"I read Friendly And Hostile Analogies For Taste by Scott Alexander and I'm confused," said Elsani.
"Why are you reading a blog post that's over 100 years old?" asked her friend Taze, "Society has made so much progress since then."
"Has it?" asked Elsani, "A random walk, in retrospect, looks like like directional movement of distance √n. If you assume your normative values to be true, then history always looks like progress. That's how fashion changes constantly without going anywhere. This is a point Alexander makes in his blog post."
"Did Alexander really write '√n'? My understanding was that 21st-century psychiatrists didn't speak Baseline nor thought that precisely," said Taze.
"Now that you mention it, the '√n' might have been a grammatically-mandatory artifact inserted by the translation software I used," said Elsani, "But the point stands. Scott Alexander was a founding thought leader behind the Lightcone salon. They were speaking proto-Baseline before Baseline even existed."
"I understand the historical importance of Scott Alexander. But why bother with the classics? Modern pedogogical techniques are so much more efficient," said Taze.
"For trivially-verifiable objective truth, sure," said Elsani, "But for questions of value? You must treat contemporaneous society as a hostile optimizer. Doubly so for its pedagogical techniques."
"I think you need to talk to a Keeper," said Taze.
Elsani hadn't considered that. She associated Keepers with questions of strategy, fact and probability. To consult a de'a'na est shadarak about a question of value—about a question of opinion <shudder>—had never occurred to her. But it was the obvious decision in retrospect.
The Temple of Truth was a gigantic compound. At its center was a grand circular nave underneath a hemispherical dome. The walls were steel and the dome was carbon fiber, to create the grandest possible structure. In the center of the dome was a circular oculus. The whole thing symbolized an eye staring up at the heavens. When you stood before the oculus and looked straight up, you were that eye.
Elsani closed her eyes and pictured the legend.
"What do you know with absolute certainty?" asked the first Keeper.
"The sky is blue," said the first acolyte.
"Go outside. Look straight up. Tell me what you observe," said the first Keeper.
The acolyte stepped outside, and stared up a nighttime sky so light-polluted she couldn't name a single constellation. Rain fell on her face.
"It's black right now," said the first de'a'na est shadarak.
Elsani wasn't so childish as to believe that anybody could ever have believed something so obviously false as "the sky is blue" when you could look out a window and see otherwise. She understood that the story was an exaggeration. Archetypical truth, not literal truth.
"What do you know with absolute certainty?" asked the Triager.
Elsani walked slightly north of the center nave and stood under the noonday sun. She felt like a vampire getting executed. You were supposed to look upward though the oculus and state what color you observed. But Elsani wasn't here to ask a question of trivially-verifiable objective fact. She was here to understand taste. She closed her eyes and inclined her head down.
And under the light of the Sun, I shall slay giants, Elsani whispered to herself. She opened her eyes. Aloud, she said, "These are beautiful floor tiles. I know this structure is supposed to symbolize an eye, but for that to work it would have to be spherical or hemispherical. By placing the hemisphere on top of cylindrical walls, it looks more like a penis to me, and a short one at that. It's even got a hole at the tip, something that eyes, technically-speaking, do not."
Was that a slight smile on the corners of the Triager's mouth? The Triager retrieved a gold-embossed sheet of cellulose from his habit and marked it with scarlet ink.
"Thank you," said Elsani.
Elsani took an electric taxi through the underground tunnels toward the destination the Triager had marked. She emerged in the Art Sector.
Elsani didn't know exactly where the Art Sector was, which was normal. She just got into a taxi, told it "Art Sector", and a few underground minutes later she was in the Art Sector.
The Great City was built on a modular grid system designed to transcend geography. Buildings were, by default (excepting large infrastructure, like the Truth Temple complex), portable. A cable system spanning the entire city moved them around, so that it was always convenient to live near your friends.
The Art Sector was decorated as if its residents were at war against rectangles. The major collectives bought warehouse-sized portables, and then build small villages inside of them. Smaller collectives cut holes between their adjacent portables and fused them together (thereby rendering them non-portable). Some of the building transport cables had even been cut.
In short, the Art Sector was uncivilized.
Elsani noticed a middle-aged man walking around naked except for shiny tassels on his shoulders and thighs. She waved to him.
"Are you here for the Tentacle Monster Festival?" the man asked.
"Nothing so prosaic," said Elsani. She checked her cellulose, "Can you tell me where to find Arcadia of the Black Rose?"
"Ah, you're here on shadarak business," said the man, "Walk along the allée towards that kaiju sculpture made out of spray paint cans. Turn left beneath the white archway. Follow the rue étroite until you encounter the digital used bookstore. Just beyond it is an alleyway. Turn right into that alleyway. Continue until you encounter a door with a black rose on it."
Elsani asked him to repeat the instructions a couple times until she was sure she could remember them.
"Do you know what Arcadia might appreciate as dana?" asked Elsani.
