Tarkovsky was an Orthodox Christian, but his ideas about the irreducibility of experience parallel Zen:
"Everybody asks me what things mean in my films. This is terrible! An artist doesn't have to answer for his meanings. I don't think so deeply about my work - I don't know what my symbols may represent. What matters to me is that they arouse feelings, any feelings you like, based on whatever your inner response might be. If you look for a meaning, you'll miss everything that happens. Thinking during a film interferes with your experience of it. Take a watch into pieces, it doesn't work. Similarly with a work of art, there's no way it can be analyzed without destroying it."
- Andrei Tarkovsky
Andrei Tarkovsky: Interviews, pg. 71
Univ. Press of Mississippi, 2006
Edit: as others have pointed out, my surprise at this parallel may tell you less about the uniqueness of Tarkovsky's world view, and more about my ignorance of Orthodox Christianity.
>Tarkovsky was an Orthodox Christian, but his ideas about the irreducibility of experience parallel Zen
Let's add that this is not by chance: the irreducibility of experience (especially divine experience) is a core motive of Orthodox Christianity as well (which also has a long tradition of mystics).
The idea that experience is not irreducible is rare. Who thinks they can analyse consciousness into more fundamental elements?
Max Planck: "I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness."
> Who thinks they can analyse consciousness into more fundamental elements?
I do. Considering consciousness, a property of animals on a planet in a star system, irreducible and more fundamental than, say, quarks and bosons, seems laughably wrong to me. On the same level of wrong as medieval "geocentric" world views. I have a hard time imagining how those accomplished physicists think this way..
Reminds me of James Jeans, another idealist physicist, which I feel like is becoming slightly more popular again of a view.
"The stream of knowledge is heading towards a non-mechanical reality; the universe begins to look more like a great thought than like a machine. Mind no longer appears to be an accidental intruder into the realm of matter...we ought rather hail it as the creator and governor of the realm of matter."
A person who thinks that animals are nothing more than colonies of abnormally cooperative eukaryotes may still dislike animal cruelty on the basis that anyone who is capable of it would be capable of cruelty to humans, or that practicing one prepares you for the other. I imagine the same argument could be made to apply to robots, even if you wanted to sidestep the machine consciousness question.
P.S. this argument is a very familiar one if you recognize it - if you have ever heard the advice not to date anyone who's mean to waiters, that's the same idea - that whatever causes cruelty, causes it against all targets.
Billions of people all around the planet both love some animals, and eat others.
They are the majority and your view is in the minority. Do you consider all of them to have a personal failure in this regard too? Nice attempt to try and single someone out personally though.
Yes, I do consider that a failure by the majority. I'm not sure if it's just your hesitation to truly consider the experience of suffering in other creatures, or laziness, but majority views don't always align with moral correctness.
I am singling you out personally because you felt an overwhelming need to brag about your pride in dismissing the suffering of other creatures.
The only brag here are these plain and simple examples of virtue signalling. But putting the discussion about animal suffering to one side here, since it is irrelevant in regards to the original point regarding A(G)I - sure they may become useful in the future, but deserving of rights equivalent to animals, let alone humans?
They are tools created by man, nothing more, I would not feel the slightest hesitation about hitting the power switch, disconnecting the battery, or unplugging the power cable at the end of the day if it has outlived its utility, or has malfunctioned in a way that could potentially negatively affect humans (or animals for that matter). Neither should you. There is no sentience there, just simulation. No matter how charming you might find the simulated conversation or sex acts with them.
There's no way to verify that any other mind is actually experiencing what you interpret as consciousness. We can only ever measure signals, leaks in the form of behaviors. We are reducible to chemical reactions, even as the emergent properties of those reactions are unimaginably complex and impressive.
We all should expand our moral circle. That is the opposite of narcissism and tribalism. We can expand our intuitions to non-human animals, to non-carbon based life forms. It takes imagination. It takes work. The stakes are high, because if we get it wrong with AI, we may unintentionally produce beings that can suffer in amounts that we as individual humans cannot imagine. An AI may experience multiple experiences at once, feel many feelings at once, live many lives at once, all within the span of a second.
The potential for suffering, if nothing else, is reason enough to seriously consider automaton rights as on the same scope as animal and human rights.
That's not really Zen though. Zen is expanding your awareness of the present moment to experience it without interpretation, including emotional interpretation, to experience it as it is. Zen is freedom from the constant need to assign meaning and experience feelings about where you are right now. Zen is the calm eye of the storm without attachments to thoughts or emotions, especially those that we use to identify who we are. Zen is a hot cup of tea and the sounds of birds singing.
I might be missing a nuance in what you're saying, because it seems like the way you are describing Zen is indeed similar to what Tarkovsky is describing above. Specifically, he says, "If you look for a meaning, you'll miss everything that happens. Thinking during a film interferes with your experience of it." As you describe Zen, it is "freedom from the constant need to assign meaning and experience feelings about where you are right now". I.e., not interrupting your experience of Tarkovsky's films by attempting to assign meaning.
> If you look for a meaning, you'll miss everything that happens
> What matters to me is that they arouse feelings, any feelings you like, based on whatever your inner response might be.
That's great and I like introspective and symbolic films, but arousing feelings is not Zen. Tarkovsky wants us to think less and feel more, which I think characterizes most art. Some people might say something like "I feel good about cats but I feel bad about dogs" (as an example) or "there is a special melancholy in the dawn fog." This is all well and good and what it is to be human, but feelings are subjective and about personal identity and experience. There is nothing inherently good or bad about one or the other when you compare cats and dogs. That's about you, not about cats or dogs. Likewise, there is nothing melancholic about morning fog. Other people might feel intense joy at they way it burns off as the sun rises. Others might feel sad and go back to sleep.
