Pi's crazy ending, my views

I kinda forgot to write one or two of these so i am going to be doing a bit of catching up today.

first i would like to talk about the ending of Pi and all of my views on what actually happened. One of the parts that struck me was that Max looks up at the sky at the very end. Seemingly unimportant, it should be actually very important. i don't know if i am remembering wrong, but the only other time Max looks up is when watching the stock ticker at night after chasing the camera guy. Max lives in a dark world with no friends and little contact with the outside world. after deciding his brain needs an air hole Max's world does a 180. he is outside in a bright world, happy with everything ( or he seems that way) and actually hanging out with someone ( even if it is just the little neighbor girl). this led me to a few different conclusions.

1) He actually drilled himself and somehow got better. this is very unlikely and probably not what happened.

2) The drilling was all just another dream and he just found a way to use his brain power to suppress or destroy the part of the brain causing all the problems. this leads to two different conclusions.
a) he succeeds and lives a happy and normal life
b) he fails and ends up just getting stuck in his head and the ending is just another one of his pain or drug induced dreams.
both of these still seem a bit unlikely to me

3) Max drills into his head and ends up killing himself. this is my favorite interpretation of the ending. it makes the most sense. the looking into the sunny sky for instance, which was always kept away, him being a "normal" person, and even the fact that he is happy. i think this is how it all went down. Max commits suicided by drilling open his head and then goes into the his version of a perfect afterlife. Sweet, simple and happy

But these are just my thoughts and probably no where near what actually went down. just thought people might want to know...

Happiness is an emotion

hap pi·ness n. - state of well-being characterized by emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy

Look at these pictures. Would you say that these pictures depict the emotion happiness? To me happiness involves a smile, a laugh, and bright open eyes. I would say that these pictures are a good representation of happiness.

Not once in my reading of We did I get the sense that anyone was experiencing the emotion of happiness. Some may say that D-503 was happy when he was obsessively chasing I-330 around. He was definitely feeling the emotions of lust, but I don’t think he was feeling happy. Ana spoke of happiness in her latest blog post. She stated that “The numbers don't know love, or hate, or envy or anything resembling emotion, so how can they know happiness? The numbers are not allowed to experience emotions, so they cannot experience happiness. Happiness is an emotion.

The One State, dominated by rational thought, frowned upon emotions. D-503 was diagnosed with having a “soul” because he was experiencing his emotions. Emotions threatened the Once State and that is why everyone had to get lobotomies. In a lobotomy the frontal lobes are removed. It is believed that this is the part of the brain where creation of emotions is believed to take place. So obviously the One State did not want the inhabitants to experience the emotion called happiness.

Imagination Land

As I was reading about the mandatory imagination removal operation, I kept thinking about the problems facing an unimaginative civilization. Lacking an imagination cripples one’s creative thinking and problem solving skills. I think that a society without creative individuals is void of intellectual discoveries (scientific or otherwise) and therefore lacks any capacity for progress or adaptation. A society without progress is simply a machine for maintaining the status quo, and will eventually yield to the influence of outside forces. Even the wall will not protect the city indefinitely; it will inevitably decay and deteriorate.

As for motives behind the operation program, the Benefactor states that the people “longed for someone to tell them, once and for all, the meaning of happiness, and then to bind them to it with a chain.” (Zamyatin, 214) I can understand how he feels that the operation is a solution to the happiness problem; however, I doubt that the Benefactor intends to create a stagnant society. Surely one capable of orchestrating such a rational and efficient municipality must be able to predict the results of a complete lack of progress in a civilization. If progress is essential to survival, and if survival is one of the main goals of a society (other than happiness), than it seems that the imagination annihilation program instituted by the Benefactor is a step in the wrong direction.

I understand how the “operation” is useful and necessary simply as a plot device, but I find the character of the Benefactor to be intriguing, and I am curious as to the motives of the character as intended by Zamyatin. I noticed while reading that there is no mention of the guardians receiving the operation. I doubt that the efficiency of any police force would remain unaffected by removing the imaginations of the agents, and it would seem that the Office of the Guardians is more crucial than ever during the final uprising during the last chapters of the book. It could be said that the Benefactor is simply moving for complete control of society rather than focusing on eradicating unhappiness. His monologue during entry thirty-six is seemingly convincing of his dedication to the problem of happiness, but I am not decided.

Primitivism and Happiness

I got these definitions from the dictionary on my Apple computer…

primitivism |ˈprimətivˌizəm| |ˌprɪmɪd1ˈvɪzəm| |ˌprɪmɪtɪvɪz(ə)m|
noun
1 a belief in the value of what is simple and unsophisticated, expressed as a philosophy of life or through art or literature.
2 unsophisticated behavior that is unaffected by objective reasoning.

satire |ˈsaˌtīr| |ˌsøˈtaɪ(ə)r| |ˌsatʌɪə|
noun
the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues.

