The following is both a work of fiction and a philosophical theory. The meaning of life can be understood through the method of Chronotopian Epistemology - the dissemination and appreciation of narrative-based knowledge. The following fictional snippets of everyday narrative hopefully provide insight as to how narrative is the fundamental basis for all knowledge and experience.
The End of the World Scrapbook
or
The Theory of Chronotopian Epistemology
(Eternally incomplete)
Patient Name Ingram Bresnehan
Thankyou for seeing this four year-old girl who has displayed a general malaise with pain. Suspected intestinal pain.
Ellison Hawker
Out-of-date diaries, yearly planners and calendars, 10% off
MT. Field National Park: Memo (desk)
Lab. Results due back. 3pm. Please file for review A/624.
Dowe Centre for research - Lecturers email
The theory being pushed by the university's department of philosophy - a paradigm of their own dividing named Chronotopian Epistemology - has very interesting implications for the theoretical exploration of time travel. As you well know, Time Travel requires the presence of a constant subject, a cohesive observer, for otherwise the time-traveler becomes simply a disconnected series of temporal influecese or events. Through chronotopian epistemology however, we see how the individual may indeed retain their sense of self despite any major temporal disruption. Indeed, temporality is a necessary facet of their theory, and - get this - any changes or alterations to an individuals temporal flow is simply absorbed into their cognitive make-up. Isn't that great? A few of us down here are beginning to think that chronotopian epistemology could be a very useful conceptual tool in our own enquiries. At the least, it could help address any psychological issues arising from the temporal displacement of consciousness. what do you think?
Bumper Sticker. Holden F.J.
I'm giving up drinkin, smoking and women. Tomorrow.
Dancing the Songlines: A novel by Mat Matjanjarra
We emerge from the land, shaking cosmic sand out of our hair, and return to the land stuffing the red earth into our mouths and eyes. What we call life is just a transition, a journey, a movement from one place to another. No journey takes place in time - time is all time, time is nothing.
Top Secret (Pentagon) - Code Black Procedures
16a. In the case of a retaliation launch, six E-12 guided missiles will launch at four second intervals from our San Fernando grid. The E-12s will be airborne for 4820 seconds (app.) and will strike at four second intervals along the United States border in the Cuban Sea.
16a.a. In the case of a ceasefire command between launch and impact the satellite agency will disarm the missiles by remote command.
Screenplay for BB3 - The Oistridtches
Marvin: It was four weeks after the end of the third world war...
Elton (to Marion): You idiot, you asked a follow up question!
Note passed from Ben Quill to Stephanie Hardman.
"Look, I know what your friends are telling you and and what they're saying about me. You have to choose who you want to believe. Think about it, why would you listen to them? How would they even know where I was? They're only filling your head with crap because they're jealous of what we have and they want to hurt me and my friends. They just want you to do what they want you to, so why did you...
A compendium of child psychology - Sir Joffrey O'Halloran
A thorough examination of the emotional stimuli present in fairy tales such as those told by the Brothers Grimm reveals a number of themes that have found resonance with a huge variety of readers across class and nationality. Many of the tales that have persisted in our collective consciousness, sometimes enduring for centuries in various forms, contain universal themes, or at least elements that rely on the knowledge of universal themes. A good case in point is the tale of The Swan Princess, in which a poor young princess is tricked by a malicious servant into surrendering the gifts her loving grandmother has bestowed upon her at their parting. The injustice served to the sweet young girl and the vengeance that is delivered unto her servants elicits similar reactions from most young readers...
Diary of J. Holmes - (5th April,2009)
Some men can claim conquests far beyond those of Casanova or the Marquis de Solo, men who have known how to kiss without telling, men who were too busy being lovers to bother establishing a reputataion, men who have loved countless women without...
Interview with K. Pukakis (Director of Monkey Flight III)
"Well, after we made the first movie it became apparent that the audience wanted more of the characters background, so we wrote the prequel with the idea that we could extend the film into a trilogy. Who knew, four sequels later, that we would still be discovering new things about Hu Mao and his mission to..."
