Collaboration Between Artist and Audience

[Some Schmo]

I've heard a few people allude to this idea, but it strikes me odd that it is not more apparent and more discussed.

Any time you read a piece of fiction, you are doing at least half the work in the story's creation. You read the words on the page, and if you're an interested participant (i. e. you like what you're reading), you create a mental image of the story taking place in text. No matter how well something is described, it's still missing little details that the reader must fill in.

If you read something like, "She was tall with flowing blonde hair," instead of cursing the author for leaving out details like her eye color, what she's wearing, her ethnic background, etc. etc. we automatically fill in those details with our own imagination. We're giving the author a pass on certain details because we can naturally fill them in, if we're inclined.

Another example: how well would comedy work if everything had to be explained in detail? What makes a lot of comedy good is the actual reliance on the audience to make certain unspoken connections. The audience is doing at least half the work. There's the art, then there's the interpretation of the art.

The reason I've been thinking about this is because of how much fan fiction seems to be underwriting the various "holy" books and religious ideas generally. The moment in your life when you first encounter the idea of "god" you are immediately required to fill in a crap ton of missing details if you want to take the idea seriously.

So while you may not have come up with the god concept yourself, you have certainly done a ton of the work to create that fictional character in your imagination. The god idea titillates so much that it compels you to fill in the missing details. This is why I strongly suspect that you can get a great assessment of a person's values and priorities by asking them to provide details on their god, because the vast majority of it is assigned by the person holding the belief. Having no objective god to observe makes that proposition an inevitability. Having no objective god to observe is why there are so many versions of god and so many different religions. I argue there is at least one version of god for every believer that thinks a god exists.

And what's annoying about this is that all these believers think "most people believe in their god" when in reality, everyone is walking around with their own disparate god definitions, regularly contradicting each other. Even if an actual god did exist, we could say nothing definitive about it because it remains in hiding. It also allows people to embrace their own god notions while scoffing others (without a smidge of irony, no less).

Point is, it is beyond obvious that all gods and their associated descriptions are human fabrications. Telling yourself that you didn't make up your god is the simple act of self-deception, because it would mean you swallowed every single thing anyone has ever said about any god, and we know people don't do that. We know people can't do that, because so much of it is contradictory. You are forced to create the majority of it.

[Moksha]

Speaking of fiction, I noticed that 3 Body Problem has been released for TV in 8 episodes.

[Gunnar]

I've heard a few people allude to this idea, but it strikes me odd that it is not more apparent and more discussed.

Any time you read a piece of fiction, you are doing at least half the work in the story's creation. You read the words on the page, and if you're an interested participant (i. e. you like what you're reading), you create a mental image of the story taking place in text. No matter how well something is described, it's still missing little details that the reader must fill in.

This much is certainly true, and I think your points about our individually disparate God perceptions make a lot of sense too.

It also holds true about listening to listening to a radio drama or hearing someone read a story vs watching a movie or video drama. It reminds me of an interview I once heard of a perceptive young child who loved listening to old time radio dramas who was asked why he preferred listening to these radio dramas to watching television programs. He answered, "because the pictures are better."

[Dr. Shades]

Those were very insightful and thought-provoking ideas, Some Schmo. Thank you for posting them.

[Some Schmo]

It also holds true about listening to listening to a radio drama or hearing someone read a story vs watching a movie or video drama. It reminds me of an interview I once heard of a perceptive young child who loved listening to old time radio dramas who was asked why he preferred listening to these radio dramas to watching television programs. He answered, "because the pictures are better."

Yeah, and I think this is why we've often heard, "The book is better than the movie" or why people are so often disappointed by a movie not being faithful to the source material. Maybe it is faithful, just not interpreted the same way you did.

If you're making up half the story in your imagination, of course your interpretation is going to be more appealing to you than it is to everyone else.

ETA: I think reading a book is a more rewarding experience because it requires more effort on the part of the reader than a movie requires from a viewer. I suspect a lot of people enjoy movies more because they're more passive and don't take nearly the effort and imagination a book requires. However, if you expend the effort on a book, you come away with a better experience, because you worked harder for it.

[Some Schmo]

The old saying there are no atheists in foxholes suddenly strikes me as an argument for atheism. Essentially what that means is that extreme fear makes people, even rational ones, concoct something to comfort themselves.

It's not commentary on the existence of a god; it's commentary on how fear obliterates rational thought.

[Gunnar]

Yeah, and I think this is why we've often heard, "The book is better than the movie" or why people are so often disappointed by a movie not being faithful to the source material. Maybe it is faithful, just not interpreted the same way you did.

If you're making up half the story in your imagination, of course your interpretation is going to be more appealing to you than it is to everyone else.

ETA: I think reading a book is a more rewarding experience because it requires more effort on the part of the reader than a movie requires from a viewer. I suspect a lot of people enjoy movies more because they're more passive and don't take nearly the effort and imagination a book requires. However, if you expend the effort on a book, you come away with a better experience, because you worked harder for it.

