Entropy by Pertti Teurajärvi

ENTR OPY ENTROPY

ENTROPY A Bachelor’s thesis BY PERTTI TEURAJÄRVI

ENTROPY A Bachelorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s thesis Pertti TeurajĂ¤rvi Mediaculture Novia University of Applied Sciences 2015 4

TABLE OF CONTENTS 5. Table of Contents 7. Introduction 9. Method 11. Introduction to Part One 13. Part 1.1 You are Wrong I am Right 19. Part 1.2 Two Opposites Makes a Right 25. Part 1.3 Blame and Hate 31. Introduction to Part Two 33. Part 2.1 Sexually Primal 39. Part 2.2 The Relationship and Letting Go 45. Part 2.3 Looking for Status 51. Closing Thought 52. Sources 5

INTRODUCTION As Joseph Goebbels once so famously said, “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” We are brought up to believe all sorts of things and the most severe of them are the lies we tell about ourselves. We are animals that try to be anything but, trying to be better than we really are. We use everything at our disposal to elevate ourselves, we use religion to make us the “always loved, always special” children of God and we even use science to try and prove all the ways we aren’t biological machines.

wasn’t anything more than an animal. Knowing this I had to figure what that meant for me and how it applied to my view of the world.

In my project I go in and see how human relationships work and how we interact with each other. About how misguided we are and how cruel we are to each other. I went into this with sense of questioning of my own dreams, why did I want those things I wanted and what part has society in all of this. I wanted to question truths that we all been taking for granted and what beliefs I needed to drop and what My drive to research the topic of humans actually being do I just have to accept. I’ve done series about who we animals has been a hard and long battle with myself, I had to humans are and what our place is in nature. I began with go against everything I’ve been taught and all I’ve learning my own observations and experiences which I tried to find just being part of society. My fight was with a feeling that I get either confirmed or see where it would lead me. would somehow be above nature and then slowly realizing This is a deeply personal book where everything is issues I after years of observing and introspection that maybe I have or am still trying to manage and figure out. 7

METHOD Researching for this book was a deep deep well that I happily stumbled into. I had clear thoughts about issues I wanted to bring up and years of following science and psychology research and studies made a good starting point. I just had to dig up everything again and actually confirm that I got my sources right and that I did had the right idea about things. I began with doing simple drawings on how I would translate and illustrate my ideas about the world into photographs. I wanted to do a series in an arranged manner with fashion sensibilities. Since the ideas are political in nature and not very subtle where text would go into subjects that I find interesting in regards to human behaviour and I would have photographs complement the text in a series of events illustrated in a theatrical way. I gave myself the freedom to be creative in how I would illustrate ideas, it could be a direct illustration, just in a feeling or even in a completely opposite way.

I decided to do every idea as a triptych where there would be a clear flow of moments in a single event. I also tried to make one single photograph where all moments were compressed into one photograph. It was possible to say everything in one photograph that I wanted to say in three but after showing both versions to my class and teachers it was clear that there was too much to take in and process with one photograph.

upgraded to a modern digital camera things got easier and more manageable. A simple thing like having the ability to zoom in a photo in the display on the camera to make sure photographs were sharp made an immense difference.

In the end I felt the photographs Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve done to that point just didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t work the way I wanted them to. So I scrapped my whole project once more and decided to scale back and do everything in the studio and it worked much better but After doing a first shoot and didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t really like the results still not to that point I wanted. A lot frustration in editing and that was of course discouraging. I needed to redo and and I realized that the last part I needed to scale back on do it again. I made a mistake also with the first camera I was just to remove color and the series and photos started had for the project, an old digital medium format camera to finally work in a way I wanted. where it was impossible to see what you got in the display and had to wait until you imported the photographs onto the computer. I had to decide it I wanted to continue with that or just throw away all I had and begin with a new camera, I chose the latter because of the ability to make sure I get what I want from every shoot at location. Once I 9