The Dyslexic Linguist - Essay (HPA101)
One of the problems inherent in studying language is that a word, that ambiguous unit of communication, is akin to a Russian kewpie doll or a clown’s Volkswagon. Each unit can be unpacked to the degree of infinity. Each time a finality of meaning or a formal definition is suggested or enforced, another possible interpretation arises. Even the suggestion that a word can have a inherent, ostensive meaning has an influence on what that meaning is regarded as. Such ostensive meaning is impossible – the idea that a word might have its meaning unalterably attached to its written or verbal expression could never feasibly be proven , or even really supported. Agreement does not arise out of simple phoneme manipulation. This is perhaps our first clue to what this writer believes is the closest thing we may have to truth: CONTEXT IS GOD.
Scrawled on a train station mirror.
I know you, I know I know you, know, you.
10 Steps To Succesful Breastfeeding
Step 9. Give no artificial teats or dummies to breatfeeding infants.
D.H.H.S Incident Report
According to Ms. Tyler, the messages she received were definitely unwelcome and unencouraged, despite Mr. Wright's claims that she had 'smiled at him in a very friendly manner' while she was providing her contact details to Mr. Wright's department in order to clarify her employee status...
News of the World - Science
The often quiet world of theoretical physics is abuzz with excitement following an Australian researchers claim that he has bridged the gap between the physical and mental realm by demonstrating how thought processes have a visceral affect on the body. Although such connections have been explored before - most notably in 1967 by American neuro-phycisist J. Eccles - the substance debate (also known as the search for the materiality of consciousness) has largely rendered as useless any findings from these enquiries. However a new method of classification that is applicable to both rational (a priori) and physical (a posteriori) concepts, thereby avoiding the substance debate, could possibly explain the experience of human consciousness within a physical system.
Press release from AtariMax - Machine Gore 2
Reaches into your mouth and pulls your heart out...
Carved into a young girls arm
I love you, I hate you, let me fucking rape you
Inside a coca-cola can
You are a loser. Try again.
Entertainment tonight (April 5th, 10.00pm report)
The world holds its breath waiting, while in Hollywood the stars beginstepping onto the red carpet outside the Palais in preparation for America's premier night of honours, the Academy Awards.
Suicide note - I.B. Fairley
All men are hostages to their... dreams, some are much more adept at hiding their bitterness than others. For so many years I have been one of these drones, passing the other sad workers in the air-conditioned hallways, where we half-smile at each with a kind of false determination - and then look at the floor. You can find the same expression anywhere; the thin, curled lips of the man who has accepted his meager fate, his negligible contribution to the advancement of the universe.
I'm not going to be one of those faces anymore, I can't stare at the floor anymore. I have stared at every blank space. If my dreams are impossible, then my dreams need to change. If there are no dreams left it is time to die.
It is time to die.
I.B. Fairley
Get-Up-And-Go-Gear Factory Outlet - Emergency Product Recall
G.U.A.G.G. is implementing a voluntary recall of six-hundred hooded jackets because of a manufacturing fault. The fault includes a loose thread in the zipper that can lead to the early deterioration of the article.
World Expedition travel catalogue
In the entire city of Kathmandu there is one traffic light, outside the Royal Palace in the midst of a huge, chaotic square. When the light stopped working in March of this year, it had absolutely no effecr on the traffic flow throughout the city but the entire civic council was disbanded...
On The Spot (The Mercury, April 5th)
LOUISIANA. Contractors working on-site at one of America’s largest building developments were scratching their heads as they turned up for work yesterday as a set of footprints mysteriously appeared on a freshly laid slab of concrete covering almost four hundred square meters. The footprints reportedly lead to the exact centre of the slab and - promptly stop. There are no footprints leading away, nor is there any roof or covering that might have allowed a person to lift themselves off the ground. From all appearances it seems that somebody has walked out into the middle of the fresh cement and vanished into thin air.