"In the alleyway with the digital used bookstore is an art supply shop called Kamikami. Arcadia is a regular there. Ask the owner what she's running low on."
Elsani thanked the man and followed his instructions to the art supply shop. A boy was leaving the shop just as Elsani tried to enter and they almost bumped into each other. The boy quickly scurried away with an apology.
There was nobody at the counter. Elsani shouted a few times to no avail. In place of a cash register, there was just a box with a slit for cash, next to an ATM. She would have to guess what Arcadia might appreciate.
What did Elsani know about Arcadia? Just that Arcadia was a locally-respected Keeper living in the Art Sector, and a member of a collective called the Black Rose.
What are all artists constantly running out of? Quality snacks. Elsani left Kamikami emptyhanded and went to the nearby bakery to buy a fresh pain au chocolat as dana for the shadarak, instead.
"Did you move here recently," asked the girl at the bakery counter.
"No," said Elsani, "I'm just looking for Arcadia."
There was a snerrk sound from a little table by the window.
"Excuse me?" said Elsani, affronted. She put her hands on her hips.
"Nothing," said the boy at the table who had recently bumped into Elsani coming out of Kamikami.
"It's clearly something," said Elsani. She sat down opposite the boy, not bothering to ask permission. She looked at his notebook, "That's really pretty. What are you drawing?"
The boy was sketching a bright red 4-wheeled vehicle with a grill on the front as if it breathed air. Between that and its red curves, the vehicle looked almost alive.
"This is called a Ferrari," said the boy, "It's from an old story titled Samsara."
"You're into Scott Alexander too?" said Elsani, "I didn't know anyone else was into early 21st Century literature these days. So that's what he was writing about in the story. I assumed it was a kind of dinosaur."
"What do you want with Arcadia?" demanded the boy, "because she won't apprentice me, no matter how many times I ask."
"I'm not looking for a mistress. There's an Astral Codex blog post I'm trying to understand," said Elsani. She showed the boy Friendly And Hostile Analogies For Taste, which she had downloaded a copy of onto her e-ink datapad.
The boy read the blog post, then tapped it to show the original, which he glanced at before handing Elsani's datapad back to her.
"Why did you look at the English version?" asked Elsani, "and what's your name?"
"Because a lot of pre-Baseline philosophy is arguing about words," said the boy, "Your translation software converts the English word 'taste' into Baseline 'taste'. In this case, the translation is good enough, but other times it's possible to lose a cruxy ambiguity."
"Then what do you think?" asked Elsani, "Is taste objective like physics or an arbitrary accident of history like Hindu ritual? And what's your name anyway?"
The boy smirked. "You don't know a thing about Art, do you?"
"What is your name?"
"Soren, of the Black Rose," said Soren, "What should I address you as?"
"Elsani," said Elsani.
Soren waited for Elsani to finish. The seconds dragged on for a while. The counter girl brought each of them a glass of water.
"What makes you say I know nothing about Art?" asked Elsani.
"What is beauty?" said Soren.
"I don't know," said Elsani.
"Really?" said Soren, "Because this Ferrari is beautiful. Well, maybe not my drawing. But the original is beautiful. Was."
"Your drawing is beautiful too," said Elsani.
"How do you know?" asked Soren.
"It's a feeling I get when I look at it," said Elsani.
"Maybe that's just the conditioning talking," said Soren, "You've been taught to believe that Ferraris are beautiful."
"That can't be true," said Elsani, "Because I've never seen one before in my life. Technically I still haven't."
"Then beauty is something real," said Soren, "It's not just an arbitrary standard like grammar."
"Perhaps," said Elsani, "Would you like this pain au chocolat?"
"I couldn't take your snack," said Soren.
"It wasn't for me," said Elsani.
Soren puzzled for a moment, then accepted the perishable baked good. "Of course, people can disagree about what is beautiful."
"Then some of them are wrong," said Elsani.
"You and I enjoy pain au chocolat. But there are other people who don't. Surely that does not mean we are right and they are wrong," said Soren.
"Of course not," said Elsani, "They could be right and we could be wrong."
Soren rolled his eyes, "You know what I mean."
"You're saying different people have different preferences, and that beauty is a preference," said Elsani.
Soren resumed rendering the Ferrari in his cellulose notebook.
"If you're making art for an audience, then satisfying their preferences is, to you, a externally verifiable standard," said Elsani.
"What about preference falsification?" asked Soren, "What about unconscious preference falsification?"
"Shut your journal," said Elsani.
"Why?" asked Soren.
"Just do it," said Elsani.
Soren did.
Elsani threw her water in his face.
"What was that for?" said Soren, angrily.
"I didn't want to ruin your beautiful drawing," said Elsani.
Soren cracked a broad grin. Then he threw his glass of water in her face.
"What was that for?" said Elsani, laughing.
"You revealed a preference for it," said Soren.
Elsani got up to leave.
"Would you like to meet Arcadia?" said Soren, "I think she'd like you."
"Thank you for the offer, but I found what I was looking for," said Elsani.
