Double endings / Schroedinger's Cat
Dec. 15th, 2004 04:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
malsperanzaThe outer edges of quantum mechanics may or may not be a useful form of research in physics, but it is a damn good form of literary theory.
"The formulation of Quantum Mechanics describes the deterministic unitary evolution of a wave function. This wave function is never observed experimentally. The wave function allows us to compute the probability that certain macroscopic events will be observed. There are no events and no mechanism for creating events in the mathematical model. It is this dichotomy between the wave function model and observed macroscopic events that is the source of the interpretation issue in Quantum Mechanics. In classical physics the mathematical model talks about the things we observe. In Quantum Mechanics the mathematical model by itself never produces observations. We must interpret the wave function in order to relate it to experimental observations. [...]
In Quantum Mechanics one often must model systems as the superposition of two or more possible outcomes. Superpositions can produce interference effects and thus are experimentally distinguishable from mixed states. How does a superposition of different possibilities resolve itself into some particular observation? This question (also known as the measurement problem) affects how we analyze some experiments [...] and may raise the question of interpretations from a philosophical debate to an experimentally testable question. [...] It is only superposition of different possibilities at the microscopic level that leads to experimentally detectable interference effects.
Thus it would seem that there is no criterion for objective events and perhaps no need for such a criterion."
~From here.
So, not being a nuclear physicist, and in fact having never made it to first base with physics, I've been thinking instead about fiction.
About narratives that have a double ending--either two opposing possible endings (happy ending/tragic ending), or some form of alternative embedded within the ending. Although I have defined this idea rather too vaguely, I'm wondering if all you readers (and viewers) out there would nevertheless like to suggest some works that you think have this sort of closure.
I don't mean works with a totally open ending, btw, such as some of Faulkner's novels (The Sound and the Fury and Absalom, Absalom come to mind).
And in case I haven't read these books/seen these movies, please don't describe the endings! I hate spoilers. Later, I can ask you more about them.
On my list, so far:
John Fowles, The French Lieutenant's Woman (this is the classic, no?)
Milorad Pavic, The Dictionary of the Khazars--published in two simultaneous editions, with a difference in only 17 lines between the "male" and "female" versions (hint: the altered bit is not the ending, but affects the ending)
The TV series La Femme Nikita, which ended definitively with episode 22 of season 4, and then was revived and provided a radically different ending in episode 8 of season 5
Dorothy Dunnett, The House of Niccolo, a series of books whose ending is (in some ways) radically changed if it is read before her other series, The Lymond Chronicles, or after
James Joyce, Finnegans Wake, which, being circular, has no ending at all, but whose final pages read very differently the second time around, and differently again the third time round (assuming some mythically durable and intrepid reader capable of reading the bloody thing all the way through more than once... or indeed even once)
The movie Brazil, depending on which bits you think are the reality and which are the dream, and why
Stoppard, Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead--I'm not sure about this one. Maybe it's just an open ending. But that tossed coin will fall, either heads or tails, eventually, and until it does, both heads and tails are in play. *waves Schroedinger's poor Cat*
I keep thinking Calvino probably has a book with a double ending, but none comes to mind. And I am also interested in works that don't necessarily fall into the usual "high art" or "experimental fiction" categories.
Others?
ETA: Apocalypse Now sort of has two endings. When Coppola filmed it, he famously shot an incredibly expensive B-52 airstrike, and intended the movie to end with Willard (the Marlow character) calling in the strike to wipe out Kurtz's compound. He then decided not to use it, and provided a much quieter and more ambiguous ending. But he used the footage from the airstrike (shot in weird yellow filters) under the closing credits, so that the viewer can choose to understand that the compound is being struck, or else may prefer to interpret that footage as general and decorative (so to speak), not narrative.
At least, in one theatrical release that's what he did, though I am told that the most recent iteration of the movie doesn't have that footage, but just credits over a black ground.
"The formulation of Quantum Mechanics describes the deterministic unitary evolution of a wave function. This wave function is never observed experimentally. The wave function allows us to compute the probability that certain macroscopic events will be observed. There are no events and no mechanism for creating events in the mathematical model. It is this dichotomy between the wave function model and observed macroscopic events that is the source of the interpretation issue in Quantum Mechanics. In classical physics the mathematical model talks about the things we observe. In Quantum Mechanics the mathematical model by itself never produces observations. We must interpret the wave function in order to relate it to experimental observations. [...]
In Quantum Mechanics one often must model systems as the superposition of two or more possible outcomes. Superpositions can produce interference effects and thus are experimentally distinguishable from mixed states. How does a superposition of different possibilities resolve itself into some particular observation? This question (also known as the measurement problem) affects how we analyze some experiments [...] and may raise the question of interpretations from a philosophical debate to an experimentally testable question. [...] It is only superposition of different possibilities at the microscopic level that leads to experimentally detectable interference effects.
Thus it would seem that there is no criterion for objective events and perhaps no need for such a criterion."
~From here.
So, not being a nuclear physicist, and in fact having never made it to first base with physics, I've been thinking instead about fiction.
About narratives that have a double ending--either two opposing possible endings (happy ending/tragic ending), or some form of alternative embedded within the ending. Although I have defined this idea rather too vaguely, I'm wondering if all you readers (and viewers) out there would nevertheless like to suggest some works that you think have this sort of closure.
I don't mean works with a totally open ending, btw, such as some of Faulkner's novels (The Sound and the Fury and Absalom, Absalom come to mind).
And in case I haven't read these books/seen these movies, please don't describe the endings! I hate spoilers. Later, I can ask you more about them.
On my list, so far:
John Fowles, The French Lieutenant's Woman (this is the classic, no?)