The Poetry of Mathematics - Dissertation by Mathew Lowry
In numerals we find an epistemological advantage over language; meanings attributed to numerical symbols are not usually subject to interpretation since the meaning (a quantative value) is an ostensive factor. Mathematics contains universalities that are impossible to find an equivalent for in language, universal indicators of interval which are fundamentally ingrained. This suggests that mathematical descriptions, or collections of quantaties and intervals, can provide transference of meaning with an indisputable accuracy that is simply not possible with language since even the smallest unit of language, the phoneme, requires contextual interpretation before its contribution to meaning is apparent...
Bumper Sticker
"Make love not war. Get married and do both."
News of the World - Thailand (6th April)
Scientists have discovered two remote tribes living at either end of a remote valley in Papua New Guinea. Neither tribe appears to have had contact with the world outside of the valley until a group of Italian explorers stumbled across them two weeks ago. Each tribe numbers around one-hundred and fifty people and anecdotal evidence suggests that the two tribes have been at war beyond any living memory, presumably for control of the valley. The introduction of civilization into the lives of the villagers is predicted to have a profound effect on their previously archaic culture.
Police report - Preliminary Forensic (Florida Prec. Case 1298983)
Inventory of evidence found in suspect residence: 800ml jar of congealing substance, found to contain three occipital organs and a male sexual organ.
New York Times Book review - Pepper Candy and the Ghost of Porn Boy by Z.E.M. Pinner
Why on Earth anybody would choose this form or mode to tell a relatively linear story is well beyond me. The idea that a reader is drawn into a story that reflects the relativity of consciousness is here totally unfounded as we find ourselves instead utterly repelled by it...
The Two-Culture debate - a quick history
The literary chronotopes was first described by the Russian critic Bakhtin, who used it as a tool to aid in the deconstruction of narrative texts by delineating time and place. Bakhtin posited that narrative is comprised of chronotopes - summaries of a given period of time and the place where such a given period is experienced - and therefore any given narrative may have its meaning apprehended if the chronotopian elements are understood. The literary chronotope may then be understood as the method of contextual dissemination. Much like language itself, the chronotopes can be unpacked or deconstructed until it fits the weave of reality...
ADVERTISEMENT - Spaghetti Scissors
Does this ever happen to you? You keep swallowing and swallowing, waiting for it to end, but no matter how much you swallow it just keeps coming...
Poem found in a roadside cafe, 12 miles north of Dusseldorf.
"All roads lead to Rome. All roads lead to roam."
Science-fiction short story contest - Entry 432 "History in the making"
The explorers discovered a massive vault buried beneath the volcanic ash, perfectly preserved and filled to the brim with historical documents from the civilization that once prospered on the blue-green orb. Our archaeologists have found that the peoples of this planet - known as Earth Proper - worshipped two conflicting deities, a situation which may have ultimately lead to the destruction of their races. The aggressor deity, known as M'Matd declared war on the other god, know as Harry Potter...
Television Script: Delexus (Pilot. De-commissioned)
Urbich: (monologue) Chaos theory postulates that there is an indistinct number of parallel universes, with the greater percentage of them being fairly similar to ours. The points of departure between these universes are in the decisions that are made, the choices that occur. Everything that is in the range of possibility occurs at some time or another in at least on of these universes. Every time a choice is made, another universe is born. The question is this - how do we, as observers know which universe is ours? Is there an original universe? Do I still inhabit the same universe I was born into? How can we be said to inhabit one universe if we create a dozen parallel universes with every hand of poker? Do my siblings live in different universes now? What about the person I fell in love with? Are identical twins living a thousand universes apart...
Speech by F. Mainwaring to open mulit-cultural week.
Today we have come together from all over the world to celebrate our common humanity, from deserts and islands, cities and jungles, mountains and plains. Through our differences we can learn to help each other to learn all there is to know about the world we share, and through our similiarities we can turn to each other in times of need with empathy...
UTAS Grant application
"monies would allow us to spend more time researching the practicalities of the system and designing new ways in which the system might be implemented within social mechanics"
There's a bear in there,
and he's scared as well
and he's injured and lame
and he's going through hell
opened wide
slowly died
a blood pool...
