The Shape of Infinity
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- Опубликовано: 12 ноя 2020
- I, too, hope to die into structure but must I spend my whole life doing it? | Directly support me and watch exclusive videos by joining Nebula at go.nebula.tv/jacob-geller
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Voice Actors:
Yourcenar: www.fiverr.com/byfelisgeme
Opalka: www.fiverr.com/strangevoice
Sources:
Piranesi (Susanna Clarke, 2020)
The Dark Brain of Piranesi and Other Essays (Marguerite Yourcenar, 1962)
Oriental Tales (Marguerite Yourcenar, 1938)
Marguerite Yourcenar: Piranesi at Petite Plaisance (Little)
The Piranesi Effect (Stone, Long, et al., 2015)
Time in the Art of Roman Opalka, Tatsuo Miyajima, and Rene Rietmeyer (De Jongh, 2010)
Obituary of Roman Opalka: www.economist.com/obituary/20...
Artnet- Roman Opalka: www.artnet.com/artists/roman-o...
Victor Hugo, Les Contemplations: fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Les_Co...
Making a GOOGOL:1 Reduction with Lego Gears: • Making a GOOGOL:1 Redu...
Roman Opalka - Exhibition 'Writing Beyond' at Axel Vervoordt Gallery: • Roman Opalka - Exhibit...
Opalka - Fondu au blanc: • Opalka - Fondu au blanc
Roman Opalka visualization of time: • Roman Opalka visua...
Profile of a Writer: Jorge Luis Borges: • Profile of a Writer: J...
Level Design Stream - Willy Chyr's RELATIVITY - Piranesi: • Level Design Stream - ...
From Paper to Copper: The Engraver's Process: • From Paper to Copper: ...
Games Shown: Manifold Garden, Gorogoa, The Library of Babel, (additional footage provided by Baby Boundo)
Music Used (Chronologically): Trust Fall (Manifold Garden), Pilgrimage (Gorogoa), Castle in the Mist (ICO), Astraea, Tendrils, Ancestral, Bloom, House of Leaves (Manifold Garden), Mii Plaza (Wii), Oculi (Manifold Garden), Intro Radio (Half Life: Alyx), Chiasm, Environments (Gris), Strange Worlds (Manifold Garden), Piranha Plant Lullaby- Piano (Super Mario 64),
Thumbnail by: / hotcyder
Description Credit: Piranesi at the Molo, Amy Bagan 
Игры
Oy if you wanna hear more about the video in a director's commentary, join the exclusive geller discord, or yell at me about pronunciation, jump on the patreon: www.patreon.com/JacobGeller
cool boy
whats the name of the music that comes in at ~4:32? Youve used it in other videos before, but i havent been able to find out its name so far, its a great track that sets the mood so well, i really would love to be able to listen to it on its own
No reason to reach for the infinite when your already there...
I love Manifold Garden but it ripped its artstyle wholesale from Alexander Bruce’s Antichamber.
@@ancientpear6780 check the description I think there’s the name
There's a wikipedia page titled "List of numbers". The first sentence on the page reads:
"This is a dynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness."
@@stevencurtis7157 Now I'm imagining that same page listing Graham's number (for the uninitiated, it's the largest number used in a formal proof, and if written in scientific notation, would have more digits in the _exponent_ than there are atoms in the observable universe) as a "medium" natural number.
A _large_ natural number? Perhaps if you put Graham's number in as both variables in the Busy Beaver function. That function is one that grows faster than any computable function. For example, Σ(2, 2) = 4, Σ(3, 3) is in the hundreds of millions, at least, and Σ(4, 4) is so great it is totally unknown, uncomputable, large beyond reckoning.... yet finite.
@agiar200
"Yet finite"... Yeah, that means it still counts as small
That's one way to put it... :-)
How can it even start? Or is it just natural numbers?
@@agiar2000 I'll see your Graham's number and raise you Tree(3)
"So Jacob, did you like Manifold Garden?"
"We ourselves are nothing. Shapeless, voiceless, shadowless..."
"Uh huh..."
Bro he said that literally as I was reading your comment
@@erebys21same 😂❤
Meanwhile my experience with Manifold Garden involved finishing off a massive burger that I'd only gotten halfway through at lunchtime in mid-2022.
i always think of the hitchhiker's guide quote: "It wasn’t infinity in fact. Infinity itself looks flat and uninteresting. Looking up into the night sky is looking into infinity - distance is incomprehensible and therefore meaningless. The chamber into which the aircar emerged was anything but infinite, it was just very very very big, so big that it gave the impression of infinity far better than infinity itself"
Man, that's still one of my favorite quotes from that book. From any book, really.
Wait wasn't this from when they enter the planet creation chamber?
@@RolaiEckolo yes
indeed
Which book is this?
"...his world is infinite. He knows that there are flights of stairs much higher than he could ever reach, secrets hidden below the violent tides. And what he does with this understanding isn't to despair, or resign himself to a familiar corner, but to embrace the gift that is a world that will never stop showing him new things."
That's just life. You just described the experience of being a mortal being in a world where even the tangible, finite, human-made reality is far too vast to grasp for the mortal soul. Whoof. Thanks, man.
I know it's kind of cliche to bring this up with things like this, but I've felt this exact experience while on psychedelics. There's something about acid or shrooms that completely destroys that filter over our brains and makes you painfully aware of exactly how BIG everything else is, and how SMALL you are. It's then up to you to make peace with that in your own way, and mine was to accept that even though I'm not permanent, I was and still am a part of this whole thing, and that can never be taken away from me, and even if I were to live longer, there would still be myriad experiences I'll never have because of the size of the universe. And honestly it's a pretty cool feeling, the idea that I'll never be lacking for new experiences, I just have to be willing to seek them out.
Reading Pirinesi, I didn't get the impression that the house was infinitely tall (or deep). The infinite halls seemed to be N,S,E(*), and W. Did I miss something???
@@jamesmonroe3043 I just got done reading the book maybe half an hour ago. In my opinion, I feel that the house doesn’t feel infinite because the story is told through someone who cannot experience it all. Piranesi does explore amounts that some may call impressive, one being, if I remember correctly, the nine hundred and sixtieth hall in a certain direction (this being the furthest he ever traveled). But this is not infinite. The only way we are able to know the house is infinite is by accepting it. Piranesi is also bound to a limited number of spaces in terms of height and depth; the clouds and the sea are the borders here.
