Dear Joe, Pedro, Loet, FIS colleagues, and those who kindly sent private
emails,
I enjoyed your responses, many thanks. Two angles seem to have emerged among
them, so I've responded in two parts.
-------------
The first relates to the characterization of 'mystery.' There have been some
good arguments that logical models can already account for this 'mystery,' but
I think the phenomenon I'm interested in goes beyond this - I'll explain more
and see what others think.
I assume a particular definition of narrative information processes: for me, a
story depicts a transformation of semantic ontology. In a way, this could be
considered a subset of 'change' within GTI, but I want to zoom in on a
particular kind of change, the scope of which might pull it away from GTI's
premises. As a story progresses from start to finish, it incrementally alters
its semantic ontological parameters (including the causal implications between
them). Without this sort of transformation, a tale will seem to have no
'point,' and appear to be more like a list, or an argument. In this way,
narrative does something that is difficult for logic, in which semantic and
operational ontologies are often merged. It progressively adjusts its
parameters of interpretation as it unfolds.
In fact, this phenomenon might be more similar to autopoesis, which was
mentioned by Pedro. Although I suspect it differs from autopoesis in one
respect - stories aren't self-contained generative systems. A narrative draws
from multiple, external forms, because part of its purpose is to cohere
ontologically disparate elements. Its transformation is therefore twofold;
there's a transition of states from start to end, and also from distributed
ontologies to a singular one. These two aspects are needed to provoke the
gravitational 'mystery' under discussion. If the reader wants integrative
satisfaction, they must consume the story until its final sentence. This pull
is heightened because the initial fragmentation makes coherence all the more
desired, yet its terms aren't established until the end.
We FIS folk also experience this: we cast diverse ontological elements
together, in the hope that some critical entities might synthesize. What
qualifies as 'critical' must be discovered along the way. Hints of connection
between our ideas make it easier to anticipate forms that don't yet exist, in
an ontology not yet built. This anticipation is a 'pull' that propels me to
contribute another post.
>Joe: That "collective, projected information structures of the emerging tale
>CAN exert a pull over its explicit elements, as they are forming, and also
>causing them to form", is not to be taken as a metaphor, but as a real "pull".
>Maybe it's not so mysterious, after all?I agree the pull itself can be real,
>as is the case with gravity. But I still want to distinguish between the way
>gravitation might (or might not) be considered mysterious, versus the
>narrative case, in which qualities of mystery cause the 'gravity.'
The second angle, from Loet, characterizes the 'mystery' effect in terms of
physics behaviors:
> These other possible meanings are based on the exchange of meaning possible
> in interhuman communication. The proliferation of these other options is
> extremely fast in wishes and fantasies. Thus, our communication of meaning –
> be it within one’s mind or between us in exchanges – generate redundancy more
> than probabilistic entropy. Of course, this remains structurally coupled to
> the dissipation in the underlying systems (e.g., our material presence in
> human bodies) which follow the entropy law.
I can see some additional correspondences between physical and narrative models
here. In fact, you don't need to go as far as the human body to observe
entropy-like effects in narrative. In a story ecosystem, one way to observe
qualities of materiality in a conceptual form is by considering the robustness,
scope and repeatability of its inferred associations.
At the more stable end of the associative spectrum, a structural effect occurs
that might be similar to entropy. Consider the sort of conceptual arrangements
that are frequently used in the public domain - stereotype, cliche, myth, even
well-known historical events. If I say the phrase 'Darwin's theory of
evolution,' the range of inferences generated won't vary too much from person
to person (apes, biological metamorphosis, religious controversy, etc). By
contrast, if I say the phrase "inhabitants of the continuous sea," it might
seem intriguing, but each reader's inferences will be more 'redundant' in
nature, and potentially quite different from each other. A range of uncommon
and perhaps unrelated associations are likely to be provoked, because the
phrase has little commonly-known associative structure (it is copied from the
text of Darwin's 'Origin of Species'). This means it also generates the kinds
of agencies mentioned above more easily.
When frequently used, associative structures gradually lose their associative
currency. For example, if I say the words "September 11," almost everyone will
think of the Twin Towers, and not pursue the idea much further. That conceptual
form has been exhausted, associatively speaking. Cliches and stereotypes are
stable, but act like dead wood in a text. On the upside, they do have the
advantage of being less ambiguous.
I hope we can find more correlations, in the service of fueling the hungers of
this forum.
Cheers,
Beth.
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