Court rounds. Wodonga, N.S.W.
Mr. L Gibson's parole application, his fourth, has again been refused. The parole board cited the trial judges comments in regards to Mr. Gibson and found despite the lengthy...
Weblog - Harold S. Jameson (stoner)
"Hey guys, I've been thinking about our conversation last night and I had an idea - instead of looking for a way that time and matter interact or interface, instead of looking for a way that they affect each other, consider this - maybe time and matter are the same thing. I know it sounds dramatic but I haven't been able to get the idea out of my head all day. Think about it, you can’t have movement without time. What do you think?
Flyer - The church of the dirt
"...since the very first communities, humanity has sought itself out. If five strangers meet in the jungle, they make camp together. The campe may become a village and three villages may one day join to make a city. Cities come together as states, states as countries. Now the entire world is increasingly unified through several organizations, the U.N., E.U, G8 and MacDonalds. The universe is now the jungle, and we search for another stranger..."
Roadside sign - Epping Forrest
"The best hot food on the Epping Highway!!!"
Encyclopaedia
'The Saville-Monkey-paw, named for it's first owner, has the most checkered history of any of all of the objects. The paw was first written of six-generations ago when it was the only item to survive intact after a savage fire destroyed the Saville Manor, killing the six remaining members of one of the region’s oldest family. The Saville paw has since been connected with murders, kidnappings, tragic accidents and even natural disasters. Then when the monarchy came into contact with the paw, it would have a profound effect on history that would not even be understood until...'
Grade 1 social science test
12. Is the Government allowed to punish people when they are naughty?
YES or No
13. Who decides when you are breaking the law?
Government, Police, Teacher, Mummy and Daddy
Contextual apprehension - A reader
"...for instance if a policeman rounds a corner to find a dead man on the ground and a hysterically-laughing woman standing over the corpse with a machete that drips blood, the woman might appear to be at fault until the policeman sees her shackle wounds and finds the bodies of twelve other women in a room below the..."
Artists statement
Meat is the substance that houses our souls, the stuff that our mind uses to interact with the physical world. Blood is the energy the force that keeps the meat alive. Our meat and blood tie us to the world for a time, secures us a place...
Flyer at a phone box - Palmistry
...that the lines of the hand can give a powerful insight into the future including wealth, love...
Sign in the butchers shop
MINCED LAMB. $11.99kg
U.N. Minutes
As the world reaches into the future, as we plan inheritance for this next generation and the generations that will follow, science and technology gives us hints as to what we may expect and paves the way to a better world, a world where hunger and disease are eradicated, a world in which the human race can reach its vast potential and live together forever and ever...
Blavatsky diaries
...after extensive investigation of the theosophical society's library, the team came up with a unique explanation on the nature of ghosts - that some feelings experienced by human beings are so overwhelming that a residue is left in the space that the person inhabited while having such a feeling or emotion, much as a power-line fills the air with static. Another way of looking at it might be to say that a certain time and place is so important to a person - a defining moment in their life, perhaps, and also the future development of their consciousness - that a part of their thoughts are always devoted to it.
The group postulates that since consciousness does not have a proven physical anchor, the residue(s) remain in the place where they were originally created - created either through constant repition of the residue producing emotions or through a single enovic event. The residue is then apprehended by others, whose experience s vary and are well documented...