This is just what I interpreted though. I still found the story absolutely amazing, perhaps being one of my favorites, especially because of how I (partially) value books based on how well they allow me to imagine their worlds, characters, and events in my mind through the text, and while you might expect a book focused mostly on the world the character lives in to be good at this task by default, Piranesi was definitely a very special experience for me.
@@hiphyro Thank you for your response. It was a Great book. I did visualize Pirinesi's world completely but with contradictions (I've had trouble with that in some Sci-Fi). Like my visualization of Pirinesi waving across a courtyard (that gets sunlight and moonlight) to the other window to window, doesn't mesh well with my picture of halls so tall with clouds. I also realize how industrious he was just to be able to survive, that couldn't have been easy. I would have to have a literal ton of heroine to deal with his situation.
Thanks again..... any good book recommendations???
@@jamesmonroe3043 You’re welcome, it was really just me spilling my thoughts after reading the book haha. I suppose one book I can recommend (not necessarily like piranesi at all but still one I love) is A Wrinkle In Time, but I’ve heard it’s quite popular so you may have already read it. Other than that I’m not sure since I don’t actually read very often, it’s hard for me to find books I actually really enjoy though I still try
Like two days ago one of my friends asked me if I had played Manifold Garden. I hadn’t, so I looked it up and my first thought after seeing a screenshot was “this is a Jacob Geller game.”
I thought that once I saw the huge structures
Funny how right after watching Jacob's video RUclips autoplayed me to one of yours. The algorythm works in mysterious ways
?!???!! How ?!?!!
@@Sm0k3turt I think they mean Razbuten
same tho
God, this video was incredible. I'm the gameplay programmer of Manifold Garden, and this video, man... I don't even have words! It's a fantastic collection and analysis of a bunch of different versions of infinity, and seeing something I worked so closely on, with William on, included in that list... It feels kinda incredible.
I've been watching your videos for a while, and you just keep getting better and better. Looking forward to the next one!
Hey, how does the game work? I don't grasp how the infinite could be captured in a game without rupturing any computer.
@@inocuousaltaccount3103 Not the person you're asking but if I had to guess it uses procedural generation the way Minecraft does. It just repeats a finite region of space over and over again, so it only needs a finite amount of information.
@@inocuousaltaccount3103 You could achieve their effects using some forms of ray marching with modular spaces, I'd recommend code parade's video on the subject for a start.
@@inocuousaltaccount3103 The spaces aren't all loaded at the same time. The computer instantiates modular spaces as you move through them. Like placing someone in a room with 4 doors, then placing a room behind the door they approach, allowing them to enter, and removing the room behind them. The space that is being occupied is all the computer needs to load at any given time but to the player it feels infinite.
@@boraxxkidd713 Not quite!
The game actually only has 1 main area for each level. All other versions you see are just visuals. The main area runs physics and gameplay elements. We simply wrap the world (when the player falls too far or walks too far, they're warped to the other side). When done correctly, the effect is seamless, giving the illusion of an infinite space.
Technically speaking, despite the repeating geometry being visual-only, the space is consistent with those visuals, meaning the space is mechanically infinite.
I love seeing House of Leaves as the only book in that stack with its spine out but then it’s not mentioned in the video. Details like that are so intriguing.
Harambe sees you and saves you
I'm re-watching this a year later and just caught it. Really glad someone else noticed it. Honestly, though, it certainly is a book that's concerned with infinity...
this reminded me that i need to get a new copy of house of leaves, i gave mine to my english teacher when i graduated
He mentions it here (video is called Control, anatomy and the legacy of the hounted house ruclips.net/video/mexs39y0Imw/видео.html), that's how I decided to read the book
I was thinking about that too. I noticed it pretty early in the video and was waiting to see if he'd actually mention it. About halfway through the suspense was killing me and I came down to the comments to see if I could find any hints.
I love this.
Being a physicist, I work with infinity almost second nature. It is frighteningly easy to capture it with maths - it really is just a symbol, and because we made up maths, we just also made up rules on how infinity would work. Ain't no one ever gonna disprove any of those anyways.
I think it is the perfect conversational partner to the artistic dialogue with infinity.
I'll never be more frightened by anything more. Infinity in physics, to me, always seemed - quite literally - like real-life cosmic horror. The more you ask questions, the more the answers drive you mad. You start to uncover infinities where they really shouldn't be.
I don't get this.
Being a physicist, why would you ever be scared of infinity? It's easy to capture it with maths, and yet did we really invent maths? Or are we discovering what was already laid out in nature? There are theories that say the true nature of the universe is that is a mathematical object, not simply one whose phenomenon are predicted and governed by maths.
For every new aspect of infinity we may discover out there, the volume that makes us also encompasses something endless and inscrutable.
That small conscious part of us doing the examining, is nothing compared to the huge empty spaces inside us, and between all substance.
In that unknown infinity, there may be things that bear us ill intentions, or the appearance of that, but those conscious foe(s) are limited and finite as our own minds are.
@@xplosionslite6439 Well, it's difficult to say. There are aspects of math that are definitively made up for the sake of math itself. If you follow the rules of logic that math presents, and you do it faithfully and purely, sooner or later you find paradoxes that invalidate everything about math, and the only option is to confine them with made up rules for the sake of conserving previous math discoveries, and is context dependent too; if you work with algebra you make certain choices and assumptions than if you work with calculus with infinitesimals. There are examples of this and we are well familiar with them; dividing by 0, the Russell's paradox that can only be solved by restricting the definition of a set, dealing with infinity itself when you decide to do arithmetic with it instead of considering it just a concept and thus does not make sense to do so, and stuff like that that deals with the pure logic of it all.
Math is far from being the absolute truth that most people think it is and mathematicians themselves, the more they learn about mathematics, will be the first ones to admit it. Math can be very philosophical.
I appreciate the fact that s physicist vocally accepts maths are not the absolute truth. It is s good approximation ,sometimes . But let's thank Turing and Godel for showing us the only truth !
@@Stealth1337 Incompleteness is hardly the only truth, but it's certainly one of the more important (and deeply weird) truths.
