Fiction and science; The hidden Truth of the fantastic - Part II - The Never Ending Story

I think that sometimes Truth is found in its purest form in the books that we call fiction. I think that somehow the deepest Knowings of the universe cannot be grasped in factual descriptions and school books, but by immersing ourselves in a story which in itself catches our attention with the ripples of action on the surface but contains within it the fullness of a Truth so profound we can only sense it by the way it makes our skin tingle. Even this immersion into parallel universes of fiction are touched upon in this book: 

“If you have never wept bitter tears because a wonderful story has come to an end and you must take your leave of the characters with whom you have shared so many adventures, whom you have loved and admired, for whom you have hoped and feared, and without whose company life seems empty and meaningless.

If such things have not been part of your own experience, you probably won't understand what Bastian did next.” 

When I first started writing this blog post, I thought it would be a short post about the beauty of this book, and how it slightly touches the recent findings of cognitive science and language. 

I was wrong. 

This book is in itself such a deep, clear portrayal of how our mind and inner world of concepts are constructed. And in this structuring, our whole experience, and ultimately our own world of being - both in the physical and mental - is created. 

To explain this a bit further, I'll use a poignant quote from the book: 

“If you stop to think about it, you’ll have to admit that all the stories in the world consist essentially of twenty-six letters. The letters are always the same, only the arrangement varies. From letters words are formed, from words sentences, from sentences chapters, and from chapters stories.” 

Is it not fascinating that Noam Chomsky - one of the pioneers in cognitive science and revolutionaries of how we think about language - coined the same thought in 1991?:

 Language is, at its core, a system that is both digital and infinite. To my knowledge, there is no other biological system with these properties....

— Noam Chomsky.

...which in turn can be traced back to the forefathers of the Universal Grammar theories — Antoine Arnauld and Claude Lancelot (in the 1660's!!!):

 ‘It remains for us to examine the spiritual element of speech ... this marvelous invention of composing from twenty-five or thirty sounds an infinite variety of words, which, although not having any resemblance in themselves to that which passes through our minds, nevertheless do not fail to reveal to others all of the secrets of the mind, and to make intelligible to others who cannot penetrate into the mind all that we conceive and all of the diverse movements of our souls.’

In the world of linguistic theory, this is called Digital infinity; or more accurately the infinite use of finite means. 

And to think all of this can be contained in one little book.

Is it any wonder I love literature?

Fiction and science; The hidden Truth of the fantastic - Part I - The Never Ending Story

"Are you and I and all Fantastica," she asked, "are we all recorded in this book?"

He wrote, and at the same time she heard his answer: "No, you've got it wrong. This book is all Fantastica - and you and I."

"But where is this book?"

And he wrote the answer: "In the book."

In the movie "The Neverending Story" from 1984 (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088323/) - based on the magnificent book by Michael Ende (http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27712.The_Neverending_Story) (READ IT!) - one of the most intriguing aspects of words are introduced.

A thing does not exist until it is given a name. 

I remember being mesmerized by this from the first time I heard it as a child. All of Fantasia is being swallowed up by the Nothing - not darkness, not anything at all - just pure nothingness. There's nothing there. At all.

As the Nothingness silently engulfs each piece of grass, wood, rock and living being, the world is quietly slipping away - becoming no thing at all. Shapeless, a void. '

"The Nothing is spreading," groaned the first. "It's growing and growing, there's more of it every day, if it's possible to speak of more nothing. All the others fled from Howling Forest in time, but we didn't want to leave our home. The Nothing caught us in our sleep and this is what it did to us."

"Is it very painful?" Atreyu asked. 

"No," said the second bark troll, the one with the hole in his chest. "You don't feel a thing. There's just something missing. And once it gets hold of you, something more is missing every day. Soon there won't be anything left of us.”

The book differs slightly (or should I say extremely) from the movie. They are both good, in my opinion, the book because it is one deep profound piece of exquisite writing; The movie because I deeply, deeply loved it as a child. 

What is common ground in both books is that Bastian is the unknowing savior of the world. By giving the childlike princess a name, he literally "calls her into existence" and by doing so saves the world. In the field of biocognitivism "we", as observers, are defined and recognized by one thing only: We are able to distinguish 'something' from 'something else', and by doing so; We become separate from our surroundings and thus become a "Self". 