How is meaning possible? Essay by Z.E.M.Pinner (Philosohpy of Language)
In most cases, an explanation of a word requires drawing on more words or elements of language - which require additional explanation - and we find ourselves in the midst of a regressive problem. Whenever we try to understand our words as referring beyond the circle of our ideas, we can do no more than present further ideas to ourselves. (Blackburn 1992, p.42) The problem of regression must always be avoided, but in terms of linguistics and finding a catalyst for meaning within language, it is avoided with difficulty - any explanation explains something only within language. (Baker & Hacker 1985, p.666)
The discrepancy of meaning in language is and its importance in the generation of meaning within contemporary culture is outlined by an analyst of postmodernism, Jean-Francois Lyotard (1984), who describes how uncertainty in the communication and interpretation of language is the result of a lack of inherent meaning within particles of language. Narrative function is being dispersed in clouds of narrative language elements. Congealed within each cloud are pragmatic valencies we live at the intersection of many of these, but do not necessarily establish language connections, and the properties of the ones we do establish are not necessarily communicable. (1984, p.2) This presupposes the unreliability of semantic relations and in doing so illustrates the ambiguities in language and the difficulty in constructing an absolute meaning from a given word or sentence.) The problem in relying on semantics to elicit meaning is clear - even with a strictly defined and adhered to lexicon, the point and outcome of interpretation will depend on the disposition of the interpreter.
Put simply, language use is thoroughly contextual and neither words nor sentences are the locus for investigation, (Smith 2004, p.31) but rather the contextual situation of the use of the word, or its representation of a move in the language-games that Wittgenstein describes as the analogous to our methods of using language in communicating. This conception places the genesis of meaning within the use of language, an understanding of which is dependent on the contextual circumstances of its employment within culture and individual experience. The 'chronotope', a conceptual tool developed by M.M. Bakhtin for studying social and historical contexts from the perspective of language analysis, could prove to be a useful tool in deciphering the influences upon individual experience and how individual experience leads to particular interpretive methods, habits and preconceptions. The chronotope explores language according to the ratio and characteristics of the temporal and spatial categories represented in that language. (Bakhtin 1982) It is perhaps through the use of this conceptual tool, along with the further exploration of grammar and how it is applied within the individuals methods of communication, that we will discover, to Bakers delight, a medium which carries its own interpretation with it, so there is no possibility of misunderstanding what is thought of, once it is present. (Blackburn 1992, p.44)
A.B.S. Summary of Religious practices amongst the general populace
"...these statistics suggest that since narrativism was institutionalized into a formal structure, it has been embraced by the Australian public and will continue to grow exponentially. Well-publicised examples of this acceptance include the sudden resignation of the co-founder of the Exclusive Bretheren and his defection to the Story party, the massive grant awarded to the A.N.U. to research narrativism, the massive swing in popular culture towards localized histories and the dramatic demise of institutions that posit alternative philosophies such as Church"
The Falsification of the Universe (from the Truth in The Story)
Story suggests that consciousness is both a by-product and proponent of narrative and that it is through narrative that we apprehend, understand and interact with the world. An interesting exercise is to imagine how communication of any given meaning can occur without narrative.
Even mathematics, that language of substantive truths and ostensive symbols, becomes meaningless without a narrative of movement or interval between a prior state and a present state. Narrative joins percepts and concepts together in cohesive weaves, chronotopes, and without it mathematics becomes an empty collection of meaningless truths. Without context, moments of truth fly around like unstable atoms, refusing to adhere to a reality of time and space...
Number 40712
UNPACK
How-to-vote-cards. 2006
"...the drawing together of disparate elements from political parties not reactive enough to be able to cope with an overwhelmingly popular social revolution allowed for the formulation of the Story Party, which has embraced the theory that was the impetus behind the revolution, making it an integral part of all of the party's political agendas and protocols..."
S11 protest placards. $3.99
Democracy is dead. Capitalism has conquered.
Extracts:
Seventh Century Greek Epic
The
Advertisement - Boodah Cafe
Quick
South-side graffiti
Red
Back of a school bus seat
Fox
The Mercury Saturday sports roundup
Jumped
Divorce papers - statement of Mr. Pappakudos
Over
Treaty on the nature of bureaucratic brevity and concision
The
Medical record of M. Lathan - Nurses report
Lazy
Home Design Expo and Review.
Brown
Menu of restaurant in far south-east Tasmania
Dog
Illiterate criticism magazine
A mysterious animal by the name of Schrodinger's cat lives without existing in an invisible box that cannot be found unless nobody is looking for it. To destroy the cat, dial 03 6224946.
Letter from Mary H to her employer, F.M.Jacskson
"...sick of guarding all your secrets. Remember that trip we took, those three days on the beach at Otaga..."
