FA+
Shop
My Little Pony
14 years ago
Typically children's shows are not a springboard for epistemological discourse however I do want to comment on an episode of My Little Pony. (Yes, I've become a brony.)
In the episode 'Feeling Pinkie Keen' Twilight Sparkle has a problem with Pinkie Pie's pinkie sense. In summary when different parts of her body twitch it predicts certain future events. Twilight Sparkle is pretty much the only rational pony and finds it hard to accept this. She stalks Pinkie (not very well, mind you) and even straps her up to some weird monitoring equipment but is unable to explain the way Pinkie's power works.
The entire message of the episode is accepting things that you don't understand.
Pinkie Pie: Sometimes you have to believe in things even when you can't figure them out.
Twilight Sparkle: I will not believe in anything I can not explain.
And when Twilight writes her letter to the princess she says, "There are wonderful things in this world you just can't explain, but that doesn't necessarily make them any less true. It just means you have to choose to believe in them"
My main problem is with the way the message is presented in the episode. There are things that can't be explained that are true but the idea that you should just choose to believe, particularly things that predict the future like that, is not a good message. I'll be honest that I worry it comes across as pandering towards faith and bashing reason and rationality but I'm hoping it was just a poorly-executed episode. You shouldn't just choose to believe things but believe them because there is evidence that they are true, whether you understand it or not. This leads onto the next issue, the way Twilight handled the entire situation.
While I appreciate her attempt to rationally explain Pinkie's powers she was too focussed on whether she understood them instead of whether they were true. There are many things we know are true but can't fully explain but you know they work because there is evidence that they work. Pinkie's powers could be shown to be true if Twilight was less focussed on how they worked. Every time Pinkie predicted something it did happen. It wasn't a hit-and-miss affair but a consistently accurate power. Of course, as Pinkie pointed out, Twilight was unduly suspicious considering she posses magical powers herself and they are not uncommon in Equestria.
As I think about it I feel more as though the episode was not intending to discredit rationality but poorly set out. Either the wording was poor or it was intended to show Twilight's focus on the mechanism blinded her to whether the phenomenon was real or not. The best support for that is the episode 'Bridle Gossip', a much better episode, in my mind, where Twilight's rationality triumphed over the rest of the ponies' superstition of Zakora. Admittedly in that episode she also wound up at the wrong conclusion but in that case it was because the evidence at hand did point towards something more sinister. The warning there is that if you don't have the complete picture your conclusion could be far from the truth even when it's based on facts. That's why we must never cease questioning and buttressing our ideas with further evidence.
On a side note I hate how foreigners always say 'Zeebra.' It's zebra. A short sound; zeb-ra. Z = zed, not zee. I also dislike how they can't pronounce hooves. But, linguistic complaints aside, it's funny and I do enjoy it.
In the episode 'Feeling Pinkie Keen' Twilight Sparkle has a problem with Pinkie Pie's pinkie sense. In summary when different parts of her body twitch it predicts certain future events. Twilight Sparkle is pretty much the only rational pony and finds it hard to accept this. She stalks Pinkie (not very well, mind you) and even straps her up to some weird monitoring equipment but is unable to explain the way Pinkie's power works.
The entire message of the episode is accepting things that you don't understand.
Pinkie Pie: Sometimes you have to believe in things even when you can't figure them out.
Twilight Sparkle: I will not believe in anything I can not explain.
And when Twilight writes her letter to the princess she says, "There are wonderful things in this world you just can't explain, but that doesn't necessarily make them any less true. It just means you have to choose to believe in them"
My main problem is with the way the message is presented in the episode. There are things that can't be explained that are true but the idea that you should just choose to believe, particularly things that predict the future like that, is not a good message. I'll be honest that I worry it comes across as pandering towards faith and bashing reason and rationality but I'm hoping it was just a poorly-executed episode. You shouldn't just choose to believe things but believe them because there is evidence that they are true, whether you understand it or not. This leads onto the next issue, the way Twilight handled the entire situation.