@@cryptekcathekh8798 Another truth. Care to point to more ? :D
It’s shaped like a sideways eight
That's no fun
this man summarized a 26 min video in a single sentence comment
oh nooo i thought i was original i was just gonna make that comment
The greatest philosopher of our time
sideway 8 is more cycle than infinity
Thank god he’s back, i was starting to have a normal mental health for a bit
Lol same
Insanity by psychiatric means it's sanity at neurological level.
They numb your brain by shut your thinking up in order to make you a loyal impotent follower...
He instead lull yours neurons untill they dream reality with eyes wide open...Delta waves emitter, his beard works as filter for any tipe of alpha negative and imposing waves.
It's a more than effective tool of enlightenment.
@@antoniopacelli _The joker_ has entered chat.
@@alw2839 I rarely joke on neuronal sanity.
And when I do it's to nullify some neuropsychiatrist, bringing them to the level they're worthy of.
I know joker by this day is quite popular... but I didn't get if you liked my comment or not...
Was too much mental?
@@antoniopacelli yes
More than talking directly/mathematically about something as baffling and unexplainable/unknowable as infinity in your video, you talked about artistic representations of infinity. What a unique, refreshing approach. Also, I'm getting Manifold Garden.
Update: My 10-year old boy got Manifold Garden two days ago as a gift from me, started playing it yesterday, and he's LOVING it. Success!
@@ernestolombardo5811awesome 😁
I am so happy you talked about Opałka, I think he is genuinely one of the most interesting artists in my country's history, and it upsets me whenever I hear about him in the context of "hurr durr stupid modern art that doesn't mean anything and requires no skill" because not only that point of view is utterly stupid, but also I feel like of all conceptual abstract artists, the weight of his project is the most blatant. The insane dedication, the "march towards death" aspect, the meaningfulness is undeniable to me and I'm happy to see it appreciated.
The idea that modern art is souless and profit driven is laughable when looking at someone like Opałka, like is their anything more human than trying to write infinity
Seems kinda similar to monks who devote their lives to a specific life style. I think it's super cool that someone had such diligence and dedication to their project! This channel has certainly given me an awesome new perspective on modern art
The man did math to figure out how much to tint down his paint every day and people say his art requires no skill? crazy
@@tortis6342 it’s basically the issue of a random person watching a boxer and not really being able to see what makes their punches so much more deadly than what that person could throw at that moment (speed and precision after repeating the punch thousands of times). A lot of the skills that the greatest masters of any profession wield, are invisible to most people who aren’t masters themselves.
@@thecrazycapmaster yes exactly! Sometimes, people don’t know enough to understand how much they don’t know.
I’m sorry, but... “airborne burial with no fear of ever hitting the ground” is probably one of the greatest lines of poetry Jacob has ever written.
Agreed, I was stunned by that line. For a moment I was even like "that seems sacrilegious somehow", since the concept of just dropping a body down an endless hole is absurd. But the more I thought about it, putting them in a small box, putting that small box in a hole, then covering up said box with dirt is MUCH more absurd in comparison. That, or just burning it and leaving dust. An "airborne burial" is actually quite beautiful of a concept now-- it seems more free, you know?
@@mistahchad220 Like being shot into space.
@@seanperone449 the image of someone shooting their nan out of a giant space cannon is not one i expected today.
Of course, in a real airborne burial you do hit the ground eventually. You hit it several times, in fact, after passing through the digestive systems of several buzzards.
Something that's interesting about that is the fact that, unless the horizontal dimensions of the hole were infinite, it would be all but impossible to drop something in such a way that it wouldn't eventually drift to the edge and collide with it. An infinity of falling and bumping off the railings, flailing, bruising. Ouch.
Jacob Geller: Deep Video Game Existential Crisis
Me: Yes.
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
this video has a lot in common with a philosophical school called phenomenology, its like a study of time but based on how we experience it rather than its passage. the "being toward death" thing is really prominent in that school of thought.
The horizon is both the limit and the boundless possibility of human experience, as is the same with one's own consciousness of the passage of time. Husserl is based asf. (Heidegger, on the other hand, is cringe. His work is an amalgamation of realist phenomenology and Hegelian elaboration of mediacy, tinged with thinly-veiled-and, much later, explicit-evocations of Volkgeist nationalism that gave credence to National Socialism and Hitler's regime. I recommend Emmanuel Faye's work to learn more on Heidegger and his deleterious role he actively cultivated in the development of philosophy as a discipline.)
The first time I ever experienced the vast infinity of time was at age 9, when I watched a video of someone build a clock in Minecraft built to outlast not only the computer running the program, but also the human civilization that coded it, the envelopment of our Earth by the Sun, and the heat death of the universe itself. It blew my mind, that someone could take such a simple device and make it infinite. There's something about seeing a toy made for kids to play with turned into a measurement tool for the time left until the end of everything.
People have made deliberately inefficient solutions to SpaceChem's puzzles like that.
OK BUT the fact that you had House of Leaves in the background and never mentioned it just fills me with a sort of deep existential dread and fuck why do I have vertigo from watching a video essay
Which book was that? Is it the one with its spine facing the camera?
@@ZedAmadeus yep
@@ZedAmadeus My god that book was an intense experience I will never forget. Fitting that it shows up in this video. You should absolutely follow your curiosity and read it (I think it's important to have the physical book; this is a unique book that has elements that would be challenging in some ways for an e-reader)
I love how falling down seems like ascending at the same time.
it is!
You just have to go head first.
to fly is to fall in a controlled manner in a direction that isn't down.
If you like that, you should definitely check out the Gravity Rush series!
@@97Multiphantom cool! thanx
There's a mistranslation in the Hugo quote, the translator used "belief" to translate "croît", it actually means to grow or rise. "Croit" translates to "believes", from the verb "croire", "croît" is from the verb "croître", to grow. Yes, french is weird.