The implications of this are puzzling. 

Since the universe consists of waves and particles vibrating at different frequencies, clustering together forming differently shaped objects, there is actually no set limit to where "I" begin and where "everything else" starts. Sure, I've got skin, but what keeps my skin in place, what constitutes this recurring reproduction of physical human form? These questions are the most important ones that the biocognitivists try to answer, and I can by no means say that the answers exist. What DOES exist, is the explanations of what defines human consciousness; In other words: What "I" am. 

"I" am the consciousness identified with a human form, limited by the outlines of your skin and your physical appearance. The physicality of you changes throughout your life, but somehow there seems to be a consistent "I" that follow and inhabit this human form and is deeply engrained in it. This reflects in our language. We say "this is my hand" or this is my new hairdo". Newsflash; You're not your hair. Not your hand either. 

I remember I used to drive myself crazy as a kid, trying to define how much of my human body I could peel away before "I" disappeared. Would I still be me if my brain were the only thing kept alive? Or what about heart? I never found the answer. 

What I did find, was a definition of what "I" am, and I found it in the most unlikely place: In language theory. (Following excerpts from the book Autopoesis and Cognition by Francisco J. Varela & Humberto R. Maturana)

"The actual component (all their properties included) and the actual relations holding between them that concretely realize a system as a particular member of the class (kind) of composite unities to which it belongs by its organization, constitute its structure."

Furthermore: "The fundamental cognitive operation that an observer performs is the operation of distinction. By means of this operation the observer specifies a unity as an entity distinct from a background and a background as the domain in which an entity is distinguished."

This last part is the important one.

What makes us human and what creates an "I" separate from "Everything" is, in other words, the ability to distinguish one thing from another. Seems trivial, doesn't it? 

CHECK THIS OUT:

OUR WHOLE WORLD IS MADE UP OF THE WORDS WE USE TO DEFINE EVERYTHING IN IT. 

If this doesn't rock your world, you need another drink. 

We're all freakin' Adam in the garden of Eden.

What is happiness?

Happiness

is that softness when I wake up in the morning and realise

I

am 

Home.

What happened to women?

What happened to women?

A very good friend of mine, and also the author of my all-time favorite blog (http://kraakereiret.blogg.no/), asked me a question about women and movies the other day. 

"What do I think about female movie directors?"

 It seemed quite simple at first, but then I started thinking.

And yes, I do that a lot.

You see, he had been in an argument with a feminist about this topic - and her take on it was that there should be a certain quota for female directors and actresses – much like the female quota system in politics and public boards. I shook my head at first. How stupid. That's like forcing people to watch bad movies just because some politically correct feminist activist thinks it's unfair that there are no good female directors.

And then I stopped dead in my own tracks. Wait a minute… Did I just say that? Do I honestly think that all female directors are bad? What about female script writers? Actresses? Female leads in movies? Do I deep down equate "female in movies" with Chick Flicks?

Sadly…

Yes. I do.

And now I'm determined to get to the bottom of this. I – female extravaganza – have somewhere along the line adopted this view that women in movies are somehow less than men – that all female directors are touchy feely sensitive things whom only know how to make stories about girly stuff and pink fluffy sob stories, relationship drama and/or both.

Alright, so this movie "Dis" is by Aune Sand. Not a very good example. How about this:

Margareth Olin: Kroppen Min

This shocked me. I didn't know I had this judgmental attitude. I love it and I hate it when I discover these things about myself. I hate it because I am faced with my own narrow-minded belief systems. I love it because it gives me the freedom to unravel the system that creates it.

I asked Lugburz to tell me more about it. He sent me a link to a blog (here: http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2013/06/14/191568762/at-the-movies-the-women-are-gone) which made me think even more. Not just about movies, but about books to. TV shows. Computer games. Anything with a story in it. As a linguist and literary critic (and sometimes even a writer) I believe that by studying the stories that make up our society, we can study society in itself. And boy… What a gloomy read it is at times.

First off. Talking about women in any context, is, in our society, a topic that is riddled with emotional anger, tainted by an aggressive feminist movement (although necessary at the time), colored by streaks of self-righteousness, struggle, entitlement and a dualistic dichotomy of male/female and the battle of the sexes.