While I appreciate her attempt to rationally explain Pinkie's powers she was too focussed on whether she understood them instead of whether they were true. There are many things we know are true but can't fully explain but you know they work because there is evidence that they work. Pinkie's powers could be shown to be true if Twilight was less focussed on how they worked. Every time Pinkie predicted something it did happen. It wasn't a hit-and-miss affair but a consistently accurate power. Of course, as Pinkie pointed out, Twilight was unduly suspicious considering she posses magical powers herself and they are not uncommon in Equestria.
As I think about it I feel more as though the episode was not intending to discredit rationality but poorly set out. Either the wording was poor or it was intended to show Twilight's focus on the mechanism blinded her to whether the phenomenon was real or not. The best support for that is the episode 'Bridle Gossip', a much better episode, in my mind, where Twilight's rationality triumphed over the rest of the ponies' superstition of Zakora. Admittedly in that episode she also wound up at the wrong conclusion but in that case it was because the evidence at hand did point towards something more sinister. The warning there is that if you don't have the complete picture your conclusion could be far from the truth even when it's based on facts. That's why we must never cease questioning and buttressing our ideas with further evidence.
On a side note I hate how foreigners always say 'Zeebra.' It's zebra. A short sound; zeb-ra. Z = zed, not zee. I also dislike how they can't pronounce hooves. But, linguistic complaints aside, it's funny and I do enjoy it.
About Feeling Pinkie Keen you are late for the party but that's okay. I don't know why but as I saw the title of your journal I knew you were going to complain about it. It also bothered me, just a little, but I rolled with it anyway because it was silly on the premises, full with anvils on head, cartoon physics and 'logic' and featured Twilight "Rapidash" Sparkle
First, you are right about the poor wording. Lauren Faust (fyre-flye on DA) lamented not revising the moral.
http://comments.deviantart.com/4/16.....670/1869321156
IMO, the episode did great until the moral came. It's confusing and can be interpreted as anti-intellectual indeed. But let's work with what we have.
You are missing words from the letter: "and sometimes it takes a friend to show you the way."
The actual moral of the episode is to not be stubborn and close-minded while being analytic. She believed that she was absolutely right and Pinkie Pie was absolutely wrong. She started with a conclusion and then worked backwards to find a theory to justify herself, which is the opposite of what a scientist should do. It wasn't until she said "I give up[...] The fight. I can't fight it anymore. I don't understand how, why, or what, but Pinkie Sense somehow... makes sense. I don't see how it does, but it just does. Just because I don't understand doesn't mean its not true." that Twilight lets go the stubborn attitude and sees the weird reality in the light of evidence.
Could this be used as character growth? Would be sweet if we see that in next seasons because the writers liked to make continuity nods.
On a side note, watch how the writers like to use Pinkie Pie as a tool for the plot development and not an element of the plot. She is like an in-world trigger that provides most of the chaos inadvertently. In fact, maybe it was partially Pinkie's fault that Twi got stuck on the close-minded loop by basically calling her silly: "You don't believe because you don't understand." And remember "Swarm of the Century"? Pinkie Pie likes to give the plot (and her friends) those friendly pushes a lot. Talk about thinking out of the box :3
On the alternative reading of the letter, Faust did say something.
http://comments.deviantart.com/4/16.....670/1868578549
I agree with her definition of faith, on applying it outside of religion. I know that word irks atheists and agnostics to no end, but they take their definition to the extreme of blind faith, which i do not condone. If you don't rationalize your beliefs, you are a tool.
Now, on the scientific kind of "faith", let's take a look on theories. They are ideas that contemplate on the reality and try to propose an explanation of things, to the point that they can make accurate predictions of unobserved phenomena. It's not a hunch or speculation but a proven and tested model. The seed of a theory is the hypothesis and it grows to one with further observations and tests. When you observe a phenomena that cannot be explained with current theories, it's time to think of a new trial solution, an educated guess. Do you believe fully on it? Of course not, but you test it, give it a chance, a little "leap of faith".
