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The dangerous idea that life is a story

aeon.co

41–50 of 64 posts

Re: The dangerous idea that life is a story

#41
A mind must seem divided to its owner (since we're parallel processors and consider many things at once) but unified to most observers (so they can model us and our behavior without immense time and effort). Stories about ourselves, that we believe, give us a self-knowledge that can be imparted. The quality of these knowledge-nuggets varies wildly, as does our belief in them.

Anyway, saying that we're natural story tellers isn't saying much. What's a story? Wikipedia: "A narrative or story is any report of connected events"

i.e. a story (in this context) is some carefully curated data about the past, featuring us, and a pattern imposed on that data.

Obviously life isn't (just) a story. I imagine though, that someone who thinks they're very good at curating and connecting data about themselves, would place a high value on their stories, and those stories' predictive power. In the limit, the storyteller might disregard the gestalt data of their senses once the narrative is formed, which might give the impression that life is a story. This may work very well for the storyteller, but it's not the whole... story... the raw material remains in our minds, and has its own value. The best story misses much, adds much. Life is a process, stories are one product.

Another thing to notice: many of us here are assuming that 'story' means '..like in a book or movie!' I submit to y'all that the vast majority of told stories are vastly vastly different from such, to the point that we can often tell when someone's fictionalizing even when they're trying hard to disguise it. Stories about real life often have a meaningless or fractal bent that reveals the structure of their basis-memories, which is beautiful, I think.

Re: The dangerous idea that life is a story

#44
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another way of saying that is "Life is a story; however, it's not Fiction"

Still dangerous, just slightly less so; the set of life experiences documented in non-fiction suffers from selection bias, as we (mostly) gloss over the boring and don't always include all of the unpleasant.

Not to mention that generally people (especially programmers) are terrible at understanding parallelism and multithreading.

Re: The dangerous idea that life is a story

#45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not religion, ideology: secular humanism too seems to operate on a narrative that technological and cultural progress will continue without interruption from chaotic cosmological catastrophe, that those things contribute to human happiness while ignoring that humanity has higher rates of mental illness and slavery today than any other time in a global world culture defined for the last 200 years by technological prog…

I doubt scientific altruism is just as exploitable as religious dogma. I think the abysmal record of religion in such fields as education, race relations, gender equality, human rights, slavery, genocide, rape, the outright fighting of scientific advancements including stem cell studies, etc., can stand as its' own negation of your statement.

Well, religion isn't always bad w.r.t literacy at least. Many Catholic institutions were the first to introduce and run very good english-medium schools in India, which have benefited millions. It actually had its own term: "convent schools".

Re: The dangerous idea that life is a story

#46
post #21
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Young children don't need 'meaning' to enough life, which IMO is a philosophy as valid as any other. I used to have quite a bit of existential angst and personally I found the most useful thing to do was finding something interesting and do/learn it. It's easy to get into a rut where month after month you follow the same patterns. Especially when living in doors most of the time removes most seasonal variations.

Children live a life of pure fiction. My two year old in the last day has believed himself to be a Jaguar hunting our chihuahua, a pirate sailing our living room couch, a bear eating ravioli, and countless other tiny dreams. All of them are fundamentally narratives about power. Children incessantly dream of having more strength than they currently do. Why that is the case should be profoundly obvious. It may not seem…

There is a multi-billion dollar industry selling people all kinds of fashionable, pharmaceutical and surgical means of "preserving their youth". If only people realised that what they are trying to relive is the state of not knowing or caring about that crap, and that "Living the dream" is not about acquiring material accessories, but preserving a sense of wonder, excitement and imagination. Whenever an old person is described as "youthful", its not because they've had plastic surgery, it's because they haven't grown out of dreaming.

Re: The dangerous idea that life is a story

#47
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Children live a life of pure fiction. My two year old in the last day has believed himself to be a Jaguar hunting our chihuahua, a pirate sailing our living room couch, a bear eating ravioli, and countless other tiny dreams. All of them are fundamentally narratives about power. Children incessantly dream of having more strength than they currently do. Why that is the case should be profoundly obvious. It may not seem…

There is a multi-billion dollar industry selling people all kinds of fashionable, pharmaceutical and surgical means of "preserving their youth". If only people realised that what they are trying to relive is the state of not knowing or caring about that crap, and that "Living the dream" is not about acquiring material accessories, but preserving a sense of wonder, excitement and imagination. Whenever an old person is…

Extremely well said!

Re: The dangerous idea that life is a story

#48
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt scientific altruism is just as exploitable as religious dogma. I think the abysmal record of religion in such fields as education, race relations, gender equality, human rights, slavery, genocide, rape, the outright fighting of scientific advancements including stem cell studies, etc., can stand as its' own negation of your statement.

Well, religion isn't always bad w.r.t literacy at least. Many Catholic institutions were the first to introduce and run very good english-medium schools in India, which have benefited millions. It actually had its own term: "convent schools".

[deleted]

Re: The dangerous idea that life is a story

#49
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Children live a life of pure fiction. My two year old in the last day has believed himself to be a Jaguar hunting our chihuahua, a pirate sailing our living room couch, a bear eating ravioli, and countless other tiny dreams. All of them are fundamentally narratives about power. Children incessantly dream of having more strength than they currently do. Why that is the case should be profoundly obvious. It may not seem…

There is a multi-billion dollar industry selling people all kinds of fashionable, pharmaceutical and surgical means of "preserving their youth". If only people realised that what they are trying to relive is the state of not knowing or caring about that crap, and that "Living the dream" is not about acquiring material accessories, but preserving a sense of wonder, excitement and imagination. Whenever an old person is…

This is probably the best part about having kids: seeing things through their eyes.

I'm hoping if I spend enough time with them some of it will rub off (or back onto) me.

It's the adults who are mad!

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