All of Jacob’s videos are marvelous, but this one really did it for me in a different kind of way. It made me think back to my childhood when I first got into writing D&D campaigns. I wrote about many worlds with distinct histories and people, and I strive to make each interesting and distinct in its own right. There was one element, however, that I kept constant through every world, and that was an infinite library. It didn’t exist anywhere in particular. It was a place that could only be reached accidentally. Stretched forever in every direction, and was infinitely varied, with equally bizarre and marvelous ecosystems carving out niches everywhere, forever. It was an abyss in every direction, and falling was a primary mode of transport. It’s interesting to me, the similarities and differences in how people tackle the infinite. I had never heard of these brilliant artists before, though I’m certainly intrigued now. I first learned of infinite libraries in reading Sir Pratchett’s Diskworld. I wonder why it is that libraries are most often the spaces endowed with eternity, because in the real world they’re fleeting, as everything is. Perhaps it’s because libraries carry the immense weight of time, storing mostly volumes of those who’ve passed on, and will come to carry volumes yet to be. Maybe it’s because people who think of infinity love to read.
I don’t know if you’ll read this Jacob, but if you ever tackle this topic again, I’d like to encourage you to explore, however briefly it may be, the mathematics of infinity. I never lost my love of studying the infinite, and in fact it’s what drove me to become a mathematician. Math has tamed infinity in wild ways, but in others it has shown infinity to be more incomprehensible than anyone could have previously dreamed. I highly encourage reading the book “Infinity in the Mind”, by Rudy Rucker. It’s a fabulous introduction the study of infinity that’s very light on the maths, and it gives a marvelous historical perspective on our species struggle with eternity. Keep up the marvelous work. We need more people like you around.
I also have an infinite library in my D&D world, but it fits more into a set of infinity like the Cantor set. And finite amount of books have been written, it's impossible to achieve an infinite amount of books, yet this library offers an amount of knowledge to be gained that would span multiple hundreds of lifetimes to read through. The library in size is infinite and in those outer reaches of infinity there are endless amounts of completely empty bookshelves. Among these empty shelves are authors and writers and wizards who have lived in this library for generations, with their only purpose being fruitlessly and painfully trying to fill all of those shelves only for the next generation to have to struggle just the same way.
Libraries can be considered infinite if you consider each book a world unto itself, making libraries reach closer to infinity more tangibly than any other infinity we can put our minds to.
@@RomitHeerani Many of the greatest libraries in the world are also endowed with massive trust funds, set up by the rich and powerful of days past such that the library could be operated in perpetuity. Constantly able to acquire and retire volumes so, after a long enough time, your experience will always be renewed. Libraries express the immensity of time in a unique way. Through the history of the books in their collections, the time within the worlds and narratives depicted within the volumes, the physical expenditure of time as a reader spent exploring them, and the notion that a decently sized library collection may be more than you could consume within your lifespan.
I love the idea of an ethnography, or an anthology of them, written just to describe such an infinite library. Written as a frame narrative that transitions from one explorer's viewpoint to another and annotated by a third party who is attempting to compile such reports to understand how such a place can exist. That would be a fascinating book, because you could have records from dozens of different points of view, which would allow you to explore the various psychological approaches to being confronted with the infinite, with a commentary from a more distanced vantage point that is closer to the reader than those hapless souls who wandered inadvertently into the infinite library. It's a fascinating idea for how to express the profundity, the vastness, the horror of the infinite. Presented with a place that contains all that is knowable but which, itself, is beyond understanding. Of course, this is premised by the notion that there is some means by which you can escape from the library.
Thank god, I wasn't sure if I was gonna have an existential crisis this month.
Ur pfp makes it funnier
*God
Close call!
I love how you're like "i juste make videos about videogames" on twitter but you're really making videos about fine arts, architecture, philosophy, History, litterature, science ... And videogames.
That's Always incredible writing.
With every person who pursues infinty by taking inspiration from Piranesi, the infinite only continues; Piranesi may not have finished his infinity, but he started it, and it can not be stoped. So the infinite will continue...
Anyone who learns of it can pass it on through another relay of that infinity, and those who learn of it on that second step can do the same, and by the time that chain burns out... is that not an infinity for every consciousness that could have ever seen it?
Bro, you just shattered my small mind.
Expecally with the legos. I will admit, I did laugh, but the thing I laughed at with that was the fact that the final clock won't rotate till the universe stops its existence. It's crazy how we can simulate something like that, but it's still way beyond comprehension
And just like that, the beard is back in full
Jacob's beard will NOT be contained
He have the infinite hair
And it is *glorious*
He’s going to need a dollar shave club sponsorship to stop that beard
how is this comment a day old this video is only three hours old 😳
A quote: "I like the world; I just wouldn't like to be the one who paints it."
Was it Steven Write that said that?
@@ryansabin2618 could be... honestly its more like i heard someone quote it and they heard it from somone else.
It's a small world, but I wouldn't want to paint it. - Steven Wright
Thank you@@jwight8509 yesss... Thank you.
Sadly it doesn't work any more.
I had always feared infinity, that which does not end just never seems natural, something that couldn't possibly exist. But one day I looked at the night sky and came to a simple realization,the universe I'm in right now is infinite and even though it seems finite from this point of view it stretches far beyond that (of course I knew the universe was infinite but never really digested it) and I just stared and stared hoping to see further into the small scope of the universe I possessed at the time, and then instead of a growing anxiousness, I felt a far stronger relief from this experience. There is something cathartic about the infinity of the universe, within it anything is possible and yet almost none of it will be observed, it'll keep existing and existing with no one to explore it, and even if someone were able too they would never be able to see it all, a universe of infinite wonders and beauty, of infinite horrors and ugliness that stretches beyond imagination and bogles the mind. But from that day forward instead of anxiety and stress, infinity brought me a certain sick joy and can't explain to this day.
Just wanted to share hoped you liked reading it.
thanks for this
Small note we have no upper bound on the size of the universe. That does not mean it is infinite only that we have thus far failed to prove it is finite. If it is infinite though then there are infinitely many of you having the same thoughts and many more similar enough to be indistinguishable.
I don't think the universe is infinite. Just really really really really big. I've heard estimates of 20,000,000,000,000 light years to 1,000,000,000,000,000 light years across but we can never know the true size until warp drive is invented because of the incredibly large event horizon at the edge of the observable universe
No lie, this video helped me overcome and grapple fear of death. Not despairing over never reaching infinite, but realising the journey there is meaningful in its own right, even if it'll never conclude, is a way of thinking that's honestly changed how I see life. So thank you.
