Obviously, TV didn't come along until well after Hume wrote the Inquiry - but according to his theory, do you think watching television would be considered to generate "sensations" or "ideas"? Does live vs. taped TV make a difference? Please be specific and justify your answer...
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Watching TV would generate either “sensations” or “ideas” because through our senses, we perceive it. We are able to produce sensation, emotion and passion in what we see on television. (eg. a hockey game may make me happy and excited)
Something live versus something on TV makes a difference. Back to the Hockey game example: Seeing it live is better because the impression would be more vivacious and therefore the idea generated by the impression is more memorable. Watching a Hockey Game on TV is exciting, but the sensation will be less than if one were to watch it live.
Alex W.
I think that Hume would have classified dramatic television (serialized shows, soap operas, etc) as a different form of theatre, and thus a form of art. Hume himself says that all forms of art are merely copies of impressions, and can never generate the forcefulness or vivacity of a real life situation. Because of this, I think dramatic TV will generate ideas, not impressions. I think the same applies to live TV, because as the viewer watches event unfold upon the TV screen, he or she is not actively involved in what is happening on screen, rather he or she is receving everything that comes through the screen second hand.
I'd also just like to post this article http://www.pbs.org/weta/washingtonweek/voices/200111/1119television.html that talks about the negative effects TV has on the brain. What I especially found interesting was the idea of the higher brain shutting down when the viewer is watching TV. It seems that it would be hard to experience full force and vivacity if a part of your brain was shut down. In fact, I'm not even sure if the ideas generated when you watch TV would be the same as the ideas generated when you interact with other forms of art, because ideas are produced by thinking, and if your higher brain is shut off, how much thinking can really be done?
I just read that article on TV. I've always been curious about claims about television and its negative impact. How could TV really be exactly the same as staring at a blank wall? What if you're watching a foreign-language film on astrophysics, reading the English subtitles, for 2 hours a day? Is that really a brain-numbing experience? Surely, then, different types of TV (and different types of viewers) have different effects. American television is incredible sensationalistic and often devoid of ideas, but there is good TV out there.
I think a lot of people do watch TV with about a tenth of their mind, and thus just use it as an excuse to unwind, and not really think at all. And lots of people clearly do this too much. But critical viewing of programs is possible, and in moderate doses, even simply following a plot on TV is better than like, doing drugs and eating peanut butter all night. Is TV really that bad in small doses? I'm asking because sometimes I have to force myself to relax, and more and more reading doesn't always do the trick when that's what you're relaxing *from* in University! Is TV-boycotting really necessary for our survival? Or is it wrong to dismiss it as a medium, with potential positive and negative qualities? After all, most classrooms are equipped with TVs.
(Oops, didn't mention Hume there. Well, I did in my other post.)
To me, watching TV is more "idea" than "sensation". it is like if we see someone is wounded in a tv show, what we get is an idea like "if you do something, you will get hurt" or "wounded means pain", but we didn't really percieve the pain and everything that person actually feel. since Hume believes that all "ideas" are generated from "sensations". I think that maybe from Hume's view, how we get the idea of something we have peceived only in tv(not real sensation as i believed) is like we actually get that idea of "great pain, or happiness, or anything" by glorify ideas of "small things" which we had perceived previously. TO me it is like the process how we generate the idea of god by increases his knowing, power etc. Some TV shows like cartoons, scientific fiction, are mainly "ideas", too. When we watch them, we make combinations of existing ideas to generate new, non-exsting ideas.
rite on...i agree with fang
In my opinion TV generates mainly ideas. However, in many occasions it would seem that the images generated through the TV get presented to us in such an intensified way that it leaves us to a rash judgment in concluding that it generates sensations within us. In saying that I mean to say that I believe TV generates ideas through Hume’s notion of resemblance. In many cases many of us don’t realize how involve we become while gazing at the TV, mindlessly processing the images that are presented to us. But is it mindless? When we laugh, cry; feel fear, compassion, hate, anger, envy, etc… isn’t our mind at that moment going through great processes to produce these emotions of “sentiment” that on some bleak level affect our disposition. But why should they? Are not these images presented to us outside of our immediate experience of it where we actually become 2nd hand participates of the occurrences that are transpiring “within the realm of television” (including live TV). Now one may argue that that our perceptions through TV generate sensations mainly because it employs the facility of sense perception while creating emotions within us. However, does a remarkable painting of a beach sunset, which in many people in insight compassionate emotions of the sort, actually give you the experience of being at the beach feeling the sand on your feet, breathing in the ocean air, feeling the slight decrease in temperature and the suns rays descend beyond the horizons. I would believe not. What the painting does insight on the other hand is this idea of such an experience that can, it seems, induce our sentiments. So then this is what I mean by concluding that TV generates ideas rather than sensations because it merely creates fantasy like realism that which you derive some immaterial experience.
I hope this follows along with Hume’s arguments and that it is in the least bit comprehensible. It not in my defence I blame it on my severe lack of sleep and the fact that I wrote this at 1am.
Jermaine C.
It's probably been said already, but I think the answer would be simple enough as to say that Hume would hold the t.v. as something strictly producing ideas. The only lively impression the t.v. can produce is the impression of you watching a screen flashing in what ever way it does. This flashing of the tele however, would not equal the sensations caused by taking part in whatever you are watching (going back to alex's hockey game example). It's more like the electronic equivalent of your friend telling you a story, albeit more complicated.