INTRODUCTION TO PART ONE Our morality evolved from the primitive old days from when we lived in small groups where we would groom each other in a literal “scratch my back and I scratch yours” kind of way.1.0-1 Our morality and sense of right is primitive and a product of our group. We have that distinct feeling of us being the ones who are right, rarely do we think that what our group thinks about an issue is wrong.1.0-2 We think there is a universal truth that we take for granted, that there is a right way to do things and a wrong way. We instinctively feel that something is “right” and something is “wrong” and very much so when it comes to anything to do with morality and justice.1.0-3 Many of us believe that morality isn’t subjective or relative but that it’s undeniably objective.1.0-4 We are quick to label something as evil, if something is against our own beliefs in a radical way we can’t see it 11

as anything else than “extremist” and we see tend to see their actions as horrible and nothing more than evil, the human behind an evil act can no longer be seen as human instead we start to see them as “monsters” or “animals”, in short we vilify them so we can elevate ourselves over them, we just can’t handle a human being capable of such things because that would mean that we have to ask the question “why”.1.0-5

PART 1.1 YOU ARE WRONG I’M RIGHT We as a modern society view human rights as something fundamental and absolute. We have built a society where human rights are self-evident.1.1-1 Our view on them are so one dimensional that we fail to even realize that those aren’t granted by other than ourselves. I thought for the longest time that a thing like morality was in our DNA and while that might be true1.1-2 I never could have thought that how morality forms is fully relative depending on so many factors.1.1-3 Morality as something we decided internally among our western sense and how it’s our cornerstone of a working society makes it impossible for us to step outside humanity and our little world so we can see that the concept of right and fairness just disappears. The Universe in general doesn’t care

about rights and only cares about what can happen has the right to happen, that means every bad and disturbing thing we humans do every day and have ever done has every right to happen. There’s no right and wrong outside of human conscience or interspecies relationships among other animals, the points still stands that no one will judge us other than us.1.1-4

would make us to conform to any kind of philosophy we would argue that it was against our rights and we would never accept it. How we as people have come to a point where knowledge and education is takes for granted in such a way that people even dismiss it if it against our initial beliefs. We’ve gone from celebrating science where every idea and theory is gone thru rigorous testing of peer review to starting to accept more and more ideas that We don’t even really agree on these things among quite frankly are nonsense. Things like pseudoscience ourselves and especially as humankind at large and since and literal magic have gotten as much traction today even we like to think ourselves to be right and others to be among the educated.1.1-5 wrong maybe we just have to be honest and realize that we actually think we are better and take it from there. We might think we are educating others when we are forcing them to become what we think is “right”. If someone 13

PART 1.2 TWO OPPOSITES MAKES A RIGHT So if we have people with opposite views on things then who should we listen to and why? Well depends on your brain which determines what you will naturally lean more towards to. They researched how different people reacted to unpleasant pictures and could see how that matched with their political views. People have brains wired a certain way and that makes them lean more towards a certain type of politics.1.2-1 It’s an evolutionary important part of us, where a person who quickly judged a situation and was more suspecting had a survival advantage but in the world we live in today that kind of person with that kind of brain wiring tend to go towards politics that capitalize on certainty and fear, more conservative and right-wring politics and that’s why they are often also religious, because religion is the one place where there is no questioning

the order. The other kind of brain one of more accepting of change and less quick to judge and those in turn lean towards the left-wing politics and aren’t afraid of change and are much open to new people and situations, which could pose a danger in a more primitive world. A person who is either type of brain can of course be of any politic affiliation but might explain why someone on the left might be very dogmatic in their beliefs and why someone on the right can be very open to progress and change.

