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Dec 23, 2022Liked by Étienne Fortier-Dubois

Erik's essay made a big impact on me when I first read it and informs a lot of my thinking still. I love how it takes dreams at their phenomenological content, which is where I've always found other theories of dreams sorely lacking. Whenever I'm in a rut and not enjoying the stuff I usually do, I remember I probably just need to go out and find some new input data!

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Dec 16, 2022Liked by Étienne Fortier-Dubois

This is honestly a fascinating theory. My personal craving for the odd and weird could’ve been easily explained by it, and much more.

There’s another curious concept, which I think is closely related to this overfitting theory. It’s called ‘Defamiliarizarion’, it’s a literary technique documented by Viktor Shklovsky at the beginning of the 20th century. The idea is in deliberately making prose in a way that feels ‘weird’ / ‘strange’, even otherworldly, for a reader. For example, using unusual turns of phrases, words, rhythms, using unusual PoV (see Tolstoy’s Kholstomer, a story told from a perspective of a horse, pondering on topics such as private property etc) and other devices—it can be anything, not just words. The idea behind that is reading, as everything else, becomes habitual and we stop really paying attention and absorbing the text, it becomes too easy, almost automatic. It might seem as a good thing, but from a perspective of ‘living’ and ‘experiencing’, it’s rather not. Here’s a piece from Tolstoy’s diary:

> I was cleaning and, meandering about, approached the divan and couldn't remember whether or not I had dusted it. Since these movements are habitual and unconscious I could not remember and felt that it was impossible to remember - so that if I had dusted it and forgot - that is, had acted unconsciously, then it was the same as if I had not. If some conscious person had been watching, then the fact could be established. If, however, no one was looking, or looking on unconsciously, if the whole complex lives of many people go on unconsciously, then such lives are as if they had never been.

This applies well to reading. How much do we remember from books we read? What stands out the most? For me, it’s style of the prose and any unusual unique details, rather than plot.

Shklovsky suggested "enstranging" / defamiliarising objects by complicating the way they are described. Shklovsky wrote, that you cannot truly experience something without sufficient intellectual efforts. But if as a writer, you can make objects unfamiliar to the reader, "defamiliarize" them, and provide the reader with a fresh view free from the automatism.

I wrote an essay about it some time ago, but since then I have accumulated more thoughts about the topic, so I unpublished it to rework later. It seems now it’s the right time. I can incorporate the overfitting theory as well (plus exploration/exploitation and such, btw). So, thank you for writing this, Étienne. Both you and Erik have a special power in waking up (great) ideas in my head.

P.S. I can email you my old now-draft if you’re interested.

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Dec 23, 2022Liked by Étienne Fortier-Dubois

Fantastic insight. I'm glad I found this ‘Stack.

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