Your "legacy of the haunted house" video got me to read house of leaves. I see it there, facing the audience in a stack of otherwise anonymous volumes.
I'm so glad I'm not the only one who noticed that!
I kept feeling that book was looking at me and not vice versa...
I got it a few months ago but haven't got around to reading more than the prologue. I'll take this as a sign that it's time to begin.
@@trolltoll2825 Don't read it during winter. It casts a long shadow even in mid-July.
Would you recommend me reading the book first, or would the video not really spoil any off the experience of reading the book?
This is Piranesian effect is exactly what I encountered in a recent playthrough of bloodborne where I made sure to stop after every encounter to whip out the monocle to see if I could spy the chiselled head of the cathedral clocktower above; the faint pale shape of the church of the good challice nestled deep in the valley; or perhaps the giant tree growing behind the source of the dream.
The sheer absurdity of Yarnham seems to be that it is build on top of a series of telescoping cylindrical platforms without exits or windows. They thrust out of the valley in a manner that suggests that they extend far under ground. These tower-like platforms are clustered at such varying altitudes that they should be instantly distinct, but it seems that the yharnamites have so thoroughly paved their tops with pointed towers, connecting bridges and cluttered streets that the forest disappears between the trees.
Obviously the platforms that can be seen from the hunter's dream are representative of this reality. I always thought they were the dreams of other hunters.
When I was out in Germany this summer, I wandered into a bookstore. I walked out with Piranesi. If I had known about this video at that time, I had forgotten. I finished it in a day. It was a welcome surprise, then, that it came up in this video, watching, or perhaps rewatching it. I feel you did it justice, especially for the purposes of this video.
Reminds me of one of the 14 great fears of the Magnus Archives. "The vast" or "the falling titan" or "the endless deep" is one of my favorites. And this video captures that concept perfectly. Infact most of your videos tend to do really well in exemplifying what can make such concepts as "the 14 great fears" truly terrifying. I love it.
Infinity is my favourite analogy to life. We try and pretend we understand it, maybe as a way to cope with its ambiguity, but no matter how hard we try during our lifetime, we were never meant to grasp all of it.
The small parts of it end up being the most significant and most important. Infinity at the end of the day, is mostly empty space.
@@easonkamander7348 It's all connected
emm, try your hand at a Psychedelic. I understand infinity just fine, so speak for yourself bud!
@@bujfvjg7222 *Jordan D wants to know your location*
I can somewhat comprehend one end of infinity. Never ending
Now attempt to wrap your head around this
*Never beginning. Always was, never began*
@@TURAMOTH What's hard to grasp about what you've experienced for yourself?
You weren't around for the start of you, and you won't be around for the end. You are an experience without beginning or end.
for some reason the discussion about the wandering of the library as a holy task, as something one approaches with reverence, everything about this video reminds me of "you are not obligated to complete the work, neither are you free to abandon it"...a conversation with the infinite. what a lovely video as always :) thank you for sharing this
It's been 20 years since I first read House of Leaves. Seeing it's binding still triggers a more powerful emotive response than most media ever gets from me. Thanks to you, I'm reading it a second time, all these years later.
Thank You Jacob Geller.
I remember joining the charity live stream just as someone was awkwardly telling Jacob about the *House* of Leaves. That felt like a special moment, to me, made me feel a deep sense of midding. And now I come to this, with that book subliminally announcing that yes, he has now met that particular kind of infinity.
He did already discuss House of Leaves in a video more than a year before this one
“Every day is a journey and the journey itself is home” - Matsuo Basho
ooh
Just started and I am reminded of two things
1) the repeating worldgen seeds in minecraft. Patterns every handful of blocks, repeating on an axis forever.
2) The House of Leaves. I didn't watch the Control video, still need to play the game.
Busy right now, will finish later. Also the magic man Sam (rhystic studies) shouted you out as a great video essayist on twitter if you didn't know.
Jacob and Sam would be the greatest nerd crossover of all time
Every time jacob references the infinite library i remember the minecraft april fools dimension which was literally that- an infinite library of infinite books all saying different combinations of letters
Maybe you’re reminded of house of leaves because in the tower of books behind Jacob in the video, the only book whose spine is facing the audience is House of Leaves.
It drove me crazy that he didn’t mention it once LOL. I know that was on purpose.
@@IronhandedLayman It's the highest level of nerd signalling. One of us. One of us.
@@IronhandedLayman I can't believe I didn't notice that
The fact that house of leaves isn't mentioned once, but clearly visible in the background just to imply it's presence in this conversation is great.
Piranesi’s works (the carceri in particular) have been a huge inspiration to me, knowing I’m not alone in this obsession made my year.
It’s the one RUclips or that gives me chills literally every time he makes a video.
*RUclipsr
@@DussyBestroyer69 bruh
I agree, he is amazing.
I like to think of myself as a big manly man, but something about Jacob's vids bring me to tears, (of various types), every time.
Try out the channel "Pursuit of Wonder", he has consistently impactful videos, mostly little self contained short stories. Pretty different content from this channel, but it too very often gives me the chills do to the strange ways it can make me think about things.
I hope someone else here shares my obsession with 3D fractals (mathematical shapes designed to be infinite). The community doesn’t seem quite as active as it was years ago but apparently it can take full weeks to render a video through your computer just to be a few minutes long.
Here is an introduction to 4D fractals: paulbourke.net/fractals/quatjulia/
I found a program over a decade ago called quat or quatanim which was basically a ray tracer strapped to a quaternion calculator. You would write a simple config file, run the program, and it would spit out an image: one time-slice of a 4D Julia set. It was easy enough to string together frames to make a basic video. The tough part was figuring out what c values gave good fractals and where the camera should go to get a good view. I can't find this program anymore (luckily I kept a copy), but I was able to also find it mentioned here: theory.org/software/qfe/ .
@@Yiab isn’t the setting on Mandelbulb (program) where things shift based on the angle you look at them already analogous to creating 4D fractals?
@@Yiab I don’t know much of the math side, in fact I suck at math and executing programs, I’m just a noobie with an intense admiration.
