey.

910
00:50:48,280 --> 00:50:50,920
Speaker 1: Um and uh And I mean maybe that's part of

911
00:50:50,960 --> 00:50:53,080
Speaker 1: it too. We we like our stories, We like our

912
00:50:53,080 --> 00:50:56,160
Speaker 1: fiction the most when it is in the journey phase,

913
00:50:56,200 --> 00:51:00,279
Speaker 1: when it's incomplete but has the promise of completion. Well,

914
00:51:00,280 --> 00:51:03,239
Speaker 1: how many examples can you think of where where there's

915
00:51:03,239 --> 00:51:06,279
Speaker 1: a narrative that's as much fun once you've finished it

916
00:51:06,320 --> 00:51:07,680
Speaker 1: as it was to be in the middle of it.

917
00:51:08,480 --> 00:51:10,480
Speaker 1: It's a rarity. I mean, that's the work. That's the

918
00:51:10,760 --> 00:51:13,920
Speaker 1: mark of a really great work of fiction, right, is

919
00:51:13,920 --> 00:51:16,239
Speaker 1: that you know all the twists and turns, but you

920
00:51:16,320 --> 00:51:18,400
Speaker 1: just want to experience it again because you want to

921
00:51:18,440 --> 00:51:22,360
Speaker 1: experience that world, You want to experience those characters. Um.

922
00:51:22,400 --> 00:51:25,880
Speaker 1: Because there are plenty of lesser works, I guess you

923
00:51:25,920 --> 00:51:29,000
Speaker 1: could say, and ctently that's a that's very subjective, but

924
00:51:29,960 --> 00:51:32,439
Speaker 1: they're lesser works of fiction out there that once you've

925
00:51:32,600 --> 00:51:35,040
Speaker 1: once you've taken the journey, once you've ridden the ride,

926
00:51:35,560 --> 00:51:38,720
Speaker 1: you know the twists and turns you have no desire

927
00:51:38,760 --> 00:51:40,839
Speaker 1: to write it again because it's just gonna feel kind

928
00:51:40,840 --> 00:51:44,840
Speaker 1: of flimsy afterwards. Uh. Though sometimes that first ride is amazing,

929
00:51:45,920 --> 00:51:48,640
Speaker 1: but it's just impossible to to experience it again. Quite

930
00:51:48,640 --> 00:51:51,920
Speaker 1: the same way. I'm thinking particularly of of films and

931
00:51:52,000 --> 00:51:55,480
Speaker 1: works where you end up with a very unreliable narrator.

932
00:51:55,880 --> 00:51:57,799
Speaker 1: You have sort of sort of like a without getting

933
00:51:57,840 --> 00:52:02,239
Speaker 1: a despoiler's like a memento uh experience, or a fight

934
00:52:02,280 --> 00:52:07,200
Speaker 1: club experience or um, what was the uh, the switch

935
00:52:07,920 --> 00:52:11,279
Speaker 1: Switchblade romance horror film that came out years ago, the

936
00:52:11,320 --> 00:52:16,600
Speaker 1: French one High Tension, Yes, high tension. Um, great film.

937
00:52:16,960 --> 00:52:20,400
Speaker 1: The first viewing, that's all I'll say. Yeah, but that

938
00:52:20,480 --> 00:52:23,120
Speaker 1: great That first viewing was it was tremendous. So yeah,

939
00:52:23,200 --> 00:52:25,200
Speaker 1: great film in my opinion, just not the kind of

940
00:52:25,239 --> 00:52:27,799
Speaker 1: ride you want to do over and over again. But

941
00:52:27,920 --> 00:52:31,439
Speaker 1: back to incompleteness. Completeness. We we crave a linear story,

942
00:52:31,480 --> 00:52:34,000
Speaker 1: and we have a tendency to chafe at anything that

943
00:52:34,040 --> 00:52:36,880
Speaker 1: doesn't give us that. The The offending work might be

944
00:52:36,920 --> 00:52:40,560
Speaker 1: a non linear book or nonlinear film. It might be uh,

945
00:52:40,640 --> 00:52:45,480
Speaker 1: an intentionally incomplete or unfinished work. University of California Santa

946
00:52:45,520 --> 00:52:49,240
Speaker 1: Barbara Professor h. Porter Abbott calls the preference for linear

