[Fis] Life goes on
Dai Griffiths
dai.griffiths.1 at gmail.com
Tue Oct 16 00:20:41 CEST 2018
Hi Pedro, and list
> 'Narratives all the way down' would find an obvious, inevitable block
with the origins of human language.
Fair point.
The regression I was pointing at is in our explanations. I would be
happy to say "It's narratives all the way down within the domain of
language and other formal systems". It is within that domain that I
worry about distinguishing narrative (as opposed to non-narrative),
because the domain seems to me to be composed of narrative.
When we step outside language, we are indeed confronted by a 'huh', or
perhaps by an 'om'. This can be an enlightening place to visit, but the
sages have cautioned us against trying to describe that place in the
narrative of language. Of course, that won't stop us trying on this list...
Dai
On 11/10/18 13:34, Pedro C. Marijuan wrote:
> Dear Dai and List,
>
> Thanks for the question. Looking for the ground of a narrative, we
> would find something else than other narratives. In the ground,
> similarly playing an important role, we may find basic necessities,
> instinctive reactions, emotions, feelings, fundamental social roles,
> etc. They belong to the genetic, epigenetic and to the developmental
> learning, often acting in our minds via the unconscious. This basic
> stuff of "human nature" is intensely intertwined with narratives,
> where it plays, in my view (and Booker's), the generative role.
> 'Narratives all the way down' would find an obvious, inevitable block
> with the origins of human language. During maybe 800.000 years or so
> 'protonarratives' were almost restricted to guttural sounds
> ("huh"style, which continues to be the most spoken "word"--Enfield
> 2017). In any case, the problem to subsume narratives within any
> single psycho-cognitive school, Gestalt in this case or Jungian in
> Booker's, is that we do not capture them quite appropriately within
> the single perspective. I referred to evolutionary psychology and
> social psychology as the most adequate frames to utilize--paying
> additional attention to other approaches from the formal sciences
> (i.e., the Borromean model?). I was amazed to see, under his own
> Jungian words, that Booker was focusing into a generative "triadic
> scheme" and the general "rule of three" among other intriguing
> interactive dynamics. But we go far beyond the present discussion...
>
> Nice comment on narratives in the mental concoction of time. I quite
> agree. Perhaps it deeply dovetails with Karl's combinatoric cyclicity,
> and with the "elusive concept of information" from Krassimir, implying
> the entangling of different kinds of narratives, among which we agree
> we must restrict ourselves to those fulfilling a series of rigorous
> conditions--the different sciences explicitly approaching information.
> With the necessity of carefully selecting the fundamental ones as
> Xueshan has argued. We are limited!
>
> About the grounding of narratives, there is a great sentence in Faust:
> "Im Anfang war die Tat". "In the beginning was the deed."
>
> Greetings to all
> --Pedro
>
> El 09/10/2018 a las 0:09, Dai Griffiths escribió:
>>
>> Thanks for restarting the list, Pedro.
>>
>> >Now the 9th principle says: "Narratives emerge as encapsulated forms
>> of human communication, underlying the
>>
>> >intricacies of social relationships, of economic organization, and
>> the very structures of political power."
>>
>> I have a lot of sympathy with your emphasis on the importance of
>> narrative. But I have had a problem nagging me for some years. The
>> question is, in gestalt terms, "If the narrative is the figure, then
>> what is the ground?". It seems to me that all human communication is
>> composed of narrative, so we have patterns within narrative, rather
>> than the encapsulation by narrative of something other than itself.
>>
>> This cuts rather deeper when we consider that our minds/brains have
>> strictly zero access to the past. We live exclusively in the present.
>> The illusion of a past that stretches back is generated by the
>> creation of a narrative that we formulate for ourselves. It is a
>> 'story' that explains why one thing should be conceived of as coming
>> before another, or leading to something. The narrative might concern
>> why I am angry, or why my back is hurting, or how this sentence
>> started. In all cases, the narrative is one more mental structure
>> existing in the present, and offering a rationale or explanation for
>> the current state of a wider mental structure. You could describe
>> this as 'encapsulation', but I feel that misrepresents what must be a
>> vast network of intersecting mental structures.
