It depends. I think some have tried to formalize narratives. In some ways, I think of GitLaw or version controlled collaborative fiction as a partial formalization of story-telling. (There was a novel being written several years back by some big names in sci-fi that was similar to GitLaw ... but it escapes me, now.) I suppose some of the (artificial) formulations of scientific method are attempts to formalize story-telling.
But by and large, as long as humans are doing the story-telling, it'll have some informality to it. And I think *that's* the lesson. When we construct machines that tell good stories, then we'll be able to say more about how formal we can make it. On 5/28/20 6:56 AM, Prof David West wrote: > re: "informal systems" Is story such an informal system? > > from an article targeting towards business and software development > professionals > > "Although all four models described above are essential, the power of Thick > Description derives primarily from the Story. For several reasons: > > 1. The human brain is ‘hardwired’ for story. Humans easily absorb > knowledge that is communicated to them via story while having a difficult > time dealing with information presented in abstract form. One of the reasons > that mathematics is difficult for so many people. > 2. Humans have shared knowledge via story since the invention of language. > The visualizations of “cave art” preceded any form of written language but > still communicate stories. > 3. Ninety-five percent of what a person knows was acquired via story. > 4. Most of what is known about your business exists “within the heads” of > your employees. It is tacit knowledge that is lost if the employee is lost > (via retirement or turnover). > 5. New hires acquire the knowledge essential to doing their work by > listening to stories. > 6. Stories provide a compact and efficient way of communication, mostly > because each story carries with it a significant amount of implicit context — > connections to all the other stories we have heard and have in our repertoire > of knowledge. > 7. Stories are “easy to think with.” > > Story provides a powerful tool for software development by preserving > ambiguity, deferring design and implementation decisions until “the last > responsible moment.” -- ☣ uǝlƃ -- --- .-. . .-.. --- -.-. -.- ... -..-. .- .-. . -..-. - .... . -..-. . ... ... . -. - .. .- .-.. -..-. .-- --- .-. -.- . .-. ... FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
