On Tue, 31 Oct 1995, John Woods wrote:
> Jim Mich... talks about the uniqueness of stories and their opposite
> abstract laws:
>
> >So, in order to attack this question, I said to myself: 'What is the
> >opposite of a story?' Maybe the reason that the concept of 'story' seems
> >to promise us so much, seems so full of meaning, is that we've been living
> >for too long with its opposite -- whatever that might be.
> >
> >A pretty good candidate for this is 'law'. Good old Newtonian Scientific
> >LAW.
> >
> >Consider:
> >A story is a sequence of unique events. A law, abstractly, knows nothing
> >of unique events.
>
> I'd like to posit this point: We often create a dichotomy between the
> abstract and the concrete. I think this dichotomy is an illusion. Here's
> what I mean. If you _understand_ an abstraction, you can relate it to
> concrete reality. If you can't do that, you don't understand it. Or I
> sometimes like to say if I understand something it is, by definition,
> concrete. Thus, our abstractions are just ways we categorize and
> generalize our concrete experiences (stories, if you will) in ways that
> help us adapt to and create our world. Abstractions are kind of
> human-created shorthand for universal stories that can manifest themselves
> in myriad specific ways amongst us individual human beings and all the
> stuff of the world with which we are involved. In fact, all those stories
> wouldn't mean much to us without our abstractions and vice versa.
Your word "abstractions", used this way, seems to correspond almost
exactly to my "patterns". So construed, I fully concur with your view of
how abstractions relate to concrete experience.
When I refer to Newtonian physical laws as "abstract", however, I'm using
the word in a particular way which I'd like to keep distinct from the
generic "pattern" concept. You have to see this in the context of the
quote from Newell and Simon; in that context, everything that is uniquely
part of _my_ story as opposed to _yours_ is INCIDENTAL. You and I, viewed
as Newell and Simon (and, by extension, anyone who wants to see us as
instances of scientific law) view us, CANNOT be understood as unique.
The issue I'm fighting out here is 'which is fundamental: story or law?'
They cannot both be fundamental. My excitement arises from seeing, over
the course of the past couple of months (directly under the stimulation of
this continuing discussion, by the way), that 'story' could be
fundamental.
I'm using the word "story" here as "a sequence of singular events" where
"singular" means "once per universe". This covers, as far as I can tell,
_all_ of the ordinary uses, and also things like computer-driven discrete-
event simulations, iterative mathematical sequences, and the histories of
every subatomic particle in the universe.
I just noticed that where you refer to abstractions (i.e. patterns in my
vocabulary) as "shorthand for universal stories", you're referring to what
I would call myth. Myths, in a world where story is fundamental, play the
role that scientific theories play in a world where law is fundamental.
My belief is (although I can't quite defend it yet) that in a world of
story, myths can be true or false, better or worse, and even perhaps
proven or disproven.
I appreciate your comments. Thanks. -- Regards
--
Jim Michmerhuizen jamzen@world.std.com
web residence at http://world.std.com/~jamzen/
...........................................................................
. . . . There are far *fewer* things in heaven and earth, Horatio, . . . .
. . . . . than are dreamt of in your philosophy... . . | _ .