Twilight made a literal leap of faith when she had to chose whether to believe that Pinkie Sense was real or face an angry 4-headed hydra.
Of course, not every first idea leads to a satisfactory conclusion. In case you can't get the answer you can:
a)Believe it, try harder, refine the idea.
b)Reject it. Experimenters may test and reject several hypotheses before solving the problem.
c)Wait until new evidence and theories arrive. Propose a new question in the new light.
Option 'a' takes some kind of faith to keep going the research. Even when they have grown from hypothesis to theories, just take a look at modern physics. String theory looks promising yet there are alternative proposals that explain some phenomena better. Standard Model is still looking for missing particles and refining their characteristics. Quantum Gravity may find the graviton in next 10 years, but may not. Big Bang still has to account for many bizarre phenomena like the accelerating rate of the expansion of the universe and the true nature of the dark energy. As you can see, scientists don't have warranties, but their drive and spirit of adventure is akin to faith. They are bound to find wonderful things in this world that just can't be explained at the moment, but that will not necessarily make them any less true, much less not examinable.
It may be accidental, but Friendship is Magic can be very deep. That is because it isn't a cartoon like most of the modern ones. It takes itself and its audience seriously and not like little stupid toddlers, and it's one of the things I love of it. It has good intentions and messages, promotes values, it's not condescending and, let's face it, is stupidly funny XD
Also, I pronounce Zebra correctly \o/ Or at least Spanish pronunciation is closer to the original. Now I'm curious as how do you pronounce hooves.
I've only seen it now. >.> I don't even know if it's available on TV anywhere here. I just got it from people. I'm fine with every other episode even when there weird bits but when their message seemed so hostile to inquiry it really annoyed me.
I don't think the friend helping bit really adds anything to the message. I agree Twilight was overly stubborn but I don't think she started with a conclusion. She did make an effort to try and figure out what was happening, even if she did that badly. I usually like Pinkie. She is funny because she's totally random. I loved that in the swarm where she's running around for instruments or, even better, when she went crazy and made friends.
I don't like her faith definition which doesn't add much. Even the way she explained it was without evidence. If there is no evidence for something you shouldn't believe it, there's even a school of thought which says it's irresponsible to take a belief without evidence. It's faith to say there are or are not aliens but it's not faith to say that aliens could potentially exist. You adjust to probabilities when you don't have supporting evidence.
Testing something isn't a leap of faith. A leap of faith is neglecting to test. Testing is exercising your doubt. Theories are only theories when they explain multiple phenomena and have experimental support. String theory probably doesn't deserve that name. I'm not a big physicist but I know there are people that don't even consider string theory to be real science because there's no way to test it. Science is not a process of faith. It's a process of doubt where you only accept things when you can support them.
Hooves rhymes with grooves and moves. It's got a longer sound than they say in the show. They also almost seem to use an 'f' sound instead of a 'v'.
Currently is only available on North America, although worldwide distribution is coming. The dubs are being worked on. It's amazing that the guys at the hub and Hasbro are okay with it being on youtube. Well... free ad for them and MORE PONIES FOR US =3
Again, the wording was awkward, hence it was ineffective to show the true moral and put the message as anti-intellectual. And of course she did. Twilight started with "it doesn't make sense, hence it doesn't exist, 'it's just a bunch of mumbo-jumbo.' " She later started with observation since controlled environment failed, but she did so to prove that Pinkie Sense doesn't exist. IMO the correct scientific approach would be "this phenomena can't be observed in a controlled environment, but let's record and make a correlation of events and see how consistent they are on predicting stuff. If it is near 100% it's true.