947
00:52:49,280 --> 00:52:54,600
Speaker 1: storytelling a fundamental operating procedure of the mind. So essentially

948
00:52:54,640 --> 00:52:56,680
Speaker 1: it breaks down like this. At three years of age,

949
00:52:56,680 --> 00:53:00,479
Speaker 1: our brains began to compartmentalized sensory information in the world

950
00:53:00,520 --> 00:53:03,680
Speaker 1: around us into an ongoing narrative which each of us

951
00:53:04,080 --> 00:53:06,680
Speaker 1: then places ourselves at the center. It's set the kind

952
00:53:06,719 --> 00:53:08,640
Speaker 1: of story that the same thing that Daniel Tennett was

953
00:53:08,640 --> 00:53:13,120
Speaker 1: discussing earlier. And uh, there's a there's an interesting paper

954
00:53:13,200 --> 00:53:16,480
Speaker 1: that looks at this two thousand fifteen Yeshiva University paper

955
00:53:16,560 --> 00:53:19,279
Speaker 1: the Power of and of the Picture, How narrative film

956
00:53:19,360 --> 00:53:23,000
Speaker 1: captures attention and disrupts goal pursuit, And this was published

957
00:53:23,000 --> 00:53:27,480
Speaker 1: in Plos one. So, in this particular experiment, participants were

958
00:53:27,880 --> 00:53:30,920
Speaker 1: that they viewed either an intact version of an engaging

959
00:53:30,960 --> 00:53:35,600
Speaker 1: twenty minute film Bang You're Dead by Alfred Hitchcock, or

960
00:53:35,680 --> 00:53:38,440
Speaker 1: a version of the same film with the scenes presented

961
00:53:38,480 --> 00:53:42,040
Speaker 1: out of order. And so they called this the contiguous

962
00:53:42,080 --> 00:53:46,799
Speaker 1: condition versus the non contiguous condition, non contiguous meaning out

963
00:53:46,840 --> 00:53:49,120
Speaker 1: of order exactly. Yeah, I don't, I don't think. Both

964
00:53:49,120 --> 00:53:51,279
Speaker 1: are available on the DVD release but maybe the blur

965
00:53:51,360 --> 00:53:54,359
Speaker 1: rate right, so that they were in this experiment, they

966
00:53:54,360 --> 00:53:56,799
Speaker 1: weren't told that this was about you know, narratives in

967
00:53:56,800 --> 00:53:59,040
Speaker 1: our experience, they were told that this was about gun

968
00:53:59,120 --> 00:54:01,560
Speaker 1: violence and film, and then they had to raise their

969
00:54:01,560 --> 00:54:05,600
Speaker 1: hands anytime someone said gun in the film. So those

970
00:54:05,640 --> 00:54:08,680
Speaker 1: who view the linear film, they were far less likely

971
00:54:08,719 --> 00:54:11,680
Speaker 1: to follow these orders because they were essentially just ensource

972
00:54:11,760 --> 00:54:14,440
Speaker 1: sold by the fiction. Yeah, that makes perfect sense to me.

973
00:54:15,080 --> 00:54:18,640
Speaker 1: And so these results illustraight the idea that that we

974
00:54:18,680 --> 00:54:21,960
Speaker 1: have an innate preference for linear narrative, though there is

975
00:54:22,000 --> 00:54:24,680
Speaker 1: of course a you know, an artful balance to maintain there,

976
00:54:24,680 --> 00:54:27,600
Speaker 1: because we can all think of non linear narratives that

977
00:54:27,800 --> 00:54:31,759
Speaker 1: work to varying degrees, sometimes exceptionally well. And of course

978
00:54:32,000 --> 00:54:35,879
Speaker 1: I think that the very fact of linear narrative that's

979
00:54:35,880 --> 00:54:39,680
Speaker 1: so compelling is that it promises a conclusion. It's exactly

980
00:54:39,719 --> 00:54:42,799
Speaker 1: the thing that makes it seem linear. Yeah, you want

981
00:54:42,840 --> 00:54:47,279
Speaker 1: to see the hero, when you want to see the

982
00:54:47,360 --> 00:54:49,239
Speaker 1: villain get their come up, and you want to the

983
00:54:49,360 --> 00:54:52,160
Speaker 1: line segment is the shortest distance between two points. If

