Jorge Luis Borges Interview (1977)

http://www.denisdutton.com/jorge_luis_borges_interview.htm

by cwmoore • 8 years ago

167 20 8 years ago

kornish• 8 years ago

For Borges fans: Jonathan Basile put together a Library of Babel web app [1] based on the short story of the same name [2]. You can search for up to any string of 3200 characters. While most of it is (predictably) meaningless gibberish, it's kind of mesmerizing to see what results appear near results - such as your own name.

[1] https://libraryofbabel.info/search.html [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Library_of_Babel

lainga2• 8 years ago

This begs Quine's reduced version with just two buttons, one labelled with a dot and the other with a dash.

nebulous1• 8 years ago

Also Very Bad Wizards just did a couple of episode on two of his stories. https://verybadwizards.fireside.fm/episodes

jazzyjackson• 8 years ago

I've really wanted to start something similar but with a natural language dictionary randomly assembling plausible, grammatically correct sentences as a way to pre-emptively copyright creative work.

Actually that reminds me of a question I had, is there any legal precedence for copyrighting the output of a computer program? One could argue either the program is a creative work, or, the program is a tool that allowed me to create many creative works, but is the output of my program considered 'creative' ?

lainga2• 8 years ago

In this case I think it's moot, because by Borges' original description there are 25^(1 312 000) books in the Library, much more than the number of atoms in the observable Universe. So I think (and hope) the site isn't actually storing anything.

jesuslop• 8 years ago

He appears in the script of the last season of Westword, a couple of lines of Hopkins for connoisseurs to notice.

dmreedy• 8 years ago

"Well, perhaps no systems are attainable, but the search for a system is very interesting."

This is the heart of so many things that do not have easy answers, especially philosophy. I see the field dismissed frequently as an exercise in the generation of hot air, but there is so much value to be had in the act of the search, even if the destination is unclear, or even unreachable. The process of description is simultaneously a process of understanding, and while the ongoing philosophical dialectic may not find an answer, it has presented so many ways to possibly represent things such that the answer becomes apparent. Or at the very least, such that it is apparent that some given system cannot contain the answer. These systems of logic, of discovery, then become models useful for all kinds of pragmatic thinking, or if nothing else stand as monuments to the limits of our understanding, and possibly to our ability to understand.

Borges says he's not a thinker in the interview. But I dunno, even if his influences are clear, his ability to understand, and then convey these ideas in such a way as to make them self-evident is in some ways the greater act of philosophy than the raw conception of the ideas.

What a phenomenal interview.

trgv• 8 years ago

I really enjoyed the interview as well. Borges' manner of speaking is wonderful.

Borges says he's not a thinker in the interview. But I dunno, even if his influences are clear, his ability to understand, and then convey these ideas in such a way as to make them self-evident is in some ways the greater act of philosophy than the raw conception of the ideas.

I disagree here. Borges is a storyteller: he's interested in provoking a response from his readers. He's not arguing for or against a philosophy, but rather he finds inspiration in the philosophical writings of people who are arguing one way or another (ie philosophers).

What he's doing is no more or less impressive than what they're doing, but the two things very different. I think he's absolutely right to point that out to the interviewers.

beat• 8 years ago

I agree. I've done the same thing in works of art - used art as a vehicle for communicating philosophical concepts. Which is fine, but there's no rigor there, no defense of the concept, no detailing the implications. There's no need, because I'm not creating or defending philosophical concepts, only sharing them.

I recently wrote a song called "Everything Is Made of Love", which lifted pretty heavily from Spinoza. The song works well, but it no way makes me Spinoza's peer. More recently, I've been reading some of the Frankfurt School thinkers, and their idea of art as a means of expressing revolutionary (in a political sense) ideas. I looked back on a play I wrote/produced last year in that context, and was very pleased to see how well I expressed the ideas of Marcuse et al, manipulating pop culture in order to criticize society on other levels, even though I wasn't really cognizant of the Frankfurt School at the time.

gbaygon• 8 years ago

Please mods update the title, there is a typo in the name which is Jorge, without the final s.

sctb• 8 years ago

Updated. Thanks!

techbio• 8 years ago

There is a fantastic series of talks he gave in the late '60s at Harvard. It can be almost meditative to hear him addressing literature, poetry and philosophy in his own thoughtful voice.

Listen at:

http://www.openculture.com/2012/05/jorge_luis_borges_1967-8_...

sixdimensional• 8 years ago

"I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library." ― Jorge Luis Borges

Library science => information science => information systems.

om_nom_ramen• 8 years ago

Especially poignant since he became blind later in life.

enriquto2• 8 years ago

There are few reasons to learn Spanish today, but reading Borges is an extremely strong one. Stories such as "Pierre Ménard", "The garden of forking paths" or "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" blow your mind in several different ways and leave a perennial impression on your intellect.

Fortunately, both of his English translators are excellent.

gonvaled2• 8 years ago

There is another valid reason: if you are one of the 1000 million (and rising) people living in Spanish speaking communities.

enriquto2• 8 years ago

Of course, if you live in a Spanish-speaking community you learn it as a first language when you are a baby; but I was referring to learning Spanish as a foreign language when you are an adult. Being able to read the original Borges is a treat for your mind.

metaphorical• 8 years ago

I would also recommend Borges' Norton Lectures. It provides a lot of unique insights about his creative process. https://www.amazon.com/Craft-Verse-Charles-Norton-Lectures/d...

hmart• 8 years ago

Borges predicts the Internet :

The Aleph

... “I view him,” he said with a certain unaccountable excitement, “in his inner sanctum, as though in his castle tower, supplied with telephones, telegraphs, phonographs, wireless sets, motion-picture screens, slide projectors, glossaries, timetables, handbooks, bulletins...” He remarked that for a man so equipped, actual travel was superfluous. Our twentieth century had inverted the story of Mohammed and the mountain; nowadays, the mountain came to the modern Mohammed ...

Jorge Luis Borges Interview (1977)

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