It’s interesting that “Watchmen” (in theaters now) is the Hamlet of a genre that is strongly anti-rational, yet has numerous rational elements. The most important, I think, is that the Earth is saved only by inhumanly rational people making rational decisions—rational decisions which the typical viewer cannot condone even after the fact, even knowing that they saved the Earth. In so doing, it proves to these viewers, not just consciously but deep in their gut, that they themselves would doom Earth by their irrationality.
On the other hand, Dr. Manhattan embodies the popular culture’s prejudice against rationality perfectly when he explains why he isn’t interested in life by saying, “A living body and a dead one contain the same number of atoms”. People try to imagine why scientists are interested in little things under microscopes, but not in gossip or football games. They can’t imagine that the little things under the microscope are actually more interesting, so they conclude that scientists are cold and boring, and thus unable to see how interesting gossip and football really are.
I see Dr. Manhattan’s problem as not being rationality, but A) seeing things at a subatomic level and having to expend effort to see them at a human level, B) seeing all parts of time, so that ‘to the left of something alive’ and ‘after being alive’ are basically the same idea, and C) being so struck by fatalism due to B that he’s basically given up.
Dr. Manhattan shows interest in scientific experiments, even though scientific experiments should be prone to all of those problems as well. You never see him say he doesn’t care about doing an experiment because the number of atoms before and after the experiment is the same.
Furthermore, Dr. Manhattan “changes his mind” when he sees how Laurie is worthy of respect despite her background, That’s not a very close fit to overcoming the problems you describe, but it is a close fit for overcoming the “problems” of stereotypical “rationality”.
It’s interesting that “Watchmen” (in theaters now) is the Hamlet of a genre that is strongly anti-rational, yet has numerous rational elements. The most important, I think, is that the Earth is saved only by inhumanly rational people making rational decisions—rational decisions which the typical viewer cannot condone even after the fact, even knowing that they saved the Earth. In so doing, it proves to these viewers, not just consciously but deep in their gut, that they themselves would doom Earth by their irrationality.
On the other hand, Dr. Manhattan embodies the popular culture’s prejudice against rationality perfectly when he explains why he isn’t interested in life by saying, “A living body and a dead one contain the same number of atoms”. People try to imagine why scientists are interested in little things under microscopes, but not in gossip or football games. They can’t imagine that the little things under the microscope are actually more interesting, so they conclude that scientists are cold and boring, and thus unable to see how interesting gossip and football really are.
You can’t do what the character does, and in the comic it’s strongly implied that it didn’t work anyway.
Are you responding to the first paragraph, or the second?
First.
Second!
No, seriously: EY was responding to a question that I asked and then deleted a few seconds later because I figured it out myself. He’s fast.
I see Dr. Manhattan’s problem as not being rationality, but A) seeing things at a subatomic level and having to expend effort to see them at a human level, B) seeing all parts of time, so that ‘to the left of something alive’ and ‘after being alive’ are basically the same idea, and C) being so struck by fatalism due to B that he’s basically given up.
I think you’re steelmanning too much.
Dr. Manhattan shows interest in scientific experiments, even though scientific experiments should be prone to all of those problems as well. You never see him say he doesn’t care about doing an experiment because the number of atoms before and after the experiment is the same.
Furthermore, Dr. Manhattan “changes his mind” when he sees how Laurie is worthy of respect despite her background, That’s not a very close fit to overcoming the problems you describe, but it is a close fit for overcoming the “problems” of stereotypical “rationality”.
I think that fits as part of point C. He has become Jacques the Fatalist minus the sense of humor.