984
00:54:52,160 --> 00:54:56,000
Speaker 1: you don't have a second point, you're in trouble. Right now,

985
00:54:56,040 --> 00:54:58,600
Speaker 1: all of this being said, Uh, we have visual works

986
00:54:58,640 --> 00:55:01,719
Speaker 1: of art that have metten story to them. We also

987
00:55:01,760 --> 00:55:06,600
Speaker 1: have works that represent decisive segments of an incomplete linear narrative,

988
00:55:06,920 --> 00:55:08,959
Speaker 1: and the viewer has to sort of has to fill

989
00:55:09,040 --> 00:55:12,280
Speaker 1: them out with his or her own mind, deciding how

990
00:55:12,320 --> 00:55:16,920
Speaker 1: we came to this place and where we go from there. Um.

991
00:55:17,120 --> 00:55:19,080
Speaker 1: Like one example that comes to mind here, and this

992
00:55:19,160 --> 00:55:21,720
Speaker 1: is not something that I saw at the met um

993
00:55:21,880 --> 00:55:26,640
Speaker 1: is uh uh ilya repins haunting five masterpiece, Ivan the

994
00:55:26,760 --> 00:55:29,160
Speaker 1: Terrible and his son Ivan. You've seen this one before, right,

995
00:55:29,320 --> 00:55:31,399
Speaker 1: I don't know if I have seen it before. Maybe

996
00:55:31,440 --> 00:55:35,280
Speaker 1: I have, but I'm looking at it now and wow, yeah,

997
00:55:35,320 --> 00:55:38,200
Speaker 1: it's a that is some pathos in a painting. Yeah,

998
00:55:38,200 --> 00:55:41,759
Speaker 1: it's it's Uh. It's Ivan the Terrible having brained his

999
00:55:41,800 --> 00:55:45,720
Speaker 1: son with believe a hammer or recepter, I can't remember

1000
00:55:45,760 --> 00:55:48,799
Speaker 1: the exactly. It's based on a historical occurrence. Uh. And

1001
00:55:48,880 --> 00:55:52,479
Speaker 1: he's just staring up his cradling is bleeding adult son

1002
00:55:52,960 --> 00:55:56,440
Speaker 1: and just staring with these haunted eyes into the middle distance.

1003
00:55:57,040 --> 00:56:00,239
Speaker 1: So we we know that it depicts an historical occurs

1004
00:56:00,280 --> 00:56:03,720
Speaker 1: We we know that this depicts one murder of Ivan's

1005
00:56:03,760 --> 00:56:06,239
Speaker 1: own son, and we know how to fit it within

1006
00:56:06,280 --> 00:56:08,960
Speaker 1: a rough linear narrative. But it's not like we have

1007
00:56:09,160 --> 00:56:11,680
Speaker 1: a sequence of paintings filling out the rest of the narrative.

1008
00:56:11,719 --> 00:56:15,080
Speaker 1: We have this one potent, potent segment, and it forces

1009
00:56:15,160 --> 00:56:18,200
Speaker 1: us to envision everything else. And we see that in

1010
00:56:18,200 --> 00:56:21,239
Speaker 1: works of fiction too, right to capture our imagination with

1011
00:56:21,320 --> 00:56:25,239
Speaker 1: an incomplete glimpse of a wider, maybe weirder world, And

1012
00:56:25,320 --> 00:56:27,960
Speaker 1: that's often I think it certainly is for me. I

1013
00:56:27,960 --> 00:56:30,680
Speaker 1: assume it is for other people. A point of specific

1014
00:56:30,760 --> 00:56:35,040
Speaker 1: pleasure in fiction is the sense that you are getting

1015
00:56:35,040 --> 00:56:38,000
Speaker 1: a feeling for a much broader world or a much

1016
00:56:38,040 --> 00:56:41,080
Speaker 1: broader story through a kind of key hole. Yeah, a

1017
00:56:41,080 --> 00:56:45,480
Speaker 1: little narrative people into the world, and that that feeling

1018
00:56:45,560 --> 00:56:48,480
Speaker 1: of there being so much more is one of the

1019
00:56:48,520 --> 00:56:53,000
Speaker 1: great pleasures of fiction. Yeah. So, I guess like some

1020
00:56:53,080 --> 00:56:56,799
Speaker 1: of my closing questions here um for this segment would be,

