Fascinating take on how contingency gets filtered out of modern life. The surrealists were onto sometihng when they chased objective chance, but they kinda missed that randomness without consciousness is just noise. What really stands out is this idea that we're like zoo animals when we eliminate too much unpredictability frm our routines.
Yes, agree that there is just noise without the layer, the icing of consciousness, that which makes things mean and alive. It gets pretty bad, with so much social engineering, how "necessary" so much of our life becomes. I think an argument can be made that much madness, addiction, social ill can be attributed in some part to the low level of contingency in our lives. Safetyism is part of that too. I've always had the idea for a story about a man who flips a coin occassionally to decide actions. Eventually he's consumed and can't exist without constant obediance to the gods of chance. I think someone else has done a novel like this - I know I started a story along this plot line. Near science fiction. I hope to follow up more on the concept of the machine that goes ping and its relationship to big tech AI. Mainly used it as a metaphor here.
Great post. Reminded of a book I read a couple of years ago from Leonard Mlodinow about the role of randomness in our lives. The Drunkard's Walk was its name.
Fascinating take on how contingency gets filtered out of modern life. The surrealists were onto sometihng when they chased objective chance, but they kinda missed that randomness without consciousness is just noise. What really stands out is this idea that we're like zoo animals when we eliminate too much unpredictability frm our routines.
Yes, agree that there is just noise without the layer, the icing of consciousness, that which makes things mean and alive. It gets pretty bad, with so much social engineering, how "necessary" so much of our life becomes. I think an argument can be made that much madness, addiction, social ill can be attributed in some part to the low level of contingency in our lives. Safetyism is part of that too. I've always had the idea for a story about a man who flips a coin occassionally to decide actions. Eventually he's consumed and can't exist without constant obediance to the gods of chance. I think someone else has done a novel like this - I know I started a story along this plot line. Near science fiction. I hope to follow up more on the concept of the machine that goes ping and its relationship to big tech AI. Mainly used it as a metaphor here.
Great post. Reminded of a book I read a couple of years ago from Leonard Mlodinow about the role of randomness in our lives. The Drunkard's Walk was its name.
Thanks, I just sat down and wrote what I was feeling. Most of the time, that's the best approach. I'll look up that title - like the sound of it!