they have is because genetics and biology. Everyone likes to believe that their views are the result of their own brainstorming and knowledge. Knowing the brain types of people and realizing the access they have to dogmatized religion or philosophy and we might have a problem, seeing as they are outside of criticism in a sense that we have so strong belief in freedom of thought and religion that we don’t question the dangers of it all. The more radical any side gets the more radical the response is going to be. The polarisation So we have two kind of people, both believing two conflicting of opinions is only going to get worse as we today have things and also that their way is the only right way. The such much variety where we get information so once we concept of their brain that has been wired a certain way is find a place that conforms to our beliefs we tend to stay never going to be a thing they will acknowledge, no one is there and only get one point of view which will only make going to acknowledge that the reason they have the views us more ingrained in our beliefs.1.2-2 19

PART 1.3 BLAME AND HATE Hate, has become too easy in todays connected world where so much of what we say is through text, we are so easy to hyperbole1.3-1 that we don’t really reflect what we think. Our first impulse is to hate long before we have taken the time to understand an issue that might be offensive to us. In a combination of being defensive and being insecure against opinions or the people having them. We see everything in their worst possible light and we are quick to judge, ban and destroy before it offends anybody. With every opinion just seconds away the online world makes it so easy to get a hate snowball rolling and easy to get swept into the avalanche.1.3-2

victim blaming has become so huge with internet and all hate can find its way to the victim. We could see it with the aftermath of the tragedy in Paris in January 2015 where radically misguided men gunned down the editorial team at satirical magazine “Charlie Hebdos”. They were a leftwing magazine that often satirized religious and political figures. Their humour was both crude and offensive and people used that to explain why they were killed and many even said they went too far in their satire. One could hear people try and put the blame on those killed, as Pope Francis did when he said “If my good friend Dr. Gasparri says a curse word against my mother, he can expect a punch, It’s normal. You cannot provoke. You cannot insult We see blame being used in such volatile ways that never the faith of others. You cannot make fun of the faith of was really apparent before. The most vicious kind of blame, others.”1.3-3 25

While everyone “of course” don’t think those people at Charlie Hebdo deserved to die and freedom of speech is something sacred but still people couldn’t help themselves make a point about putting the blame on the victim.

INTRODUCTION TO PART TWO Our morality evolved from the primitive old days from when we lived in small groups where we would groom each other in a literal “scratch my back and I scratch yours” kind of way.1.0-1 Our morality and sense of right is primitive and a product of our group. We have that distinct feeling of us being the ones who are right, rarely do we think that what our group thinks about an issue is wrong.1.0-2 We think there is a universal truth that we take for granted, that there is a right way to do things and a wrong way. We instinctively feel that something is “right” and something is “wrong” and very much so when it comes to anything to do with morality and justice.1.0-3 Many of us believe that morality isn’t subjective or relative but that it’s undeniably objective.1.0-4 We are quick to label something as evil, if something is against our own beliefs in a radical way we can’t see it 31

PART 2.1 SEXUALLY PRIMAL We have become so confused about what attraction really is and how it works. We are constantly trying to find reason in it and put our values into it. Through that ages we have tried to supress it with a moral code that we used religion to justify and now we just try to find whatever political stance to try and have an opinion on it.

readily available so a man can spend it without thought but a woman getting pregnant costs a lot of time and resources. A man with bad genes still wants to spread his seed and a woman is the one who has to say stop in an effort to make sure the offspring is strong and actually can survive. So a woman wanting top tier genetic material isn’t that strange and actually makes sense, she wants good genes We have the stereotypical view that men are more and want to know that the offspring can be protected by aggressive and hunt for women… but why? The basic and someone able to do so. simplified view2.1-1 we have on human sexual roles is that since we have imbalance in the mating pool in regards of We oppose gender roles very actively yet we can’t help to available women and men we have fallen into roles such fall into them. As a study shows we do indeed want men and as men having to compete much more for the change to women to be different in that woman want men to be those inseminate and women having to be much more careful brooding bad boys and men want women to be smiling with choosing who to mate with. Sperm is cheap and and willing.2-1.2 Those sexual roles also might explain why 33

research shows that woman and men experience jealousy differently. For men it’s about the act of sexual intimacy that is the worst while for women it’s more about loving someone else. It stems from our very early roots where men were the hunters and gatherers while the women were those who took care of the social group and kids, so a man would provide resources to a woman and her offspring and if she was sexually with another man there would be a risk of wasting resources on the competition or on offspring that wasn’t his. Woman’s jealousy was more about the man being with another woman and resources being denied to her and her offspring.2-1.3