Milorad Pavic, The Dictionary of the Khazars--published in two simultaneous editions, with a difference in only 17 lines between the "male" and "female" versions (hint: the altered bit is not the ending, but affects the ending)
The TV series La Femme Nikita, which ended definitively with episode 22 of season 4, and then was revived and provided a radically different ending in episode 8 of season 5
Dorothy Dunnett, The House of Niccolo, a series of books whose ending is (in some ways) radically changed if it is read before her other series, The Lymond Chronicles, or after
James Joyce, Finnegans Wake, which, being circular, has no ending at all, but whose final pages read very differently the second time around, and differently again the third time round (assuming some mythically durable and intrepid reader capable of reading the bloody thing all the way through more than once... or indeed even once)
The movie Brazil, depending on which bits you think are the reality and which are the dream, and why
Stoppard, Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead--I'm not sure about this one. Maybe it's just an open ending. But that tossed coin will fall, either heads or tails, eventually, and until it does, both heads and tails are in play. *waves Schroedinger's poor Cat*
I keep thinking Calvino probably has a book with a double ending, but none comes to mind. And I am also interested in works that don't necessarily fall into the usual "high art" or "experimental fiction" categories.
Others?
ETA: Apocalypse Now sort of has two endings. When Coppola filmed it, he famously shot an incredibly expensive B-52 airstrike, and intended the movie to end with Willard (the Marlow character) calling in the strike to wipe out Kurtz's compound. He then decided not to use it, and provided a much quieter and more ambiguous ending. But he used the footage from the airstrike (shot in weird yellow filters) under the closing credits, so that the viewer can choose to understand that the compound is being struck, or else may prefer to interpret that footage as general and decorative (so to speak), not narrative.
At least, in one theatrical release that's what he did, though I am told that the most recent iteration of the movie doesn't have that footage, but just credits over a black ground.
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no subject
Date: 2004-12-15 09:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-15 09:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-15 10:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-16 12:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-16 12:26 am (UTC)*eyes Charlotte gloomily*
no subject
Date: 2004-12-15 09:59 pm (UTC)I'll try and think of some other books/movies that fit more into what you're specifically looking for.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-15 10:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-15 10:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-15 10:45 pm (UTC)Murakami... well, I would describe "Bird Chronicle" as having an open ending. Haven't read anything else by him, yet. Do the others propose two identifiable possibilities, or infinite possibilities? I guess that's the distinction I'm looking for.
Blade Runner is an interesting case, since the commercial release has an open ending and the so-called director's cut ruins that with TMI. The same is true of Donnie Darko, a neat movie that got all boringized when the director rereleased it with a much more pretentious and fixed ending.
Hmm...
no subject
Date: 2004-12-16 12:19 am (UTC)Did you ever see The Big Sleep with the missing footage put back in? It finally makes sense, and it's not nearly as good!
Anyway, my pick: Pale Fire by Nabokov. That's all I'm thinking of off hand. You can infer an ending, but it's shakey (or maybe I'm just over or under thinky.)
no subject
Date: 2004-12-16 12:34 am (UTC)Definitely skip the director's soi-disant cuts of Donnie Darko and Blade Runner. And avoid Apocalypse Now Redux at all costs (horrible scenes scraped off the cutting room floor and reinserted).
No, I never saw the restored "Big Sleep"--didn't know it existed. What, does it explain whether the chauffeur committed suicide or was murdered?
Rats. (As it were.)
Do you know the bon mot about that movie? That Chandler and Faulkner were both dead drunk when writing the screenplay (and Hawks was probably drunk while shooting it). So they all were eager to see the rushes so they could find out who done it. Heh.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-16 01:17 am (UTC)I did see Apocalypse Now redux, and I was glad I did, even though so much was garbage. It was interesting to see, though; I sort of liked the French stuff.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-16 01:48 am (UTC)The plot of The Big Sleep is the triumph of style over meaning. Me, I'll choose style over meaning 9 x out of 10.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-16 01:57 am (UTC)Sontag sayeth: style is on the inside; content is on the outside.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-16 03:12 am (UTC)The others propose two endings. Especially Hardboiled.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-16 12:34 pm (UTC)Also The Story of O does it the other way round with two alternative openings ...
no subject
Date: 2004-12-30 12:11 am (UTC)Then, as far as movies, there's the movie Clue (based on the game), which has, I think, four different endings. And there was a movie I saw once that I no longer remember the title of. This family moves to Alaska, and then they're out camping, and something happens.... They end up stranded, and have to survive in the wild, but for some reason (I know I'm not remembering this clearly...) there's a drug dealer or something after them... Anyhow, the movie ends on a note that is, as you put it, do they all survive or do they all die, and the coin is still up in the air. Also a book that is the diary of a girl who was kidnapped, and then it just ends, and does she die or is she rescued. But I can't remember the title of that either.
And the anime series Neon Genesis Evangelion may count, as there's the ending of the series and then the ending of the movie sequel, which are supposedly the same events told two different ways, but....
Also, Choose Your Own Adventure books.
Okay, that was probably not at all helpful or interesting.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-30 08:53 am (UTC)I think it's especially brave for a movie to end like this, since mass audiences usually insist on closure, more than readers do.
I've never spent much time with anime. I wonder if it's possible just to watch the last couple of series episodes and the movie, rather than the whole thing. Seems like a cheat, but I don't know if I have the patience.
Choose Your Own Adventure... now, wouldn't it be brilliant to write a full-fledged serious book on this model? One in which the choices the reader makes are based not only on having the bestest possible adventure, but on, say, moral and ethical positions, or the sense the reader has of who the main characters are?