Are we running out of new music/movies/art from a metaphysical perspective?

stephen_s

It is difficult to judge at first, but it appears that some music genres (classical and jazz especially) have seen a radically slowed or non-existent output of significant works in recent decades. By significant, I mean works that would be seen in league with the most acclaimed artists in the genre (eg Beethoven, John Coltrane). In a similar way, there is a building popular consensus that Hollywood is not pursuing original ideas as much anymore and is relying on rebooting old stories and franchises. But is this because of a fault of the Hollywood system, or is it because there are few significant movie story ideas left that have not been done?

It seems to me that there are limited possibilities in art (or any field) of what we can discover or create. It appears that the matter and rules of the universe (in concert with human nature) manifests itself into these limited possibilities. When we develop a field or genre, we learn and create at an increasing rate but then eventually "complete" the field (in a boom and bust pattern).

I wrote a brief article called The Big Niche to try and explain this concept.

The relevant questions seem to be:

Do you agree that from experience and observation, we can tell that certain genres or fields appear to become completed?
Does this concept or another concept best explain what is happening?

I'm interested if any of you agree with this line of thinking or have other possible explanations of this phenomena.

I wrote a brief article called The Big Niche to try and explain this concept.

The relevant questions seem to be:

Do you agree that from experience and observation, we can tell that certain genres or fields appear to become completed?
Does this concept or another concept best explain what is happening?

I'm interested if any of you agree with this line of thinking or have other possible explanations of this phenomena.

The reason that I bring up classical and jazz, is that there has been a clear slowdown in meaningful additions to the genres over the past few decades. So, if music genres reach a limit of possibilities, then it seems likely to apply to other areas of art as well.

Yes, I agree that there are more intelligent (or less simple) stories that haven't been written yet. I'm not sure if you are saying that you agree that there is a limit of possible stories, or that you think there is no limit? If there is a limit, what do you think would be the signs that we are reaching it?

I would agree that it seems from intuition that there are a lot of available stories still left to be written, but what would explain the slowdown in original properties being created or finding an audience currently (than in previous decades)?

In the specific cases of jazz and classical music, it seems like a slowdown in creation of original properties could be pretty plausibly explained by those types of music not being very popular anymore (why that is so is a more complicated question), and so not attracting as many of the talented musical minds of the most recent generations. The people who were going into jazz and classical music 50 years ago could be going into rap and electronica now, and it would look pretty much like our world, I think.

I'm not sure if this is actually true, as I know v... (read more)

2siIver10y

Well, there is a provably finite possibility space for stories. You only have so many ways to arrange letters in a script. The question is whether it's meaningful. To use some completely made-up numbers, I think the current possibility space for movies produced by the bottom 80% of people with the current style may be 90% covered. The space for the top 2%, on the other hand, is probably covered for less than 0.1% (and I resisted putting in more zeros there). To get more concrete, I'll name some pieces (which I avoided doing in my initial post). Take Game of Thrones. It's a huge deal – why? Well, because there isn't really anything like it, But when you get rid of all the typical story tropes, like main characters with invulnerability, predictable plot progressions, a heroic minority lucking out against an evil majority, typical villains, etc etc, not only does the result get better, the possibility space actually widens. (I'm not saying scripts of this quality don't exist, but it seems to be the only show where a great script and a huge budget and a competent team came together. There could be thousands of shows like this, and there is just one). Or take the movie Being John Malkovich. Basically, there is one supernatural element placed in an otherwise scientifically operating world, and you have a bunch of character who act like normal humans, meaning largely selfish and emotionally driven, acting over that element. Just thinking about how much you could do following that formula opens up a large area in that seems to be largely untouched. I think we're shooting at Pluto over and over again while (for the most part) ignoring the rest of the universe. And it still works, because production quality and effects are still improving. (edited)