Rebecca Black's "Friday" as Radical Text

poor girl.

It was one thing as an internet meme but when she had a BBC news article about her the other day...

it was just too much

If anyone here claims they knew what good music was when they were 13 thirteen is lying.

I hope she makes some money off this and it doesn't haunt her for the rest of her life.

I'm vaguely familiar with the song and artist, but I have spent a considerable amount of effort in determining what an individual is and whether or not such a thing possesses qualities like freedom (free-will).

What is an individual? It is often asserted that individuality is important, but what exactly is this all-important individual? We can see from science that we are intimitately dependent upon our environment, from the air we breath, to the barometric pressure of the surrounding atmosphere and the sociopolitical ethos of our era. On a more fundamental level we can see that any relation of one thing with another is a form of mutual interdependence. One thing cannot act freely upon another to determine some event without both things being fitted for the occasion. On many accounts what makes two objects suitable for sharing in an event is little more than their shape. This is certainly true of biology. So like puzzle pieces they fit together, and if any piece didn't have a shape appriopriate to fit into the puzzle, it wouldn't be in the puzzle. When the puzzle is reality, that means it don't exist. However, there may exist something which is adaptive and capable of fitting into many different places within the puzzle. This is what the human individual is like. Yet, the individual cannot change the puzzle to whatever it wants, it has to co-operate with the other individual pieces to form the entire puzzle.

In this sense an individual is determined by their environment, by the shared boundary that makes them an integral part of reality. The functional/causative relations which fit it to interacting with other objects. This should prove to be true on all levels of human psyche as well. All thoughts, emotions, words and so forth should be bounded by a specific set of functional relations to a larger system. If this is true, and it is, then we can examine our thoughts and emotions for their causative properties. Upon doing so we will either continue to operate on them or revise them to accord more with our conscience. Ultimately, however, we are not capable of going outside of our conscience, reasoning and the thoughts, emotions and such that enter spontaneously into the mind. We can only trace their causative influences and origins.

In that sense it's as if a seemless causal continuum acting upon itself gave birth to a individualized perception with a reflection of itself in the form of reason. Reason taps into the nature of reality and exposes its functional relativity. I suspect this happens basically the way Neurophilosopher Thomas Metzinger describes in Being No One. Constraints like phenomenal transparency - where we are unaware of the causative origins of some phenomena like color - necessarily blind us to our non-individuality which gives birth to the perception of individuality.

It concerns me that concepts like freedom and individuality are championed with such emotion and determination. They are extremely elusive concepts that in my analysis, have no basis in anything. Through millennia of philosophy there has never been a single cogent description of freedom, the only thing that can be said about it is what it is not. It is not this cause or that cause, it is no-cause. Nor can it be described how it functions causatively to interact with the other pieces of the puzzle. It just gets tossed in without reason, without justification and it brings with it concepts of punitive/retributive punishment and concepts of responsibiliyt/accountability that may or may not have a basis in reality.

By analyzing the way people actually do talk we can glean the root cause of asserting individuality and freedom. It really depends on the circumstances. Often people will be asked to give an explanation for their actions, this is done regularly without suspicion. "Why did you do that?" one will ask. The word "why", the inquisitor of the bunch, demands a causative answer. It is the equivalent of saying "What caused you to act this way?" and without fail we provide answers. We never say "I acted freely". We may imply freedom of choice when we are due for some form of praise, but we do the exact opposite when we are due for some form of disapproval. After commiting a transgression we will fall back on the causes of our behavior to exculpate us. Thus, it appears that pride and shame factor into whether or not we choose to assert our free-will.

Anyway, I just wish more thought went into it. It is very hard to tell exactly what a person means in song. The traditional notion of free-will doesn't work for me. However, Henrik Walters "Natural Autonomy" and notions similar to it are realistic. With the exception of a few compatibilists like Daniel Dennett, most wouldn't dare refer to these concepts as "free-will". That term is pretty well retained for libertarianism.

Dana Vachon is an idiot. (And, no, there are no hidden deeper meanings hidden in that statement.)

I think this article was written for the express purpose of using the term "onanistic recursion" while referencing a song sung by a 13 year old.

there IS such a thing as reading too much into things.

Guess I'm out of the loop again. Not sorry. And Ryan, nobody reads those long posts.