PART 2.2 THE RELATIONSHIP AND LETTING GO I often dreamt about those stereotypical romantic relationships but that kind of shattered when the dysfunctionality of the ways we try to make it work today became apparent, we seem to always just be fighting our nature and try and change someone else’s. I still want nothing more than the stereotypical romantic relationship that I’ve dreamt about for so long and I bet it is something most of us hold as the most important part of our lives. So how come then that it is also one thing we so often see fail and do we really understand how it really works or worse do we know but we just don’t acknowledge it? Do we stay in relationships because that’s what we know and because we believe in monogamy and never do we realize that monogamy evolved because men didn’t have women around and wanted to secure access to them.2.2-1

We also ignore our instincts or even get fooled by it. The birth control has altered the ways woman find men attractive, in that birth control pills alter the hormonal balance and makes woman find men of similar genetic material more attractive, which is the opposite of how healthy attraction should work where diverse genetic material is preferred. This can be one of the reason why many marriages fail, the woman takes birth control while dating the man in the beginning and stops when they get married and what she finds attractive changes and she suddenly realized that she no longer is attracted to her husband. 2-2.2 So why do we stay in something that is broken and might not be for us? Research suggests that we are plainly just scared of the future, or that we just think that what we have 39

now is better than what we could have in the future. 2.2-3 Then we have a tendency to never let go of the past and it will always haunt us some way. We believe somehow that we will get over “it” and that it won’t change us. We evolve constantly and there is not stopping it and it gets dangerous when we don’t see that we change or acknowledge how we become affected by the past. Something like verbal abuse shapes us as much or more and in a lasting way, more than we ever thought before.2-2.3

PART 2.3 LOOKING FOR STATUS We think we are exactly the person we want be but we don’t take into account the pressure of societal norms and expectation put on us. I grew up being drawn to the punk mentality, the whole “do not conform” “don’t give a shit about others” and such. Kind of foolishly did I think I was above fashion since that was as much fashion as anything, with purpose and an ultimate goal of being liked and accepted by other people. How we dress is to huge part to make us attractive. Take red lipstick for example, many might not reflect on it but has been shown again and again to increase the attractiveness of a woman to a man.2.3-1

on by how we dress. It has both an effect on how people we have ever been in history. Since we are born we are perceive us but also how we perceive ourselves. 2.3-2 told that we can be whatever we want and during our life we keep hearing how special we are and that we can be We have such rules as what we try to follow and we can whatever we want. The reality is that most of us never never really be our selves. We think we are free to be become good enough for the hype we’ve believed all our just as we want but there are few things as paralyzing lives and when that reality crashed into us we can’t really and devastating as being ostracized for being yourself. cope with it. There is an interesting contrast as to how Everybody judges everyone and we in a roundabout way people were happier before even though their lives were go about teaching each other how to behave. For example much more limited, for example a farmer who was born gossip has been shown to have a positive effect in that it into it knew that was his place in life and he didn’t expect teaches a group on how to behave by talking about what anything more from life, so he was happy even if life could they don’t approve of in others.2.3-3 be hard.2-3.4

We have more or less lost the class hierarchy in our society but we’ve found or own way to differentiate ourselves from Status anxiety is a very real thing and might actually be others by how we dress. Status is one things we can build one the reasons that we are depressed more today than 45

CLOSING THOUGHT en·tro·py A measure of the amount of disorder in a system. Entropy increases as the system’s temperature increases. For example, when an ice cube melts and becomes liquid, the energy of the molecular bonds which formed the ice crystals is lost, and the arrangement of the water molecules is more random, or disordered, than it was in the ice cube.

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