I know! Pinkie is one of the best ponies. I like how she breaks the 4th wall and me and my brother laughed so much when she came to "rescue" Rarity in the boutique. Of course, as my brother pointed out, she saved her later in a very peculiar and specific way. I even have her Hamlin polka as my ringtone XD
I also wouldn't call it faith, but belief. I agree. We don't have evidence of aliens yet, and our probabilities aren't even reliable (they say there are between 1 and 10,000 civilizations in our own galaxy, very helpful!) But with evidence or without it, I believe they exist because the universe is huge and there must be some place where intelligent life must be flourishing. What I doubt is that they or we will be able to visit each other because the distances are huge. Doesn't mean that we or them are not capable of detecting each other. Biological and intelligent activity leaves a footprint in a planet's ecosphere and theoretically in its sun as well. Not irresponsible thought here. For me, metajustification is argument from ignorance. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
I see how you think that testing is exercising your doubt, and I like where are you going. But first you have to challenge your disbelief. It's not a leap of faith per se, but abandoning your preconceptions in order to be willing to try your new hypothesis. Just look at relativity. That guy challenged Newton with concepts as alien as time is relative, space curvature, 4th dimension. On Einstein's time most neglected to test those concepts except Arthur Eddington, who proved that space is warped around the sun with direct observation. Of course he did so after seeing that Einstein predicted mercury's orbit with precision, but it was a giant leap to believe that 'light curves around the sun and is a real phenomena'.
And yes, string theory has earned the moniker. It has means to be tested and so far it fits, not 100%, but surprisingly it does to a 95% and so it needs refinement. As any theory and model, it has predictions, in this case properties of elemental particles like mass, electrical charge, spin, field interaction, etc. and those can be measured and tested in a particle accelerator. So yeah, it's real science and people that say it is not are just misinformed. Again, I applied faith as a simile, not because science uses facts in the "blind faith I believe it as an established fact" way but because it has a drive for abandoning to itself; call it eternal doubt, spirit of adventure or curiosity. Although I can see how it is dissimilar in the process of making decisions if you point it in that way.
Maybe it is because they are Canadian, although most of the voice actress are american. USA English is messed enough phonetically.
I agree with the alien point but I'm not sure what you mean metajustification. Also the absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence but it certainly suggests you shouldn't be believing something. If someone says you can't build somewhere because there unicorns and there's no evidence of unicorns there then you might as well build.
If you've made a hypothesis you've already abandoned the preconception. Also you don't have to believe something to test for it. Twilight was testing Pinkie to show it didn't work. No matter what you believe the test should show the truth. Although that doesn't mean people listen to the tests but that's a different problem.
If you say so. I don't know anything about that sort of physics but I know that's what some physicists were saying in the documentary on string theory.
Btw I heard Dr Phil say roof the same way they say hoof in MLP. :p Guess that's just an American way of talking, or some part of America.
Seems to work that way too. Perhaps it happens at the same time? Your hypothesis takes full form after you abandoned the preconception, but what makes you break your disbelief but the failure of the old theory. (Oh wait, you have point! Nice.) And most scientist wouldn't be willing to test some concepts. While Occam's razor works, sometimes some phenomena are too complicated and won't be resolved in an elegant way as most would desire. So yeah, as you say, people sometimes won't see the data as truth. Not blaming them, it's easy to make mistakes when you measure the infinity, so double checking is a must.
There are a lot of critics that will say that. While I'm not a physic but a mere engineer, although a pair of my friends are physics, I try to read and stay updated and upon seeing what are the pros and cons of String vs the various flavors of Quantum Gravity. As far as I can see, String is good at fitting with the data, but it's disturbing that it needs 11 spacetime dimentions and is highly mathematical and that's what the detractors don't like about it and what they criticize as untestable. How do you probe those unseen dimensions? IMO, we will need a contemporary Einstein to answer that.
All languages that have multiple countries speaking it seem to be like this. In my case, Mexican sounds okay, but if you go north it starts to sound funny, Spaniard sounds weird, slurred and archaic and Argentinian sounds completely wrong... Australian kind of wrong e.e
Yeaah, peer review seems to do nothing to keep the bias down. I've seen ridiculous claims on poorly written papers on exobiology >.>