Zen not only gets under the thinking, it gets under the feeling, to experience reality as it is without judgement or processing. Zen is seeing things clearly and calmly. It's clarity without the filter of thoughts and feelings.
I can't know how other people experience the world so I can't tell if my way of achieving clarity is the way other people, such as a Japanese Zen master, experience clarity. Tarkovsky may have achieved his clarity through emotional intelligence and that's what he puts in his films. I'm grateful to have found a way that works for me. It's really no concern of mine that other's have a different way. There is no one way but that's an opinion of mine. When in doubt, I meditate and wait for the clarity to return.
>Zen is seeing things clearly and calmly. It's clarity without the filter of thoughts and feelings.
Based on my my understanding from practitioners, zen is not characterized by absence or elimination of feelings, but not letting them control your behavior or your thoughts. You don't have to feel like a robot, but you might choose to react like one. There are things in life that are beautiful, happy, and sad. The point is not to deny this, but experience it without forming Attachments and reactions. To this end, I have heard of zen masters that can go from laughter to tears simply by shifting their focus. Similarly, there is a rich tradition of very evocative zen Buddhist art.
The film maker may differ in that he wants to inspire a reaction, or maybe not.
Elimination of feelings is not a desired outcome and if extreme can be classed a disorder such and depression, dissociative disorder or psychopathy.
I found Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Dialectic Behavior Therapy (DBT and Wise Mind) very helpful in dealing with troublesome emotions and then Zen which, as you say, is about not letting them control your behavior or your thoughts but calmly observing them come and go. This is also part of ancient Greek and Roman philosophies such as Stoicism and part of what ancients like Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus were getting at.
Feelings, for the most part, are intertwined with thoughts. This is what makes CBT and its ilk so valuable. For example...
I'm feeling panicked because I've been given a new manager. I think the new manager may not see the value of my role. Turns out, the new manager is impressed with my experience and has heard good things about me from others. They believe me to be an important asset to the team. My feeling of panic evaporates.
I'd venture that at least 80% of what accounts for 'stress' in the 21st century can be chalked up to the stories we tell ourselves.
When you notice your mood getting worse, ask yourself, "What's going through my mind right now?" As soon as possible, fill in the table below.
Situation:
I've been given a new manager
Automatic Thoughts:
I think the new manager may not see the value of my role
Emotions:
I'm feeling panicked
Adaptive Response:
What thinking styles did you engage in? Disqualifying the Positive, Jumping to Conclusions, Emotional Reasoning, Magnification. See OLDJEMMAPS.
Outcome:
Turns out, the new manager is impressed with my experience and has heard good things about me from others. They believe me to be an important asset to the team
OLDJEMMAPS acronym:
Over-generalization: Make a comprehensive, negative conclusion that is beyond the current situation.
"I failed the cognitive psychology exam. I'm not working with a psychotherapist."
Labeling and Mis-labeling: The extreme form of overgeneralization. Use fixed, comprehensive, and emotional language to label yourself or others.
"I am an idiot." "He is a bad guy."
Disqualifying the Positive: Unreasonably believe that positive experiences, behaviors or qualities do not count.
"I did a good job on that project, but it doesn't show that I am capable, it's just a fluke."
Jumping to Conclusions: Making a conclusion before having all the evidence.
"I see a cloud on the horizon. I'm bringing my umbrella because it's going to rain"
Mind-reading: in the absence of evidence, thinking that other people's reactions to you must be negative.
"He must think I can't do the job on this subject."
Emotional Reasoning: Draw conclusions from your own feelings, because what I think is what the facts are.
"I think I am like an idiot, so I must be an idiot."
Mental Filter (selective summary, partial generalization). Only pay attention to a certain negative detail, without seeing the whole picture.
"Because of the low scores in several items in my clinical internship evaluation, my clinical internship is over"
Magnification/Minimization: enlarge/reduce. When evaluating oneself, others, or a situation, unreasonably exaggerate the negative aspects and narrow the positive aspects.
"Getting a moderate evaluation shows how incapable I am. Getting a good score does not show that I am smart."
All or Nothing Thinking: (also known as black or white thinking). You can only look at two extremes, but you cannot see a continuum band.
"If I can't do everything well, I'm an incompetent person."
Personalization: Others treat you badly because you have problems without considering other possibilities.
"That colleague is very unkind to me. I must have offended her in some way."
Should and Must statements: There is a precise, fixed expectation of one's own or other people's behavior, and if the behavior does not meet the expectation, it is too serious or bad.
"That person should have said hello to me. They didn't so they must be irritated with me"
I really agree with this. I find it so superficial when people attempt to find a singular “meaning” to a film. A film is not about one thing. It’s an experience. Reducing it down to one idea removes the complexity and nuance of that experience.
You say "but" as if Orthodox Christians are contrary to this. Put another way, there is a greater overlap between the thinking (and feeling, and believing) embedded in religions than we can garner just from reading.
"Everybody asks me what things mean in my films. This is terrible! An artist doesn't have to answer for his meanings. I don't think so deeply about my work - I don't know what my symbols may represent. What matters to me is that they arouse feelings, any feelings you like, based on whatever your inner response might be. If you look for a meaning, you'll miss everything that happens. Thinking during a film interferes with your experience of it. Take a watch into pieces, it doesn't work. Similarly with a work of art, there's no way it can be analyzed without destroying it."
- Andrei Tarkovsky
Andrei Tarkovsky: Interviews, pg. 71 Univ. Press of Mississippi, 2006
Edit: as others have pointed out, my surprise at this parallel may tell you less about the uniqueness of Tarkovsky's world view, and more about my ignorance of Orthodox Christianity.