Why dolphins are depressing

Blubbery sadness

So as everyone who spends time on the internet is aware, dolphins are pretty smart; dolphins are so smart that their intelligence is comparable to that of a mentally challenged human, a claim which has had some interesting consequences both scientifically and morally. Of course since you spend so much time on the internet — you have to to find this blog — you probably also know that dolphins have a history of violence and sadism which is also comparable to humans.

The reason that this is depressing is because humans and dolphins are the two most intelligent species on the planet and yet we’re also the most senselessly violent; gang rape, killing for fun and infanticide are just some of the deplorable activities apparently enjoyed by both species, and it gets worse. Wanton cannibalism is a known practice of chimpanzees, the third most intelligent animal on this great blue home of ours.

What I’m driving at is that extremely high levels of intelligence are linked with complex communication, tool use and specific social patterns but what if the capacity for violence is also a hallmark of intelligence in species? Obviously not all humans, dolphins and chimpanzees are murdering rapists but why are the three most intelligent species on this planet also the most violent? And is this a trend which extrapolates beyond our solar system?

It’s not hard to see why intelligence could be an important factor in the capacity for violence: most animals are simply looking to survive from day to day and therefore they “think” purely in terms of pros and cons and risk evaluation, like paranoid actuaries they are continuously weighing odds and making unbiased decisions on what actions to take. Intelligence allows us to separate from this primitive thought process and do things because we want to; ego, desire and entertainment enter the equation and become powerful modifiers which distort reasoning and sometimes lead to violence.

Now imagine that all intelligent lifeforms are like this.

That’s why dolphins are depressing.

Videogames as the next stage of art

I recently read Roger Ebert’s rebuttal of a TED talk given by Kellee Santiago and found myself thinking that while he did a fair job of countering the points that Ms. Santiago made in her speech he didn’t make a convincing argument against the possibility of videogames being art. In addition I felt that his bandying with the definition of art was counterproductive since trying to define art is like trying to define a colour: it can only be done in relative terms. Before I throw my two cents onto the ever growing pile I must point out that unlike Ms. Santiago I am not a big fan of Roger Ebert, I am a member of what he would consider the unwashed masses of cinema goers and we have very different views on what constitutes a good movie or even a piece of art.

To my mind one of the unifying characteristics of art is that art evokes an emotional response from the person who is experiencing it, that is not to say that anything which evokes an emotional response from someone is art (otherwise we’re calling bullies artists) instead art implies a certain amount of creativity and perspective in that art is something which generally must be created with the intent of revealing something unusual or magnificent. Fight Club is a good example of a film which both moved me and changed the way that I saw the world, obviously the book required a great amount of creativity and it certainly imposed a new perspective on my life and the world around me. The same can be said of the music of Ludovico Einaudi and some of the better works on DeviantArt.

But what about videogames? I thought that in Kellee’s talk she did herself a disservice with her own examples, certainly Flower is a wonderful example of the unique form of interaction that games can have with the players, an interaction usually denied to purveyors of other forms of art. Flower is also a wonderful example in that it is a creative title and that it invokes an emotional response from the player and provides us with a new and interesting perspective on the life of a flower, it may not be correct, it may not be the perfect expression of life as a potted plant but who is to say that a still life of a flower is art and this majesty of floral expression is not? However I would like to respectfully submit some games of my own choosing for candidacy as art.

Interactive, immersive, creative non-art

Art

A particular example I had in mind of a traditional game which is also art is Mirror’s Edge, an unfortunately unsuccessful game that was at times gloriously creative, impactful and emotive and which was immensely enjoyable to play. The game was primarily emotion that the game evoked was a feeling of freedom and release: the ability to run around to my heart’s content as well as the exploration abilities afforded to me by the free running system provoked a wonderful emotional response from me, similar to the feeling from a particularly good piece of cheerful music. I would also claim that the game was a good example of creative work because it was (and still is) such a unique title, it pushed the boundaries of what games could accomplish and for better or worse it succeeded in establishing itself as something new, unusual and, in my opinion, better.

Most importantly though, Mirror’s Edge changed how I perceived my own environment not just while I was playing the game but long after I had finished it. The game left a lasting impression on my consciousness, and the feeling of freedom that I described earlier persisted even when I was not playing the game; it’s no coincidence that I went on more runs than usual once I had completed the story, and even on my walk to campus I found myself noticing all sorts of nooks and crannies which I could exploit if I were as limber as Faith, the main character of Mirror’s Edge. This is a perfect demonstration of just how much more impact a video game carries when compared with traditional art such as films or music which are much less immersive and therefore unable to connect with their audience on the same level as a game, a fact which I believe is integral to the case for videogames-as-art.