@@expendableindigo9639 No, because there is no symmetry involving time involved. That isn't a 4D fractal in the same way as a 10 second video of a sphere isn't the same as a 4D equivalent to a sphere (i.e. a hypersphere). A video of a hypersphere is a tiny sphere that pops into existence and rapidly grows, slowing at a quadratic rate until it stops growing, then starts slowly shrinking, increasing the speed of shrinking until it vanishes.
@@expendableindigo9639 No shame in being unfamiliar with the math or programming side of it - the images and videos are gorgeous - I just think that the math (and to some degree the programming) is also quite beautiful.
I watched this vid the day it came out. The thing is... it stuck with me ever since. I keep coming back to it, I keep remembering bits here and there, I keep recommending it to my friends.
It's the best thing I watched on RUclips in the past 8 years. It resonates with me so much. It pushed me creatively. It made me think about rejected projects, about the future, about the grand scheme of things. Or maybe instead of it, I should say You.
I am grateful to you for making this essay. Maybe in a small way, but in a way, it changed me. It changes the way how I view some things. You made me curious again.
And for that - thank you.
I waited to write anything about it because I've waited for my copy of Piranesi and in my country the premiere was delayed. I finished it 5 minutes ago.
Excluding RUclips, Money, and all of this stuff... you seem like a great guy and I would love to talk to you some day.
Take care, and thank you.
Yeah. I also love rewatching this video. It's my favorite Jacob Geller video so far.
My dude,
This obsession with the infinite is what brings me to your channel. My first dive into the abyss was, to the annoyance of my lab partner, in 5th grade when we opened ms excel and rather than doing the standard stuff i started to press down, to see where it ends. I continued to do so in the upcoming weeks, marking the cell i left at the end of the period. I never reached the bottom as our teacher caught the wind of this endeavour and revoked my access for misusing the equipment. Later we learnt there are 1048576 rows in excel, only I was the one who felt it.
Isaac Brock once said "The universe is shaped exactly like the Earth" and it took me over a decade and a degree in philosophy to understand that he was exactly right.
Can you try to impart the meaning of such a statement?
It has no boundaries.
@@fellower flat
@@Chris_128 no
@@fellower Without sitting with it for very long, which I will certainly do, my surface reading is that:
"Ok so what is the shape of the Earth? A mere globe? Surely that is too meaningless an answer for such a comparison. So it must be referring to something grander. Is a tiny crack in the soil, within which worms may live, on top of which bacteria may grow, inside of which, cells interact, inside of which atoms spin and whirl... is that an infinitely small piece of the 'shape' of the Earth? Does that perhaps give us a window into the 'shape' of the larger universe, of which the Earth is only a 'crack'? :-)"
See also:
htwins.net/scale2/
I also always liked CS Lewis' story 'The Great Divorce', exploring 'the afterlife'. Highly recommend.
Wow. Thanks again for weaving such an amazing story out of disparate media.
I now want to make an "artwork" which is just a PC playing Manifold Garden, falling forever, all IO soldered shut, backup power. I call it "Heat Death".
That seems real neat as an idea! :3
a PC infinitely running, generations pass, the PC gathers dust, always on, always running.
I'm hoping the PC dies literally from heat death to the GPU in a few years. Probably from dust first 🤣
I wonder how long a computer could last like this.. My old gaming PC can take litterally 3 days of messing with it to get it to turn on, due to a fault in the case. Because of that, I never turn it off. I've made extensive effort to make the PC run without interruption. It's ran for more than a year straight before! Only goes due to power outages It uses open air and a solid state grill cooling system (By luck) meaning it has very little points of failure, and can run games almost indefinitely without getting any hotter. That's just what I walked backwards into to keep this thing alive, imagine setting up a PC to do this on purpose? It could possibly run for decades.
I have a suggestion: Instead, build a machine that performs a particular action or calculation one time, then stops. The fun part is to have the machine take longer than the entire lifespan of the universe to get from the start of the action or calculation to its completion.
The comprehensible facets of infinity are far less interesting (in many ways) than that which is finite but unimaginably large.
Idk how much/if you look at the comments on older videos like this, but this is a video that I, at least, come back to at least every couple of months. The awe and terror of grappling with, much less portraying something so much bigger than humanity--infinity, god, the universe, whatever form it comes in, is such a beautiful, poignant, futile, profoundly human thing.
I think this essay also, uh, kind of changed my life? There were a lot of other factors, but still. I fell HARD down a rabbit hole after learning about Piranesi’s prisons through this, and long story short, that snowballed and I quit my job and now I'm in architecture school. So, uh, yeah. It's a really great video and essay, and thank you for sharing your work.
!!! Thank you very much, I'm touched.
This channel is a thing of the night sky, The Awful Deep, of a thing that is larger than the mind could ever hold, The Vast edges of human thought, of the edges of the universe, and beyond that to the edge of infinity. This is a thing that has no point where you could stand to properly Behold it's entirety, a Titan that is too large to regard you, your home, your planet, the entirity of everything you and humanity is, has been, and will be as much more than a speck. This is the limits of a life eternal.
Nice TMA reference
8:00 this doesn't quite apply to the styling of the structures, but the first thing those art engravings reminded me of was Bloodborne, and the cramped, dark structure of Yharnam. it's striking when you see it, and i could likely see a lot of the deep looking incredible structures in the art actually appearing SOMEWHERE in the dark city of Yharnam.
Oh totally.
Have you ever looked at the zoom outs of bloodborne maps? It's uncomfortable how huge and impossible the spaces can look from afar! You could do an entire video on the strange, winding, litterally infinite impossibilities of the chalice dungeons. That's not even getting into the whole concept of multiple distorted versions of the same realities being layered on top of each other, each more distorted and degraded then the one above it. I just adore the level and world design of that game!
@@ThrottleKitty checkout -Alt236 channel if you're interested he's basically our french Jacob Geller lol he makes similar content and he made an amazing video on Bloodborne (english subtitles available).
The first thing I thought of was the infinite expanse of world trees that greet you as you first discover ash lake in Dark Souls. The feeling you get when you see just how far ash lake stretches is pretty indescribable. Like, Dark Souls makes you feel small and insignificant the entire game, but ash lake is a different experience all together.
@@jmoomoomoo oh GREAT one, ash lake is like a religious experience.