Not to hoot on a 13 year old - but remember before autotune was invented people actually had to have singing talent to sing?

nope, just a horrible, horrible song I wish people would stop spreading around.

I think Ryan S missed the joke.

Brilliant! And Ryan S: Go start your own blog. No one is interested in reading your essays in the Neatorama comments.

"poor girl."

Huh? She's a minor celebrity now, with appearances on the national morning talk shows and Jay Leno. Why should we feel sorry for her? She got what she wanted: her 15 minutes of fame. And she might even be able to parlay that into something more. Please, don't feel sorry for her.

Squishy missed the joke too.

The response to something like this tells you why TV shows have laugh-tracks.

Is anyone familiar with How I Met Your Mother? Do you remember Robin as a Canadian teenage popstar? Rebecca Black = Robin Sparkles

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U01hsTwtc-c

I have a blog and nobody reads it. I have to come to where you are all having fun, lauging, joking and carrying on to make any points. Nobody seems to want to think or talk about these more base issues. Yet, metaphysical assumptions are implied within your communities.

For example: "Dana Vachon is an idiot." + "there are no deeper meanings in that."

Well as a matter of fact there are. What do you mean by "idiot"? Are you referring to the clinical usage as someone whose intelligence is equal to a 7 year old? Someone who is mentally challenged? Are you using it in it's original Greek usage to mean someone who is so self-absorbed as to be blinded to the external reality? Or are you using it in it's colloquial, punitive form of just spewing potentially hurtful comments with the implication that the target could have done otherwise?

You are making all kinds of metaphysical assumptions about what a human being is, is capable of, and the term "idiot" is acting like an umbrella for all of that.

I honestly don't think we're reading deeply enough into this article. It's a PARODY, guys. Dana Vachon is making fun of people who read TOO deeply into things, and try to find meaning where there isn't. If you bothered to read more than the excerpt Neatorama provided, you'd realize this.

...Unless she's actually serious about this whole thing. Then I'm a little bit frightened.

Make it stop.

Ryan S is now taking it to the next level by trying to read too much into comments.

this isnt better or worst than any justin biever video.. i dont see anyone bashing him though...

"I have a blog and nobody reads it." There's a reason for that. That reason is NOT 'people don't like to think.' Get over yourself.

Ryan is too erudite for the masses.

He's a bigger buzzkill than Buzz Killington.

MadMolecule: BINGO!

"If anyone here claims they knew what good music was when they were 13 thirteen is lying."

When I was thirteen, I adored They Might be Giants and Sting (Dream of the Blue Turtles, Nothing Like the Sun variety of Sting). I loathed New Kids on the Block and thought they were unbearably bad, and actually got some serious dislike from some classmates who thought I was dumb for hating them.

So yeah, actually, I think was pretty good at knowing what good music was at 13.

Yea, I tend to take things too seriously. Like, metaphysical assumptions about our autonomy that underscore millennia of erroneous criminal justice systems, which incorporate punitive-retributive punishment techniques. Yea, I maintain that the vast majority of humans are foolish, they chase after good-times and buzzes, and ignore the infinite consequences of their actions. So yea, a bit of a buzzkill. If this were Nazi Germany, I'd be criticizing the Nazis. But it's not, so I'm criticizing the next best thing; mindless couch-potatos who inadvertently allow injustices through their ignorant and complacent consent.

"A nation that continues to produce weak-minded men purchases it's enslavement on the installment plan." - Martin Luthor King Jr.

"The world is made up for the most part of morons and natural tyrants, sure of themselves, strong in their own opinions, never doubting anything."
Clarence Darrow

Except today's Tyranny hides behind bids for congeniality. Like the Rolling Stones song "Sympathy for the Devil"; So, if you meet me, have some courtesy. Have sympathy and some taste. Use all your well-learned politesse (nicities) or I'll lay your soul to waste." Don't step on anyone's dreams, fantasies, delusions, or try to challenge anyone's cherised points of view. Aim to have smooth relations with everyone, let no one be offended or hurt. And hell will truly be on its way.

"Punishment as punishment is not admissible unless the offender has had the free will to select his course."
- Clarence Darrow

http://www.determinism.com/quotes.shtml

Congratulations Ryan S on your most condescending post yet! Do you always refer to people who don't agree with you as foolish, mindless couch potatos? You seem to have completely missed the point that the article is satire. Do you always use inappropriate platforms to vent your philosophical whinings?