 I should know a bit about both. Not because I'm a feminist in the traditional sense (I'm not), but because I'm a femininist (if that's even a word) I am also a masculinist. I think there is a discord in our society, and that the unwillingness to respect, encourage and understand the opposite sex is the ground cause of most of the suffering in our society. We all want to find true love and balance out the ruffles in the relationship between the masculine and the feminine (even if it's same sex love – masculine and feminine are not always distringuished by male/female.) I'll leave my thoughts on the masculine and feminine for later. That's another blog post altogether.

Back to women and the stories of our society.

When did I last see a movie by a female director? Or a story about a female heroine? Or even a female lead…? period? The first movie that pops into my head is Carrie.

Yeah. Well. Not exactly Superman material, is she? Even though she's soooort of a heroine. And a maniac. And a freak. No match for the latest male lead I encountered in Elysium.  He was a bona fide bad to the bone hero with a heart of gold. Yeah. I loved it. The movie AND the hero. It reminded me of the female lead role… *thinking* uhm…

*digging even deeper*

Lara Croft? Sort of. Even thought she doesn't really count because that story is not exactly new, is it? What about Resident Evil? Now THAT'S a bad to the bone heroine with a heart of gold! Wait a minute… That's ancient too. Xena – warrior princess? Passé. She-Ra, princess of Power? 

Retro, going on vintage. Man, I'm running out of ideas here.

Let's try a different approach.

Female directors.

Ahem.

Sofie Coppola. And… Well.. Did I mention Sofie Coppola? Yep. Love her. She's one in a million.

LITERALLY.

Or at least a thousand. I'm blank. Uhmm… I'm starting to think this whole quota thing might not be such a bad idea. But wait! What about Norwegian female directors? There's got to be someone, right?

Margaret Olin.

Shit. Now there's the term touchy feely emotionalism all rolled up into one chick flick creator of epic proportions. I suspect that even female directors make it because they fit the stagnated stereotypical mold of touchy-feely-girly-sob-story-directors.

It seems that female ANYTHINGS in movies has to somehow take care of the mythical discourse of femininity that broadly fits into the patronizing term "Chick Flick", "Sob story" or "female superman". Stories about women in our society today are just as stereotypical as the one-dimensional hero's journey discourse that we have been served for hundreds of years. The difference is that there are a multitude of different male characters and roles depicted in popular culture today. There seems to be just a handful (at best) female roles to fill.

Women are not just emotional tits on a stick with shiny hair and relationship issues. 

They're not even masculinized iron ladies like Xena, or maniac freaks like Carrie. And they are not just the prize given to a hero after a long struggling battle for justice, nor are they the evil wicked witches that do everything in their power to stop the previously mentioned male lead. They are human beings. And we humans are everything and nothing all rolled into one neat little meat suit. 

Even in Sucker Punch (one of my favorite movies of all time, by the way) the heroine has to use the stereotypical seductress role to stand her ground.

I'm not against seductresses. By no means. 

I'd dress up as Baby and seduce the living sh** out of every male psychiatrist myself, given the chance. I'm not preaching against maniacs either (I am actually quite fond of maniacs, especially telekinetic ones). Neither am I speaking up against male lead characters. On the contrary. I love men. I love male lead characters. I love heroes and I love villains – I love the multitude of human fates and stories that I get to encounter in each and every movie. But I love women too.

I love the quiet grace that comes with women who embody that quiet feminine strength. And the ceaseless courage that follow in the wake of women defending what they hold to be true in their hearts. I love the softness and the diamond edged roughness in women – I love the way a whole story can be grasped in the utterance of a single syllable and a glance – I love the way the seemingly fragile feminine spirit can seem to break in a devastating storm, only to show itself born anew from a branch that didn't break, only bent with the force of the flood.

And I want more of them. I want movies like Kill Bill, Tomb Raider, Precious, The Princess and the Frog, Beauty and the Beast, The blind side, 10^th Kingdom, Lilja 4ever, The color purple, Bandidas, Freeway, Gone with the wind, The Wizard of Oz, Sucker Punch – I want to be able to CHOOSE which aspect of our humanness I can watch for however long the movie lasts. I want the real heroines. I want to be able to gaze upon the screen and marvel at the strengths that lie dormant in us all – not just in women, but that fierce feminine beauty that is a part of each and every human being, because we are not just men or women, male or female, masculine or feminine – we are BOTH.