Actual chills with the intro alone
The elegance and succinctness of your words, music choices derived not from royalty-free downloads but from appropriate small corners of gaming's vast, irregularly-documented discography... to say the least of the subjects you choose. These videos make me cry, but I do not always know which emotion they are sourced from.
All this reminds me of the “Mandelbrot Set.” Videos. Where through mathematics and geography, you can literally travel deep down into infinity. When I watch a Mandelbrot set it gives me an overwhelming feeling. It is the closet representation of God I will see, until my body dies and my spirit goes to be in his presence. To be with an infinite being for infinity! Makes my head spin.
We already are with an infinite being. Actually we're parcels of it. We're the tiny deformed mandelbrots inside the big one.
The atmosphere in this video was just incredible. The Manifold Garden OST helped a lot with this - reminded me to check it all out myself directly after this video! It feels like a spiritual sequel to Fear of Depths in a way - but instead of earthly depths, the fear and compulsion alike we feel here is of a more abstract, and yet even greater sort.
The fear and temptation of the Infinite itself.
And of course, of course we have always been fascinated by the infinite, and the eternal. After all, what is the idea of God without their all-encompassing, unending state? Likewise for any other deities with these traits, though some deities buck this trend by being both mortal and temporary - the Norse Gods perhaps being the most well known example of the latter.
Perhaps gods were just humanity's oldest attempt to comprehend the infinite, in a world where the horizion itself might as well have been unending. Likewise the oceans, and of course, the sky. Humanity was just as aware of their smallness in the world back then I imagine. So coping mechanisms to deal with the infinite would likewise probably be similarly ancient in origin.
Or maybe I am just rambling on too late at 4:30 AM. XD Either way, an excellent and wonderful video!
Ah yes, the sexual tension between your videos and the ability to give me existential crises over the most abstract topics
I’m watching this while high and the feeling in my chest is indescribable. Your voice has power and fills me with hope
I was high the first time I watched this and had to pause and go sit outside and stare at nothing for a while when it got to the quote about gnats unaware that they're buzzing on the edge of the abyss. Good lord that's a powerful line.
That hunger for the infinite, only to never have it be satisfied. Makes me think about the theme of Ecclesiastes 3:11. We need more art that dives into this topic. More paintings, more novels, more immersive experiences. We all have the space for it.
I just thought about the fact that if the painter had kept going, he eventually would’ve gotten to a number that is just repeating the list
12 is a repetition of "1, 2" so he reached such a number very early on...
He wouldn't ever write down a number that completely repeats everything he has written so far without skipping more than he has already written down.
I find it kinda mindblowing that not only can you read the whole list of numbers as thought it were one long number, even if you do, you're still no closer to reaching infinity than when you began.
"Subterraneans" by David Bowie.
Something about this song for me that captured that feeling of crushing infinity in a way I can't fully describe. Almost claustrophobic and yet endless and permanent. I get the same feeling of that sublime enormity when I see some of Piranesi's work. It's just beautiful.
damn you really said "a conversation with the eternal" and killed me on the spot!! good job, good job ;-;
As soon as he showed the number of that last gear, I thought "Stop. Memetic hazard"
Honestly, all of his videos should have a CW: memetic hazard
Literal shivers, literal tears rolling down my face, and literal use of the word literal. Fan for life and what an honor to dive head first into a perspective I value more than most people I’ve met. Thank you for your continued work and sharing your thoughts through words that have, yet again, moved me. Thank you.
The final scene of House of Leaves (involving the bicycle) has been seared into my imagination for well over a decade. Many scenarios remind me of it, and the reminder never fails to elicit a shudder.
I've just finished reading Piranesi and it is truly an amazing novel. I highly recommend it!
This is some of the most literary writing I have ever heard in a video essay. Beautiful and magnificent.
This video was the culmination of all the little ideas you've broughten up through these videos definitely one of your best
The shape of infinity? Of course everybody knows that it's a Nonagon.
You can try and reach infinity, but you can't avoid King Gizz fans
Anything is possible
Everything exists
Nothing makes sense
ENJOY THE ETERNAL
Man, I love you, this is one of the best videos I've ever seen. I live in Uruguay, neighbor country to Argentina, the country that gave birth to the great Jorge Luis Borges. He's truly a legend, and I'm moved to tears to see such a great work including him. You are the best. Much love!
You're absolutely killing it with music/sound in these videos.
Just started the video, I'm waiting until he says "I think about this a lot"
Jacob, I have to say it. I'm not someone who posts comments very often, but this time you surpassed yourself! I'm not joking when I'm telling this could be one of your best videos (if not the best). Every time I watch it, I feel different, almost as comprehending new realities and new truths.
Thank you very much, for everything 🙂
(Oh, P.S., you have to work on those italian pronunciations, but that's the less 😄)
"Nothing is infinite - except potential. Only within the conceptual can we find that without boundaries."
Potential is finite too though.
@@ade8890 Is it? I'd be interested in an example.
@@tahunuva4254 Potential = what could be.
What could be is constrained by the laws of physics, which defines each and every possible particle transition states.
There are a finite number of particles. There are a finite number of transitions per particle. Hence, there are finite possible realities.
So potential is very very very very large, but not infinite. Think about his lego gears to get an idea of it. Nowhere close to infinity, but mind bogglingly large.
@@ade8890 Ah, yes you're correct. However, I was more referring to the mathematical potential: or, a process that, given infinite time, would continue indefinitely.
@@tahunuva4254 Oh yeah. Infinite exists in the abstract for sure. Doesn't appear to exist in reality though =/.
An infinite domain/range is the best possible way to find models to predict our circumstance ;). Hence we can describe Pi, something that exists in reality and is finite in reality, but takes an infinite amount of digits to describe.
Infinity is a tool for the conscious to apply to the real world.
"Maybe he just likes making prisons."
Sounds like a line from the little prince. Adults can really be absurd sometimes.
Sounds like a line from the little prince. Adults can really be absurd sometimes.
I was doing hw, but that can wait for a new Jacob geller vid
This is the only channel I’ve seen where the ads legitimately strike me as out of place and make me realize how engaged I am with the vid
Don't ever stop doing what you do, your videos make me feel a way I never knew that I understood deep within my soul and you manage to shove your arm right in there and bring it to the surface
every time...
every time i see your videos, i feel...
