"Paul Levinson's It's Real Life is a page-turning exploration into that multiverse known as rock and roll. But it is much more than a marvelous adventure narrated by a master storyteller...it is also an exquisite meditation on the very nature of alternate history." -- Jack Dann, The Fiction Writer's Guide to Alternate History

Sunday, May 16, 2021

The Girlfriend Experience 3.4: “There is clarity in realizing what isn’t working”

An excellent episode 3.4 of The Girlfriend Experience, with an excellent quote from a researcher that tells us at least what part of the series is really about:  “There is clarity in realizing what isn’t working.”

That quote is in response to Iris's question, not as a call girl, but as a researcher into human behavior herself, her alternate persona, to another researcher touting what she's been pursuing.  Iris asks her, let's say you find you've been on the wrong track?  And she gets her answer,  “There is clarity in realizing what isn’t working.”

That answer comes right out of Karl Popper, the philosopher of science, and one of his bedrock principles of how we attain knowledge:  we not only learn from our mistakes, but our mistakes may be our own way of really learning.  If we see a hundred white swans, and see another hundred white swans, that doesn't and cannot prove that all swans are white.  But the instant we encounter a swan that is not white, we have learned something very profound: all swans are not white.

Of course, they could be complications in our observation of the non-white swan.  Maybe we are having a problem with our eyesight.  Maybe the bird we saw is not really a swan.  But the principle still remains: we learn by discovering our errors, and subtracting them from our possible knowledge.

Now, the fact a philosophy this astute can be part of The Girlfriend Experience tells us a lot about this show.   It's not all about or just about sex.  Iris, as prominent as that it is in her life, is more than that. She has a brain that quests for knowledge.  That's why she has her day job, that's why she can have a conversation that gets at the root of Karl Popper's falsificationist philosophy.

And no, that's not the only reason I watch this show, but it's one of things that make The Girlfriend Experience  intriguing.

See also The Girlfriend Experience 3.1-2: Intertwining Desires ... The Girlfriend Experience 3.3: Real Fakes

And see also  The Girlfriend Experience 2.1-2: Two for One ...  The Girlfriend Experience 2.3-4: Hard to Come By ... The Girlfriend Experience 2.5-6: In and Out ... The Girlfriend Experience 2.7-8: Sundry Seductions ... The Girlfriend Experience 2.9-10: The End of Illusions ... The Girlfriend Experience 2.11-12; One and One Is Less than One

And see also The Girlfriend Experience: Eminently Worth It (my review of Season 1)

 

It all started in the hot summer of 1960, when Marilyn Monroe walked off the set of The Misfits and began to hear a haunting song in her head, "Goodbye Norma Jean" ...

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