>>
>> It's 'Narratives all the way down'
>>
>> (By the way, I just checked Wikipedia for "Turtles all the way down",
>> and they have a reference for tortoises from 1854.
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtles_all_the_way_down)
>>
>> Dai
>>
>>
>> On 08/10/18 21:28, Pedro C. Marijuan wrote:
>>> Dear FISers,
>>>
>>> Many thanks for the warm, friendly responses. It was a pity, but I
>>> could do nothing to preserve all the old subscribers, as there was
>>> no way to produce a whole list of subscribers (the list software
>>> only produced a separate listing for each initial letter, but very
>>> dirty full of strange codes); unfortunately there is no way to
>>> recuperate them. What we can do instead is that each one may
>>> compile a few addresses of interesting parties who can be invited,
>>> and then I can send them an automatic invitation very easily (in
>>> group). Afterwords each one has to confirm. Otherwise in this link [
>>> http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis ] anyone can
>>> subscribe by him/herself. Any ideas for the regrowth will be very
>>> welcome both online and offline. Who knows... perhaps this is an
>>> opportunity to regrow within a more scholarly basis.
>>>
>>> Continuing with narratives, two Nobel Prize in economics, George
>>> Akerlof and Robert Shiller have been consistently writing on the
>>> role of "stories" (narratives) as the necessary complement of the
>>> rational agent theories. The whispers from the "monkeys on our
>>> shoulders" [sic] very often become louder and more commanding than
>>> the rational discourse. in several disciplines, there is a
>>> reflection to make on narratives as the natural form of social
>>> communication. I have reworded the 10 principles of information (to
>>> appear in Gordana & Burgin's compilation from the 2017 IS4SI
>>> Meeting). Now the 9th principle says: "Narratives emerge as
>>> encapsulated forms of human communication, underlying the
>>> intricacies of social relationships, of economic organization, and
>>> the very structures of political power." The central question: How
>>> do narratives relate to the advancement of our own life cycles? It
>>> is here that Booker, as I mentioned the last day, gives a Jungian
>>> response, quite articulated, but probably insufficient. The
>>> conjunction of social psychology (eg, Kahneman) and evolutionary
>>> psychology (Henrich, Laland) could provide a great translation of
>>> that highly significant point of view. Enter now the late book of
>>> Damasio (2018), pronouncing a rotund response: "we are cellular",
>>> and subsequently we cannot help but reformulating the very
>>> principles of the "cellular way of life" in all the new evolved
>>> instances of collective life. That means that finally we are
>>> approaching the cellular life cycle and its systematic signaling
>>> "stories" in the relationship with the environment. The living cell
>>> is the foundational information "unit". The source of meaning.
>>>
>>> if the above series of explanatory pathways are well concatenated,
>>> say via a global research project, the core of information science
>>> would be finally articulated. Information physics, Shannon's info
>>> etc. are relatively well in their own tracks. It is the rest of the
>>> field that has not yielded to a consistent unifying "story" yet. By
>>> the way, Akerlof's 2001 Nobel was for "asymmetric information".
>>>
>>> All the best!
>>> --Pedro
>>>
>>> PS. Some people here may have institutional leverage. Why we do not
>>> think on applying for a research project humanities/natural science?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> El 07/10/2018 a las 19:45, Moisés André Nisenbaum escribió:
>>>> Wonderful to hear you FISers again :-)
>>>> I agree that it is an excellent and interesting theme.
>>>>
>>>> Thank you Pedro!
>>>>
>>>> Kind regards.
>>>>
>>>> Abraços a todos!
>>>> Moisés
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Moisés André Nisenbaum
>>>> Enviado do celular.
>>>>
>>>> Em sex, 5 de out de 2018 14:26, Pedro C. Marijuan
>>>> <pcmarijuan.iacs at aragon.es <mailto:pcmarijuan.iacs at aragon.es>>
>>>> escreveu:
>>>>
>>>> Dear FIS Colleagues,
>>>>
>>>> Around the beginnings of the new course, the University of
>>>> Zaragoza released the FIS list, after the authentication
>>>> process mandated by an European Directive on Data Protection.