Oh yeah! To be sure, the book is almost always better than the movie, oftentimes even when the book is based on a previously existing movie, rather than the other way around. I have seen some rare exceptions, though, when a movie was so well done that, it further enhanced my appreciation and understanding of what the book was really about. The most outstanding examples of that are Nature and other science documentaries such as NOVA, Cosmos and Ken Burns' excellent documentary series about our National Park system. It can also sometimes happen that a with the help of a sufficiently skillful and imaginative script writer, a well-executed and acted movie can be more entertaining or (at least) more easily endurable than a poorly written book on which it might have been loosely based.

But I agree that more often than not, even best stories told via movies can be even better appreciated and understood if one has also read the book on which it was based, whether before or after seeing the movie. Sometimes it would not even have occurred to me to read and enjoy a particular book had I not already seen the movie.

[huckelberry]

Yeah, and I think this is why we've often heard, "The book is better than the movie" or why people are so often disappointed by a movie not being faithful to the source material. Maybe it is faithful, just not interpreted the same way you did.

If you're making up half the story in your imagination, of course your interpretation is going to be more appealing to you than it is to everyone else.

ETA: I think reading a book is a more rewarding experience because it requires more effort on the part of the reader than a movie requires from a viewer. I suspect a lot of people enjoy movies more because they're more passive and don't take nearly the effort and imagination a book requires. However, if you expend the effort on a book, you come away with a better experience, because you worked harder for it.

Oh yeah! To be sure, the book is almost always better than the movie, oftentimes even when the book is based on a previously existing movie, rather than the other way around. I have seen some rare exceptions, though, when a movie was so well done that, it further enhanced my appreciation and understanding of what the book was really about. The most outstanding examples of that are Nature and other science documentaries such as NOVA, Cosmos and Ken Burns' excellent documentary series about our National Park system. It can also sometimes happen that a with the help of a sufficiently skillful and imaginative script writer, a well-executed and acted movie can be more entertaining or (at least) more easily endurable than a poorly written book on which it might have been loosely based.

But I agree that more often than not, even best stories told via movies can be even better appreciated and understood if one has also read the book on which it was based, whether before or after seeing the movie. Sometimes it would not even have occurred to me to read and enjoy a particular book had I not already seen the movie.

some schmos observation about the reader creating richness is certainly valid. Comparing books with movies books have the possible advantage of being richer ,more complicated and longer. About 1970 I was a bit of a fan of Kesey's Sometimes a Great Notion. I was horrified by what they did with it making a movie. Some of that was description. In the book rain and mud were significant players introduced from the very beginning. The movie looked sunny and California even though filmed in Oregon. That was just the beginning. How I interpreted the book was far away from how the movie did.

A contrasting example is the Movie a River Runs Through it. I had read and enjoyed the book before seeing the movie but in this case I loved the movie perhaps even more. There are some liberties in story line the movie takes and they help expand the story and what it has to say.(even though going a few further steps away from details of the real events behind the story,poetic license) As description the movie succeeds so well I feel like I have been there.

[Imwashingmypirate]

Interesting post.

I personally don't have a vision of what God looks like and I don't feel I have a general assignment of what God is like. I know we talk about God's love and all that. But deep down, I worry because I'm not entirely sure that God is anything like what Earthlings teach. When I pray, I pray out but I'm not really sure where it's going and I just hope that whatever is out there or within me hears it with the intent I send it. I fall asleep 99 percent of the time. Then spend the morning worrying and have to finish my prayer and apologise for falling asleep. I've connected prayer to sleep and find that if I don't pray I find it much harder to sleep as if prayer leads me to the neural pathways that sends me to sleep.

[huckelberry]

The reason I've been thinking about this is because of how much fan fiction seems to be underwriting the various "holy" books and religious ideas generally. The moment in your life when you first encounter the idea of "god" you are immediately required to fill in a crap ton of missing details if you want to take the idea seriously.

So while you may not have come up with the god concept yourself, you have certainly done a ton of the work to create that fictional character in your imagination. The god idea titillates so much that it compels you to fill in the missing details. This is why I strongly suspect that you can get a great assessment of a person's values and priorities by asking them to provide details on their god, because the vast majority of it is assigned by the person holding the belief. Having no objective god to observe makes that proposition an inevitability. Having no objective god to observe is why there are so many versions of god and so many different religions. I argue there is at least one version of god for every believer that thinks a god exists.

And what's annoying about this is that all these believers think "most people believe in their god" when in reality, everyone is walking around with their own disparate god definitions, regularly contradicting each other. Even if an actual god did exist, we could say nothing definitive about it because it remains in hiding. It also allows people to embrace their own god notions while scoffing others (without a smidge of irony, no less).

Some Schmo, from at least one angle I can see your point. People should not get too confident and proud of their idea of god especially when comparing them to other peoples ideas.

On the other hand I think most people hold very general ideas of God and respect the fact that there is a lot of unknown and mystery. It may be best to be cautious about filling in what you don't know with representations.

My view is that there can only be one God, source of life and order in the universe and that God surely exists as there is order and life in the Universe. This one God is misunderstood in various ways by people all over the world(repect to the principal you stated here Some Schmo) With the misunderstandings there is a thread of understanding based upon what we understand of the order creating and nurturing life here(love and respect your neighbors , community and environment)