Origins

I recently watched Kara no Kyoukai, and I took a few things away from it.  I'd like to discuss one of them in-depth here.  It's the one thing that my friend also found an interesting part of the fiction's metaphysics.  That fact is probably the reason I myself thought about it, especially in conjunction with other trains of thought that I've been exploring recently.

Origin.



In the mythos of Kara no Kyoukai, every person and thing has an "origin".  This origin is, for most, an omnipresent influence that is too immaterial to directly cause anything.  It influences, colors, and affects a person's actions, but it doesn't actually cause them.  Having a nonphysical ontology means that a person has no means of knowing what their origin is.  Thus, people are subtly guided by their origin, but because they have no knowledge of what it is, their actions are guided by plenty of other factors that they are conscious of.

There exist in this narrative mystical means of making a person aware of their origin.  A magical spiritual process, this awakening brings the shared memories of all that share the same origin.  The origin is a concept that spirals through many different entities, branching through time and space in a nonlinear fashion.

It's a fun concept to think about, but it doesn't really have a real-world counterpart.  It's just an intriguing mythos that adds character to the story.

But thinking about this concept, just for fun, caused me to think about some real-world phenomena in a different way--namely ideas.

We have ideas.  Ideas are information, in the physical sense.  They are caused and they cause.  Ideas exist.  But what exactly is their ontology?  It's easy to argue that they have a physical ontology, albeit a very complex physical ontology.  But the means for measuring an idea physically would require brain-measuring that doesn't yet exist.  It will take an extremely long time before we combine the math, the proper high throughput technologies, and the spatiotemporal precision into a collection of hardware and software that can physically measure an "idea".  It's theoretically possible, but that possibility means nothing to most of us now.

For now, the notion of an "idea" or an "opinion" is immaterial.  I've recently realized how little direct impact ideas have on the real world.  It's possible to communicate an idea.  In fact, it's rather easy to tell about what's on your mind when you have the advantage of language.  Yet, simply expressing those ideas means little.  By expressing an opinion, you essentially organize the thought in such a way that it can be consumed by somebody who wants to consume it.  Those who want to read it will read it.  Those who are looking for that idea will gladly take something away from it; that something may or may not be what the author intended.

But you can't force an idea on people by expressing that idea.  The existence of that idea, even in a form that's tangible and salient to all, has very weak effects on people who interact with the idea on a casual basis.  Almost as a person's "origin" can subtly shift a person's attitude or actions over the course of time, an individual will be subtly influenced by internal information:  an idea, a nature, an essence, a mindset, an opinion.  Once expressed, those forms of information will interact with other people and their own personal counterparts.  Perhaps opinions will subtly influence people once they're expressed.  Sometimes.

The roots of those ideas and essences can be traced backwards to others who shared them.  They certainly give their own flavor to the way that history unfolds.

The real magic only happens when a person comes to their own personal revelation.  Once they've discovered an idea that sets them on a new course of thought, a new idea that truly resonates with them, their subsequent thoughts and actions will be altered.  The impact that these revelations have can be profound, and can completely change a person's lifestyle and entirely rewrite their destiny.  This kind of personal paradigm shift doesn't usually happen without consent, though.  Tuning into a new mode of thought demands that a person wants to adopt something beyond what they currently believe.

This dynamic between ideas and agents will likely not be changed by the advent of advanced mind-reading technology.  Certainly, measuring ideas with brain-scans could be automated and standardized.  That technology's availability will eventually become available, then grow widespread with time.  But simply providing a more tangible form of communication wouldn't be enough to change the fact that ideas and opinions are weak.  The reason people don't "listen" or have "closed minds" is not that they're incapable of understanding what's on others' minds--it's that they're unwilling to adopt those ideas as their own.  They have their own nature, their own cognitive identity, that they do not want to kill with new ideas.  As enlightening as they may be, having a big revelation requires one to butcher what they previously beheld as true.

So ideas only have power when they are received by an open mind--when people are actually looking for those ideas--and when they are conveyed in a way that resonates with the outlooks that the audience already has.  Both are necessary.  It's impossible to persuade a person of an idea when that idea is too abstract or convoluted, even when the audience is intensely interested.  It's also impossible to persuade a person with a brilliantly simple formulation of an idea that they don't agree with.

That conclusion is pretty obvious, though.  Why wax poetic about a concept that can be summarized with common sense?  Because, although it's pretty clear that an opinion will only reach a receptive audience, and that an idea will only be understood when it's understandable, such clarity doesn't in itself provide much assistance to the orator or activist when they get down to business.  Those bright-eyed activists who decry the evils of this world gradually understand that their words are falling upon deaf ears.  Once they come to that conclusion, a common reaction is that the world is just an apathetic scum heap, and that such campaigns are useless.  Another common reaction is to redouble one's efforts to decry those evils in the same framework.

Such reactions are vain.  Expressing the superiority of one's own ideas is fruitless, through and through.  It alienates people from the cause that you're trying to express.  To successfully communicate truth, it takes more than expressing ideas well.  It takes a nuanced understanding of how people think.  It requires a sophisticated understanding of the ideas, identities, natures, and opinions that flow through a given social environment.  In a sense, it requires understanding the "origins" of the individuals in that environment.

Learning about people's origins is something I intend to get better at.  I hope to step back from my own ambitions for a little while, such that I learn how people really think and what they care about--from their own unique perspectives, and from the perspectives that are passed down through culture and circumstance.  That way, I can speak to people in terms that they want to hear.  Hopefully, in that way, I can form meaningful connections with people over things that matter.  Even more hopefully, I can bring about healthy changes to the world for those without a voice.