It's about time our collective entertainment consciousness came to the same conclusion as well.

Mission Impossible 2

So, I've got a new challenge. A seemingly impossible one.

Let's start at the beginning...

A week ago this guy came to my farm.

His name is Samson. He's a 7 year-old Tinker horse, and he's... Interesting to say the least. I'm not really sure what I'm doing.

This is his home.

He shares it with a beaver and three neighbor horses - a Shetland pony and her baby plus a mean old Iceland horse. See the beaver? I think I'll call him Billy. He's cool.

So what's the impossible challenge?

I have to build a stable.

.......................

I have no idea how to do this.

I don't even know where to begin.

I'm supposed to transform this:

into this:

I know what you're probably thinking: Wouldn't it be smarter to think about that BEFORE getting a horse? Well, truth is, I did. And I thought I had a plan.

It failed.

Sometimes plans fall apart, and you're left with a decision that you can give up and let things go back to how they were, or you can roll up your sleeves and just do it.

Even though you don't know how.

And even if you're a little bit scared and a little bit lonely and a little bit dishearted and disillusioned.

Wish me luck.

Do I exist in language alone?

I have been reading Humberto Maturana and his biocognitive take on what language is. I find this incredibly fascinating.





We, as a human race, exist in language.


I find this to be utterly true. Depending on the definition of language (in my understanding Maturana defines language as the continuous exchange of existence between two or more living systems in a field of being) - we would then not be human if we had no language. I am redefined, refined and reproduced through languaging. My mode of languaging depends on my current structure as a system. This system is the psychic field, i.e. my memories, thoughts, habits, subconscious structuring. In the subconscious structuring exist all the cultural and genetic predispotitions of existence: In short, everything I have been “taught”, or what I have learned. As a human I operate partly on conditioning, partly on emotional and endocrinal impulses, and the every moment-to-moment interaction is an interplay between my current structure (the “I”, or egoic structure, that I am in exact point this time and space) and my surroundings. As Maturana points out, most of our interaction with our surroundings are unconscious. There is only a small part of our awareness active in our interactions at every given time - this is partly because the physical world our bodies exist in contains an almost infinite amount of information and movement. Only a small percentage of this is available to our human senses. Within our limited scope, or range, of sensory input from our surroundings, our actual awareness (what we focus on either by will or by random chance) only take in what our subconscious filters as absolutely necessary. In short; our whole existence is maintained and experienced by our subconscious mind.

Whenever we “language” we interact with our environment with our awareness and attention. Something happens, a word is directed at us, something craves our attention, and we use our mind to focus on the event. In doing so, we instantly create a coherent story around it. This story exist in our own minds, and is a way for the human mind to cope with a random event occuring outside of our bodies (and sometimes inside our own heads). To explain this: The “I” that I am, is actually a steady stream of consciousness in the form of a syntactic structure we call language. I look at my dog, and in the act of becoming aware of my dog *I* instantaneously become aware of the subconscious story I have of a dog in general, this dog in particular, and how the totality of “I” (my body, memories and present state of being) relates to this dog.

In other words... We are constantly in relationship with our surroundings, our thoughts about our surroundings, and we distinguish, define and describe our current structural state (what we call “being” or “who we are”) through language. Language is then, at the same time, both an internal monologue in a particular form of language (for instance German or Norwegian), as well as an external cooperation and coordination of our physical being and its environment.

There is actually no point to this piece yet, this is only an establishment and definition of the role of language and being. By defining and clarifying the terms, I can use these definitions to build my further thoughts on.

The more I ponder these questions, the more I wonder at how any form of communication and relations are even possible. If the majority of our languaging (interaction) depends on our subconscious, and our subconscious is contructed by our past memories and our conditioning, well... Am I ever really talking to anyone, or am I just interacting with a collection of their own individuated caleidoscope of memories? Does my lover answer my questions from a place of present existence, or is he actually just replaying the current structural form of his system as it appears in this particular moment? If the latter is true, we are, in fact, all just ghosts in a machine.


This saddens me.

Where have I been?

I haven't posted anything in a long, long time. Why?

I've been busy.