[HN Gopher] Yo-Yo Ma Performs Richard Feynman's Ode to the Wonde...
___________________________________________________________________
Yo-Yo Ma Performs Richard Feynman's Ode to the Wonder of Life,
Animated
Author : RafelMri
Score : 67 points
Date : 2022-04-24 11:23 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.themarginalian.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.themarginalian.org)
| baruchel wrote:
| Just noticing that Feynman's word are very close of Keats' ones:
| "then on the shore // Of the wide world I stand alone, and think"
| (see https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44488/when-i-have-
| fea...)
| telesilla wrote:
| He's playing Bach, as a narration background. It's not a specific
| work made for this and probably just taken from an existing
| recording. Nice enough but not much to warrant specific attention
| for the cellist master.
| bloak wrote:
| Yes, I think it's BWV 1011:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yz8QjkaSSH4#t=131
|
| However I won't claim it's exactly that recording because I've
| just found this, which suggests there are three Yo-Yo Ma
| recordings of this piece, even if you don't count various live
| recordings:
|
| "In 2018, he released a recording of Bach's six cello suites,
| called "Six Evolutions;" it was his third time recording the
| suites over the course of his life, and, he's said, it will be
| his last."
|
| (https://www.classicalwcrb.org/blog/2020-05-19/bachs-cello-
| su...)
| wejick wrote:
| The performance aside. I love the design of the site, it reminds
| me when internet was dominated by blogs. It feels like page to
| read, not an application for content consumption.
| archhn wrote:
| This poem is from outside the bounds of ordinary human
| experience. It conveys a sense of absurdity and an immensity of
| scale that belittles the individual.
|
| I find it quite harrowing. Within the ordinary bounds of human
| experience, there is meaning and rich individual life. We form
| bonds to each other, we grow, we experience and interpret the
| world. When we step outside our lives and immerse ourselves in
| the various structures and properties of the universe, it can
| seem so senseless, but that's only because this realm of pure
| intellect is alienated from our lives.
|
| If we follow our intellect too far away from life, things become
| unbearably surreal. It's like when Goethe mocks philosophers in
| Faust because they fly off into other barren intellectual worlds
| when life is all around them. I feel the same way about the
| mindset that produced this poem as well.
| bobthechef wrote:
| dwringer wrote:
| The line "I... a universe of atoms... an atom in the universe"
| implies to me that the narrator views himself as the tiniest
| piece of an infinite tapestry of life. I think Feynman was many
| things but lost "into other barren intellectual worlds" he was
| not.
| archhn wrote:
| Which is to say that he is nothing; it's nihilistic. What is
| a drop water in an ocean? One drop less won't make the seas
| recede. Life, death, where is the boundary when one is
| subsumed in the all?
|
| We are not anonymous atoms in the fabric of an unconscious
| universe. We have friends, family, and experience life in a
| unique way. We have the ability to channel our uniqueness
| into creative acts which introduce completely new
| combinations into the world. A black hole, a star, can't
| produce the Mona Lisa, and no one other than Divinci could.
| It was an outgrowth of his individuality.
|
| This idea that we are passive beings, like atoms, completely
| disregards our ability to create. We tower above the
| unconscious elements of the universe. We are creators!
| Putting us on the uncreative level of atoms is slander
| against humanity.
| defterGoose wrote:
| The idea that we can bring meaning and permanence into the
| world with art is a similarly hubristic one by your own
| metric. Surely you're not selfish enough to believe that
| the universe is unimportant without an overlay of human
| 'meaning' on top of it?
| toss1 wrote:
| >>nothing ... nihilistic
|
| Wow, that's nearly the exact opposite of the way my brain
| interprets it -- that he's seeing an infinitely rich
| tapestry, the wonder of emergent properties and
| consciousness throughout the universe, from the smallest
| scales to the grandest, and we, self-referentially seeing
| ourselves as a part of that grandeur.
|
| Not that we're anonymous atoms in an unconscious universe,
| but that we're part of a universal consciousness, possibly
| the most key part, as we are the particular (perhaps
| particularly privileged) atoms that are now "standing...
| atoms with consciousness... matter with curiosity".