Bioware games are among the most immersive experiences in gaming

As anyone who has played a game by Bioware will tell you, videogames have an amazing ability to draw the audience into their world by the use of well fleshed characters and detailed environments which provide a solid foundation upon which it’s possible to construct a much more believable setting than it is in other forms of art.

In conclusion I argue that videogames can in certain cases be considered art when they provoke feelings and change the way we view our world in the same way that a great piece of sculpture is not art because it is beautiful but because it evokes a response from its audience in the way that only art can do. Ebert has said that his notion of art is that “it grows better the more it improves or alters nature through an passage through what we might call the artist’s soul, or vision.” The experience of playing a game is that of inhabiting a different person, with different abilities who interacts with their world in ways that are sometimes radically different to our own lives, clearly then, a game alters our own experience of nature by giving us an alternate world to temporarily explore and exist in. I would certainly call that art.

As for why the gaming community is so hung up on the art issue, my explanation is that because certain games are such powerful experiences for the gamers who play them these games become very important to those people, and when people such as Roger Ebert say “Video games can never be art” the gaming community perceieves this as a very serious slight on both the medium and audience. The fact of the matter is that Ebert doesn’t play videogames, so when he says that videogames are not art it should be treated with the same gravitas as when American football commentators would say that soccer is a sissy sport: none at all.

The Higgs Boson and you

the Fermilab Remote Operations Center

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is no stranger to controversy: first came the media storm over its potential for worldwide destruction, then there was the six tonne helium leak in September of 2008 which put the entire experiment on ice, and of course there are the claims of time traveling particles that are sabotaging the LHC in order to save the universe from destruction. In addition, the price tag on the LHC has been seen as exorbitant by some, and a criminal waste of money by others, there’s no denying that the 4.6 billion franc price tag makes it the most expensive scientific experiment to date, which is why it’s important that people are informed about the benefits of investing so much money in something that may very well produce no results.

The chief goal of the LHC is the discovery of the Higgs Boson, a fundamental particle predicted to exist by the standard model of particle physics which is the study of matter and radiation and how the two interact. The major point of interest in the Higgs Boson is that it is, theoretically, the fundamental particle which interacts with protons, neutrons and electrons to give them mass, a phenomenon which is not yet fully understood by physicists. Peter Higgs, in answer to this question, proposed that all the particles making up the universe are traveling through a field (much like a magnetic field) the field interacts with every particle which is moving through it and this interaction manifests itself in the form of mass.

This is similar to the way a bullet would travel through very thick gelatin, what is observed is not the actual force of resistance on the bullet but rather the result of that resistance as the bullet slows down and eventually stops, and if the size of the bullet is increased then it will slow down more rapidly: the interaction between bullet and gelatin is much greater. In actuality Higgs Bosons constitute the gelatin and protons, neutrons and electrons are bullets, however, instead of slowing down particles this interaction yields mass which gives rise to inertia, the resistance to change in motion. Electrons, the small bullets interact weakly with this field and protons, the big bullets interact more strongly, this is why electrons have less mass than protons and consequently do not carry as much momentum.

Like most other things scientific, this is absolutely fascinating to physicists but considered completely irrelevant by the rest of the population, however, the discovery of the Higgs Boson has the potential to be one of the most important scientific advances in human history. The discovery of fundamental particles has quite often led to extraordinary advances in technology even giving rise to entirely new technologies as engineers and physicists determine how best to manipulate these particles. Were it not for the discovery of the electron it is doubtful that electricity would ever have become such a major foundation of human society, similarly nuclear power, radiometric dating and the myriad of other technologies which utilize radioactive decay would not exist if the atom had never been discovered.

The discovery of the Higgs Boson, could enable engineers and scientists to manipulate the interactions between particles and the Higgs field, this is highly significant because the ability to change the mass of particles could realize light speed travel, space elevators, advanced robotics and a plethora of other technologies. Reducing the mass of a fully loaded plane would improve efficiency, near massless satellites could be launched into orbit for a minute fraction of the current cost, in fact, the manipulation of mass could even lead to the manipulation of the physical size of molecules and objects, turning Kleiner’s Fantastic Voyage into a viable medical reality.

It is apparent then that the discovery of the Higgs Boson could very well herald the greatest revolution in human technology since the advent of electricity, as long as the Large Hadron Collider doesn’t destroy the world first.