1021
00:56:57,200 --> 00:56:59,560
Speaker 1: how do all of these factor into our understanding of

1022
00:56:59,600 --> 00:57:03,600
Speaker 1: income leader unfinished works? Why are some fragments sort of

1023
00:57:03,680 --> 00:57:07,520
Speaker 1: ideal mental seeds while others are larval forms that we

1024
00:57:07,600 --> 00:57:10,040
Speaker 1: have to to grow. Why are some partial work sacro

1025
00:57:10,120 --> 00:57:12,520
Speaker 1: sanct and why are others? Why are others things that

1026
00:57:12,600 --> 00:57:15,240
Speaker 1: just must be completed by skilled hands at all costs.

1027
00:57:15,680 --> 00:57:19,840
Speaker 1: And granted there's you know, there's consumer elements here, their

1028
00:57:19,920 --> 00:57:25,120
Speaker 1: market forces involved, as well as just personal taste. But

1029
00:57:25,120 --> 00:57:27,360
Speaker 1: but there, you know, there's this interesting division between the

1030
00:57:27,640 --> 00:57:30,920
Speaker 1: works that that can and should remain incomplete and those

1031
00:57:31,000 --> 00:57:33,080
Speaker 1: that just have to be fleshed out. We have to

1032
00:57:33,080 --> 00:57:36,080
Speaker 1: have the complete specimen. I think it's a fascinating question,

1033
00:57:36,120 --> 00:57:38,600
Speaker 1: and I don't know if we've come across the answer today.

1034
00:57:38,640 --> 00:57:42,800
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's obvious that our brains are very

1035
00:57:42,840 --> 00:57:46,840
Speaker 1: strongly driven by narrative. Narrative is very highly motivated by

1036
00:57:46,840 --> 00:57:50,960
Speaker 1: the desire for completion enclosure, uh that that we do

1037
00:57:51,280 --> 00:57:55,280
Speaker 1: tend to via the sigaronic effect. Whether that applies truly

1038
00:57:55,360 --> 00:57:57,520
Speaker 1: to fiction and art, I mean, it's certainly clear that

1039
00:57:57,600 --> 00:58:04,000
Speaker 1: we tend to return mentally to things that are unfinished. Um. Yeah,

1040
00:58:04,200 --> 00:58:06,760
Speaker 1: I don't know. Well, it's an open question, and we

1041
00:58:06,840 --> 00:58:10,120
Speaker 1: certainly invite our listeners to uh to attend to it

1042
00:58:10,120 --> 00:58:13,000
Speaker 1: as well. Yeah, and if you feel compelled that they're

1043
00:58:13,040 --> 00:58:17,000
Speaker 1: absolutely must be an ending to the story of the

1044
00:58:17,360 --> 00:58:19,600
Speaker 1: three brothers in the prison, feel free to write that

1045
00:58:19,640 --> 00:58:22,320
Speaker 1: and send it in. All right, So there you have

1046
00:58:22,440 --> 00:58:27,120
Speaker 1: it uh incomplete, complete works, unfinished works. Let us know

1047
00:58:27,160 --> 00:58:29,560
Speaker 1: what you think. As always, you can speak us at

1048
00:58:29,560 --> 00:58:31,040
Speaker 1: at stuff to about your Mind dot com. That is

1049
00:58:31,040 --> 00:58:33,960
Speaker 1: our homepage. That's where you'll find all the blog posts,

1050
00:58:34,000 --> 00:58:36,680
Speaker 1: podcast videos, links out to our social media accounts such

1051
00:58:36,720 --> 00:58:39,040
Speaker 1: as Facebook and Twitter. And then Joe, if they want

1052
00:58:39,120 --> 00:58:42,480
Speaker 1: to make direct contact with it, perhaps with an ending

1053
00:58:42,560 --> 00:58:44,960
Speaker 1: to your story fragment from the beginning, how can they

1054
00:58:44,960 --> 00:58:46,880
Speaker 1: get in touch with it? Well? Of course, as always

1055
00:58:46,920 --> 00:58:48,760
Speaker 1: you can email us that blow the mind of how

1056
00:58:48,800 --> 00:59:01,240
Speaker 1: stuff works. Got for more on lest thousands of other topics.

1057
00:59:01,480 --> 00:59:18,240
Speaker 1: Isn't house stuff works dot com any big st