|
| Seems it really is in the eye of the beholder, and often
| more of a reflection of our own state of mind than of the
| artist's intent.
| [deleted]
| dwringer wrote:
| Well that's certainly one way to view it, but I am not sure
| whether it's how Feynman himself would have viewed it. To
| me there's an implication there that he doesn't view atoms
| in this context as passive beings since Feynman was
| definitely not a passive kind of person. I think instead
| the line suggests that even the smallest possible part of
| the universe contains all the beauty and complexity of the
| entire universe as well as life itself.
|
| But you do make a fascinating argument. It's an interesting
| philosophical point to be sure.
|
| EDIT: Perhaps there is at least potential for resolution if
| we give up the classical definition of atoms (being the
| smallest indivisible parts) in favor of that of modern
| physics, in which not all atoms are created equal. But that
| opens up a whole other can of worms.
| archhn wrote:
| Yeah, I don't know--who does. The poem just struck me as
| nihilistic. If we are just star stuff in a forever
| bubbling and fomenting cauldron, it may be a view of
| reality that is hostile to life. What can console us
| against the slings and arrows of our outrageous existence
| if there is no substantial difference between us being
| dead or alive? If we are just a drop of goop in the
| cosmic cauldron, why should we not just kill ourselves
| when we face any discomforting challenge? Late for the
| bus? Kill yourself. Skipped over for promotion? Kill
| yourself.
|
| As a function of survival, we need some model of reality
| that helps us to continue living. And that means a model
| to help us justify suffering--essentially. I do not find
| such a model reflected by the poem in question; hence, I
| see it as an enemy to life--nihilistic.
| [deleted]
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| > We are not anonymous atoms in the fabric of an
| unconscious universe
|
| You can resolve your confusion if you consider that the
| universe itself is conscious in some form. And those atoms
| have some form of consciousness.
|
| There is no scientific, objective, measurable, external
| evidence for this, so don't bother looking to prove or
| disprove it. You have to find it yourself.
| archhn wrote:
| Consciousness, as I understand it, evolves out of
| complexity. The simpler things are, the less capacity for
| consciousness they have. Fundamental building blocks of
| the universe must then be the least capable of
| consciousness. That's not to say they aren't "conscious,"
| but that the conciousness they do possess is practically
| non existent when compared to the consciousness we, as
| complex systems, possess.
|
| I still hold that our ability to create far outranks
| anything in the observable universe. We are actually so
| freakishly different from everything around us, that we
| might as well be aliens to this universe.
|
| That's why I don't like being put on the level of atoms.
| And I already feel atomized enough in this increasingly
| antisocial environment.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| > I still hold that our ability to create far outranks
| anything in the observable universe
|
| Does that include the creation of stars, galaxies, and
| planets? Literally everything we observe has been
| "created" in some way.
| archhn wrote:
| Yeah, maybe I'm just being an egocentric human by saying
| that. I don't have a way of measuring "creativity." Also,
| what we can measure and observe is only a reduction of
| the universe to terms we can understand. So, we can't
| even accurately reflect on things in creation, let alone
| pass judgment on them.
|
| I guess I'm just trying to justify my existence in this
| bewildering cosmos.
| krastanov wrote:
| That sounds very... presumptuous maybe? You can enjoy all the
| nice things in human life and also marvel at and study the
| universe. If anything, exploring the universe is one of the
| nice things in life. It seems silly, a bit limiting, and a bit
| hurtful to say you have to choose one or the other.
|
| Moreover, if someone does choose to push forward in only
| exploring the universe and disregards the other nice things in
| life, who are we to judge them for doing that. They have found
| their own way to be happy or fulfilled or interested, whichever
| is that they value.
| fsloth wrote:
| Symphony of Science is another sample in this genre of "remixing
| popular science"
|
| https://melodysheep.bandcamp.com/album/symphony-of-science-c...
|
| Nightwish had their "Greates show on Earth" with Sir Richard
| Dawkins which is perhaps most intentional in the artistic sense:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrMwxe2ya5E
|
| What else is there in this genre? It seems frightfully scarce.
| nomilk wrote:
| Keynesian Vs Hayekian economics rap battle
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTQnarzmTOc&t=1m53s
| [deleted]
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-04-25 23:02 UTC)