>>>> The outcome has been rather tough, from around 350 we have been
>>>> decimated to just 62. Provided that the most active
>>>> participants have renewed, we wouldn't see much changes,
>>>> although not very probably. The pity now is the diminished
>>>> broadcast of the discussions, for many of the passive
>>>> recipients were more or less listening (and the warning message
>>>> in Spanish didn't help at all for their awareness of the
>>>> renewal process).
>>>>
>>>> In any case, life goes on. There is a ISIS and FIS Conference
>>>> next year (in the US, chaired by Terry Deacon). In the future
>>>> list discussions we should keep this in mind and progressively
>>>> put the focus on it. The present "slimming cure" of the list
>>>> might also be a good occasion to reflect on its trajectory and
>>>> aims. Are we fulfilling the foundational goals? Not so much
>>>> yet... Well, from my part, I have a novel theme that I consider
>>>> of interest to this basic discussion. Several readings of mine
>>>> during this year have neatly converged on the power of
>>>> "narratives" in our human communication. From economics, to
>>>> political science, to communication studies, to Media both
>>>> traditional and new, and essentially in literature and oral
>>>> traditions... In particular the approach by Christopher Booker
>>>> (2004, 2017) makes clear the centrality of storytelling in our
>>>> whole lives. He is a controversial figure, but this book ("The
>>>> Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories") is a master work. My
>>>> only personal caveat is the Jungian framework the author
>>>> utilizes--is it necessary? I do not think so. Translating his
>>>> ideas to common multidisciplinary language, pertaining both to
>>>> natural science and humanities, would make for a great
>>>> discussion. Right in the center. My feeling is that he has
>>>> achieved for human communication what I have tried during
>>>> recent years for cellular communication.
>>>>
>>>> And that's all! Little by little am getting used to my new life
>>>> "far from the madding crowd" of local Faculty.
>>>>
>>>> Friendly regards to all,
>>>>
>>>> --Pedro
>>>>
>>>> -------------------------------------------------
>>>> Pedro C. Marijuán
>>>> Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group
>>>>
>>>> pcmarijuan.iacs at aragon.es <mailto:pcmarijuan.iacs at aragon.es>
>>>> http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/
>>>> -------------------------------------------------
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>> --
>>> -------------------------------------------------
>>> Pedro C. Marijuán
>>> Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group
>>>
>>> pcmarijuan.iacs at aragon.es
>>> http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/
>>> -------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Fis mailing list
>>> Fis at listas.unizar.es
>>> http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
>>
>> --
>> -----------------------------------------
>>
>> Professor David (Dai) Griffiths
>> Professor of Education
>> School of Education and Psychology
>> The University of Bolton
>> Deane Road
>> Bolton, BL3 5AB
>>
>> Office: M106
>>
>> SKYPE: daigriffiths
>>
>> Phones (please don't leave voice mail)
>> UK Mobile +44 (0)7491151559
>> Spanish Mobile: + 34 687955912
>> Work landline: + 44 (0)1204903598
>>
>> email
>> d.e.griffiths at bolton.ac.uk
>> dai.griffiths.1 at gmail.com
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Fis mailing list
>> Fis at listas.unizar.es
>> http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
>
>
> --
> -------------------------------------------------
> Pedro C. Marijuán
> Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group
>
> pcmarijuan.iacs at aragon.es
> http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/
> -------------------------------------------------
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Fis mailing list
> Fis at listas.unizar.es
> http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
--
-----------------------------------------
Professor David (Dai) Griffiths
Professor of Education
School of Education and Psychology
The University of Bolton
Deane Road
Bolton, BL3 5AB
Office: M106
SKYPE: daigriffiths
Phones (please don't leave voice mail)
UK Mobile +44 (0)7491151559
Spanish Mobile: + 34 687955912
Work landline: + 44 (0)1204903598
email
d.e.griffiths at bolton.ac.uk
dai.griffiths.1 at gmail.com
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