http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19rG2CHvCQY
If the two results could be explained by episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, they would be “Clues” and “Chain of Command – Part Two”. In “Clues,” the crew of the Enterprise are compelled by tiny inconsistencies to investigate an incident that they don’t even remember occurring. This investigation eventually reveals the presence of dangerous aliens who nearly destroy them. Picard tells the aliens that humans are naturally curious, and cannot resist a riddle. He then contradicts himself by making the riddle slightly more intricate, which succeeds in preventing the crew from investigating a second time. The human mind can be distracted from its constant contemplation, and must be, if humanity is to be saved from destruction.
In “Chain of Command – Part Two,” Picard is tortured by a Cardassian. He is deprived of sleep, of food, of dignity and of self. The Cardassian demands that Picard say that there are five lights in the room, when there are only four. Picard struggles to retain his self by rejecting the arbitrary and artificial reality insisted upon by his tormentor. Eventually, Picard is rescued. Afterward, Picard reveals that, in the end, he saw the fifth, imaginary light. It was only his stubborn conscious rejection of his tormentor that allowed him to maintain his grip on a reality that he could no longer experience. Presented with a world that made no sense, Picard chose to reject his sensory reality rather than give up his sense of self.
The music of the Black Eyed Peas is like the alien mystery and the Cardassian tormentor, in that it occludes the rational world. Are we better off accepting the Black Eyed Peas or rejecting them? Is the suffering of self-knowledge worth it, or is the truth only the acceptance of that suffering?
One key example of this would be in the TNG episode “Silicon Avatar,” when the Enterprise uses graviton bursts to attract the Crystalline Entity, only to find that it is also using graviton bursts back to try to communicate.
Dr. Marr focuses the graviton bursts bursts into a constant beam that damages the Entity, (which has killed a whole lot of people). Picard, upon realizing the scope of the communication with the entity, orders the beam stopped, but Dr. Marr prevents it and it kills the entity.
Throughout the episode, Picard is uneasy about the instrumental nature of this communication — what will it _do_? What will be its _result_? Was the sensory signal the Enterprise sent to the Entity — ten graviton bursts per second — true, or was it arbitrary? Neither, it was intended to provoke a reaction.
Are we better off disciplining our minds to shut out the Black Eyed Peas, or in trying to drill into it to find out the hidden meaning of the song?
Perhaps we are better off dancing to it, and only in the dancing do we find the full work, from whence we can draw further interpretation.
It didn’t work out quite so well for the Crystalline Entity, but you can’t win ’em all.
Clearly, we've been going to the wrong parties.
In the most common forms of Buddhist “mindfulness” meditation, one focuses on a specific sensory input, such as the rhythm of breathing. This has the effect of silencing the conscious thought processes and instilling a feeling of emptiness in the mind. People who’ve mastered this form of meditation describe it as a transcendental experience.
However, this effect doesn’t require the trappings of Buddhism to achieve. Athletes describe “being in the zone” in the same manner. Instead of allowing oneself to get distracted by doubts, the considerations of an opponent’s response and the volume of the crowd, the athlete achieves a single-minded focus on the task at hand: dribbling a ball between ranks of shifting defenders and propelling it through a hoop. The analytic processes are temporarily ignored or shut down: only muscle memory and present mindfulness remain.
My question was: is the sensory overload that comes from being in a dance club similar?
Anyone who’s been in a really bumping nightclub can tell you that analytic thought is almost impossible. This comes from being assaulted on all senses: vision, audio, tactile, olfactory, etc. A really bad song can take you out of the groove (e.g., “oh, man, ‘Hollaback Girl’ again?”). But can a really good song turn that groove into a transcendental experience?
Does the world admit to such transcendant phenomena?
Boston would tend to agree with John, I think, that the sensory experience of music can be transcendant, but the black eyed peas seem less interested in transcendance than transformation. There is no elevation to a higher plane – the song is full of mundane details – furniture, money, days of the week, the kinds of things that aren’t associated often with the transcendant experiences of music and dancing.
Is what we’re seeing the boundary between transcendance and simply “trance?” Altered stated of consciousness?
And what does “Feelin’ Groovy,” with its own interaction with mundane objects in a transformative way, have to do with all of this?
And what do YOU think, Overthinkers? Is the Black Eyed Peas’ “I Gotta Feeling” a means of escaping the limits of conventional reality? Or is it a harsh reminder of our animal nature? And why do they keep Taboo on the payroll? Sound off – in the comments!