I believe We is a satire. Therefore, Zamyatin is saying that returning to the simple ways of life is what is needed to obtain happiness, and this would be a life similar to that of the ancients, or fur people, who live outside the Green Wall. This idea is called “primitivism” and I think Zamyatin is educating the Reader of this idea. Using mathematics as a foundation for a society is satirical because it is anti-primitivism. Mathematics is a complicated subject. Nature, for example, would be much simpler.

Zamyatin is ridiculing society by showing control does not equal happiness. Control equals indifference, which is a neutral state. We discussed in class that having a lobotomy would cure someone of his or her sickness (i.e. imagination), and the person would be forever happy. It seems to be a very bizarre sense of happiness to me…

http://www2.english.uiuc.edu/finnegan/English%20251/primitivism.htm

Happiness

I noticed someone already posted a blog about happiness, but I had my mind set on writing about it, and thus, I will do so anyway.
Perhaps I'm in a philosophical mood today and I don't feel like writing about math this time, but I was thinking about the whole issue of happiness in class on Thursday, and I was trying to pinpoint exactly what it means to be "happy" in the One State. The numbers don't know love, or hate, or envy or anything resembling emotion, so how can they know happiness? And why is happiness not considered evil and bad like its peer emotions? I think the way that we define happiness is precisely through other types of emotions. We measure happiness on a scale that identifies how much of each type of emotion are we feeling, and then according to the results of those numbers, we decide if we're feeling miserable, unhappy, happy, very happy or ecstatic. We think of how loved we are (by our parents, our friends, are partners), some consider their financial security to affect their happiness, are we constantly jealous of what others have or are we satisfied with our own achievements? These are factors that affect what we call happiness. In fact, we define happiness as "good fortune; pleasure; contentment; joy." In the One State, they all have similar fortunes, so there isn't "good fortune." People don't feel joy, or excitement, they just stroll through life in utter neutrality. I think that they epitomize the concept of "ignorance is blissed," and without imagination, they will never wonder or get curious about what is possibly out there that they are missing out on. So they continue on with their lives feeling nothing... no pain... no love... no true happiness. However, they have pure comfort. And that's what I think they define as happiness.

Happi

I noticed someone already posted a blog about happiness, but I had my mind set on writing about it, and thus, I will do so anyway.
Perhaps I'm in a philosophical mood today and I don't feel like writing about math this time, but I was thinking about the whole issue of happiness in class on Thursday, and I was trying to pinpoint exactly what it means to be "happy" in the One State. The numbers don't know love, or hate, or envy or anything resembling emotion, so how can they know happiness? And why is happiness not considered evil and bad like its peer emotions? I think the way that we define happiness is precisely through other types of emotions. We measure happiness on a scale that identifies how much of each type of emotion are we feeling, and then according to the results of those numbers, we decide if we're feeling miserable, unhappy, happy, very happy or ecstatic. We think of how loved we are (by our parents, our friends, are partners), some consider their financial security to affect their happiness, are we constantly jealous of what others have or are we satisfied with our own achievements? These are factors that affect what we call happiness. In fact, we define happiness as "good fortune; pleasure; contentment; joy." In the One State, they all have similar fortunes, so there isn't "good fortune." People don't feel joy, or excitement, they just stroll through life in utter neutrality. I think that they epitomize the concept of "ignorance is blissed," and without imagination, they will never wonder or get curious about what is possibly out there that they are missing out on. So they continue on with their lives feeling nothing... no pain... no love... no true happiness. However, they have pure comfort. And that's what I think they define as happiness.

Thoughts On Imagination, Souls, and Happiness

From page 90 in We:

A soul? A soul, you say? What the devil... I told you, we must cut out imagination. In everyone... Extirpate imagination. Nothing but surgery, nothing but surgery will do...

1) So imagination, in the eyes of the One State, is a sickness. Why?

In class, the idea came up that imagination could be considered "bad" because it provides the possibility of always imagining that things could be better. Imagination could promote ongoing unhappiness or discontent.
But it seems that by the same reasoning, imagination provides the possibility of always imagining that things could be worse. So imagination could also promote ongoing happiness or content.
It is exactly this variability and uncertainty that makes imagination "bad" in the mind of the One State. It is the dreaded X. It allows for creativity. But why is this bad?
Try to imagine a computer that had creativity or imagination. How efficient would it be? You tell it to calculate something and it thinks for a second, then asks "Why?". A computer that has the ability to step outside of the realm of code is not very efficient or useful. Maybe this is why the One State fears the "soul". Like computers act only according to their logic commands and code, the One State citizens without souls act only according to their logic and reasoning. They fear that if all of the citizens start developing these souls, the "wonderful" order and efficiency that the One State holds dear will be ruined. The citizens will be rendered useless.

2) Is the One State really achieving happiness for its citizens?

In order for "Good" to exist, "Evil" must exist. In order for darkness to exist, light must exist. The same seems true for happiness. If unhappiness is not a possibility, how could happiness be one? The One State citizens can't be happy. They are feeling something else. Safety maybe. Their lives, like those of computers, are decided for them. They are safe from error.