Why I do declare, I am late to hop on this bandwagon but let's see what I can do. I honestly don't think that ideas are generated by live television, such as Jerry Springer, due to the fact that it cannot evoke a true impression of anything... pain, etc, to give us an idea. Maybe it's just me, but no matter how heart wrenching a story is on live television, it's just not personal enough for an impression to be left. Even Oprah cannot move me and perhaps Esmahan's article is correct, then, in the sense that a higher part of the brain has shut off. "Good" television, on the other hand, would leave ideas due to the fact that characters can be situated in a manner that can cause a psychological experience. The development of a character often leaves you feeling bonded to them and their mannerisms are meant to represent a more realistic, human side, making it possible for ideas to be generated from such vivid impressions of "people" close to you. I'm rambling, I know, but basically with "good tv" you are set up in a vulnerable situation where you are completely open to given characters and situations so that ideas of betrayal, etc... can come. Live television=blah, other dramas, etc... = ideas!
I shouldn't be allowed to write anything at 12 PM. I don't function well until night.
Okay, I just typed a long comment and the blog ate it so here is a condensed version:
Ian-That is an interesting question you pose. It seems like the brain would certainly rect differently to a documentary on astrophysics and an episode of Laguna Beach. If this is the case though, is the same applicable to other types of art? For example, if I read a "trashy" novel, like the DaVinci Code versus something like Les Miserables, am I generating the same quality of ideas, or does that even matter? I'm inclined to believe that reading the DaVinci code uses less brain strength, but I have a feling that that belief has more to do with my own ideas of high art, than Hume's text.
Ingrid-I understand what you are saying about strong character development, but the same thing can be said for character development in books. I'm inclined to believe that, as a "man of letters" and one who was an avid reader, would have said in his text that literature or any type of art that uses strong chracter development to create bonds generates sensations. Instead, he says that all art creates second hand impressions, or ideas. And that makes sense, because even if we empathize with a character, we aren't in his or her shoes experiencing everything that he or she is going through. I could be wrong though!
Finally someone else acknowledges that the Da Vinci code is trash.
I know, that I am also very late with joining this blogging thing but here goes;
I think that tv in terms of drama, comedy, etc create just an idea because they are things you are experiencing second hand. Since the thing on tv is not actually happening to you and you are just watching things happen to other people and the emotion that you feel is caused by the idea of the feeling from a past experience.
now, as to whether it matters if a something is live of not I really cannot decide. I keep thiking back to the idea of a hockey game and alex's idea that if you are actually there the sensation is more than just seeing it on tv, which i think is reasonable but it seems that most of us have made it necessay that for a feeling to be a sensation it must happen to someone first hand. therefore could watching a hockey game in person even create a sensation because you are still techincally on the outside, would that not still be just the idea of the emotion? but that would mean then that to have a true sensation of emotion from a hockey game you would actaully have to be playing in order to feel the happiness and excitment from winning.
>>> It's probably been said already, but I think the answer would be simple enough as to say that Hume would hold the t.v. as something strictly producing ideas. The only lively impression the t.v. can produce is the impression of you watching a screen flashing in what ever way it does. This flashing of the tele however, would not equal the sensations caused by taking part in whatever you are watching (going back to alex's hockey game example). It's more like the electronic equivalent of your friend telling you a story, albeit more complicated.
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To evolve my original opinion, I think it depends on what the TV is being used for, exactly. When I watch an episode of Springer, the medium is the message all by itself - whatever I take away from it is indirect and secondary to the act of simply being sedated late at night before bed. It's the opiate of the masses, and the 'flashing light' hypnotism is more of a factor than whatever content there is.
Then again, if I'm watching that astrophysics documentary, and I use that information in the real world - that's almost like a 'videophone,' where the content is being transmitted to me, and so the medium is not quite the message, it's the content - I could have gotten that content in any number of ways. TV simply made it, maybe, more easily digestible.
In other words, I'm proposing two intepretations of the same general category of "TV" - 1) images that soothe, iamges that are spectacular for their own sake and give me nothing directly, but rather, just turning the TV on is a sedative, irrespective of what happens to be on; and 2) ideas, if I happen to be watching something purposefully.
This dualism becomes clear when we realise that a big giant course like Astronomy has no interaction with anybody whatsoever - I could do the whole thing as a correspondence course, getting the lectures on a TV screen (what are we looking at when we go to Con Hall anyway?). But that would still be ideas, since University is clearly relevant and important. But if it's 1 AM and I can't fall asleep, I could watch Springer or Judge Judy - if it doesn't matter which one you're watching, you know it's just images you seek!
I believe that Hume would say that television generates sensations as opposed to ideas. Obviously, the things that are on T.V. are not actually happening where the T.V. viewer is. However, I believe that because the T.V. itself is there, producing sounds and visuals, it cannot simply be generating ideas. One can actually sit down and experience television through the senses. After a program has been viewed a person can then have ideas about that impression.
As well, one could also say that T.V. is livelier than other ideas. A conversation on T.V. is basically as vivid as a real life conversation. It is certainly more vivid than a conversation being played out within one’s own head. I also believe that it is possible to experience new things on T.V. In fact, it seems that many of ideas which people compound and transpose have been derived from impressions experienced through T.V.
I don’t think that it really matters whether the programs on T.V. are live or taped. The reason why live T.V. is more exciting is because it is impossible to know for sure what is going to happen next. However, I don’t think that uncertainty adds to a program’s vivaciousness.
-Danny B
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