...small?
thank you for providing this content!
and thanks to everyone involved!
you truly give stuff to think about! :)
I really love Manifold Garden. I started to play the game sometime in august, and I'm still thinking about the concept and the world of the game
As an italian artist I'm so, so glad you mentioned the work of Piranesi. It was my immediate thought after the first few minutes. I also think the game Monument Valley was worth mentioning, though it is of a more Escher-esque inspiration :)
It's weird, after finishing this video, my breathing felt so clear. I guess there's a special kind of peace that comes with the thought of infinity.
Infinite spaces always fascinated me. The idea of buildings that never ends, with each door opening on a new room, either identical to a thousand that came before, as in a loop, or in the contrary, each that possesses its own individuality... I thought more than once how it would feel to be in such a place. I always imagined it depopulated.
That said, a few month ago, I can't remember exactly when, I made a dream where I found myself suddenly stuck in a infinite town. I really like this concept, but I also find it baffling. Can you imagine living in a town which you don't even know the limits?? And also, if the town is infinite, it means there are no sea, no forest, no desert, no swamp, no meadows or plains. How do people can live in such place? Where do resources come from? It so fascinating to think about it...
The concept of infinity within time makes me remember a book excerpt. In one of the tome of the series "Au bonheur des Ogres" by Daniel Pennac, there's a character talking to a dying old men, and they say that, since numbers are infinite, time is stretching on itself, a moment, a second cannot end, and thus, the instant of death never comes. I can't remember the sentence exact, but when the old men finally dies, peaceful, someone comments on how he "never saw someone dying with the entirety of their live laying ahead". It's too bad I can't remember it exactly because, gosh darn, it made an impact on me!
Amazing video, I couldn't stop watching from start to the end, really!
I see that house of leaves book in the background! one of my faves, very on topic
ruclips.net/video/mexs39y0Imw/видео.html
*30 seconds in*
"wait is that House of Leaves?" *checks my bookshelf*
"yep that's House of Leaves."
ruclips.net/video/mexs39y0Imw/видео.html
@@expendableindigo9639 damn that's crazy
one of the things I love most about Jacob Geller's videos on artistic interpretation of abstract concepts is that he so eloquently gives words to shapeless ideas that I have been pondering. Maybe I wouldn't use the exact same words to describe these things, after all I am not the same person, but with Geller's perspective I can find better ways to shape my own.
i've just met you through the Shadow of the Colossus video, this is second video i see and man, i'm so in love with your content and the way you put it together and take us through that journey, so well narrated. New suscriber here!
By the way, i'm so looking forward to Clarke's novel to be published here in Spain!! Also, loved to see House of Leaves there, so in line with the topic. I loved that book. I played Manifold Garden in the quaratine this year and i found it fascinating. You expressed it so well, it doesn't need to give you a reason to explore it's world, the space is the main reason. Some people need a reason to do things but impossible, infinite spaces are a thing i personally found hypnotic i just want to go deeper and deeper.
I'm so glad i found you.
“I wonder if he’ll mention Borges’s short story about- Yup”
Didn't mention Echo(game), or Nihei's manga though.
oh wow i loved this. i swear the music choice in these is always so on point. always helps in giving me chills
Honestly - you're channel is one of the best things I have come across, not on RUclips but in my life, anywhere. As an actor I am enthralled by your delivery, as a writer I am addicted to your content, as a learner I am tumbling through the research and sources you bring together so effectively.
I think your work must be a testament to your personal character.
P.S. I want to get back into reading, for pleasure and work - if you're game, I would love for you to post a list of those books you have next to you.
The exact moment I saw this title, I just thought "This is gonna be about Manifold Garden, isn't it?"
I remember when I finished playing through the game, my thoughts were something along the lines of "It's really just breathtaking to look at and be immersed in, but that's all it really needs to be"
Really remindes me of the game Echo. Library of Babel being a direct reference for its own infinite palace, if I remember correctly. Would highly recommend.
Going to give Manifold Garden a shot when I can. Great video as always!
glad i was intrigued enough by the first description of Clarke's Piranesi to hit pause, read the novel, and come back for the rest of the video because i love the way Opalka's fading white-on-white project of cataloging infinity talks to Piranesi (the character) describing the way his clothes have gradually faded from new to become the same shade of salt-weathered marble as the statues while he catalogs the rooms of the house and the movement of the tides. the infinite space as a character, initially separate from the person who explores it, but over time those divisions become less and less clear and the sense of separation falls away
you make videos where the info is primarily in the audio so i listen to it while im doing chores and work and stuff. but it always gets to a point where the visuals are so interesting that i abandon the current task to just sit and watch.
bravo, i found your channel about a month ago and i love your videos, ive been binge watching them since then. the topics are nuts and the comparisons you draw from games to real life and the human condition and books and stuff, ugh god its so cool and interesting!
thank you!
Your NaissanceE/BLAME! video being one of my favorites, I'm really glad to see this. Great work as always, and thanks for introducing us to these artists/writers, I'll definitely check them out!
Azeew's what video is that?
@@martijn9560 It's called Gaming's Harshest Architecture: NaissanceE and Alienation.
You, sir, have elevated the art of the video essay, in my humble opinion. This isn't just a video essay; it's video poetry.
Real talk, thank you for introducing me to Piranesi, just picked it up after watching this and that book absolutely owns
same here, one of the best things i've read in years! i couldn't get this video out of my head, so i picked up a copy of piranesi, and now i can't get that out of my head
every time i’m really lost in my life i come and watch your video essays. the way you talk about subjects and make grand connections between pieces of art it makes me feel less at odds with the universe. This is my favorite essay of yours, it got me to pick up manifold garden and get absorbed in the boundlessness of it, and it helped me push through a challenging time. thank you so much.
In 14 years of Ytube i've seen so many video... and none of them has talk to me in such power about Kantian sublime.
Sublime.
Oh hell yeah new Jacob Geller video!! And it’s the type where he talks to the camera!!!! I can’t wait to watch this as soon as I get out of class
this is a really good encapsulation of how i feel playing a from software game. Seemingly neverending descents and ascents, cities and ages stacked on top of one another to the point you think you'll never find the bottom.
Your videos are some of the most different content I’ve seen on RUclips, and I appreciate how much you seem to enjoy talking about the stuff you do.