Open letter to the archdiocese of Canterbury
"The appeal of Narrativism, for me at least, is in the idea that the stories we tell ourselves are as real as the facts we are taught throughout our education or by our parents or the media, that these stories make up our actual experience of the world and have more of a profound affect on our day to day lives..."
The general history of Philosophy - A course reader
"...concepts such as Ockhams Razor, cause and effect, the Heisenberg principle and even Descartes famous 'cogito ergo sum' are used and accounted for within most prominent philosophical theories. Ideas like these have proven value in understanding our world and cannot be easily withdrawn..."
Science Magazine letters. From Y. Gritian
"The Australian Aborigine simply cannot exist without the stories that created him. If there is no story there is no dreaming and there is nothing. My people's stories, they are more important than the Bible is to a Christian or the Koran to a Muslim, since these peoples can deny those books - dreaming cannot be denied. Without the dream there is nothing."
Interview with fantasy author Robert Jordan
"...the Gaia chronicles are the complete encyclopedia of a world. Everything that can possible exist in that world is contained in the books. If it isn't in the books, then it isn't a part of the world. Nobody can add anything to the world now, nobody can change a thing, not even the colour of the grass, without my permission. In this world, I am the God, I am the Creator."
Interviewer: But what about the inhabitants of the world? Can't they rearrange the words in the book to make new meanings? Can't they combine the elements of the encyclopaedia in abstract ways to create new things?
R.J.: No. well, these are still elements that are already present in the book. All of the potential for new creations comes from what I originally wrote. Even if the characters think they have created something new, they are only recycling ideas and objects that were already there and combining them in new ways. The 'new ways' are even limited by what is in the book - they are probably transferring techniques they have from one discourse to another. For example, and I'm just making this up, their methods building houses. Houses exist in the world and so does a complete methodology from the cutting of stones to the laying of mortar and the calculations of structural support. Perhaps a character who is familiar with these methods and principles might apply some of them, even subconsciously, to another discipline completely unrelated to building houses, such as the playing of a lute or the painting of a water-colour. Even though the result might be a new style of music or a stunningly inventive painting technique, the ideas were there all the time just waiting to be discovered...
CIA
"...ironic discovery of the concept known as Heisenberg's principle of uncertainty.
Hitler, at the time, was growing desparate for atomic energy , which was quickly being developed by the western nations and had threatned to tip the scales of power back into their favour. The German Atomic agency, led by Heisenberg, was struggling with the very last process that would allow plutonium to be safely used within the construction of effective weapons. Heisenberg himself became one of history's most ambiguous figures following his report that informed Hitler of his agencys failure to develop special plutonium. Since Heisenberg was one of the foremost theoretical physicist in what was perhaps this disciplines most exciting era, it is much more probable that he did, in fact, have knowledge of the process. This suggestion is the crux of his ambiguous reputation - Heisenberg was reviled by most of Europe for developing the German Atomic Agency for Hitler's Nazi Party, but when it actually came time to provide Hitler with atomic weapons, he claimed it was not possible. Was Heisenberg a failed scientist? Or did he proclaim failure in order to deny weapons of mass destruction to one of the History's most dangerous dictators? It depends how you read his letters..."
Narrativism - An introduction
"The emergence of narrative into history is often the point of demarcation between man and the evolutionary creatures that came before him, as is evidenced by the archeological and anthropological importance placed on the cave paintings, accoutrements and gathering sites that..."
Reginald Geoffram Geirhardt's opening to the Flat Earth Society
"The F.E.S. has maintained its principles, in the face of increasing criticism from geographical authorities, for centuries. The emergence of Columbus and his spherical world theories..."
Mt. Field roadside stall
Wallaby $4p/kilo
Venison Steak Fresh $7.99p/kilo Patties $1.50
HolyFuckingCrikey.com
Religious leaders all over the world are being forced to confront a new system of belief that is making an unprecedented impact across the world stage. While the Catholic papacy is yet to make a public statement, rumours abound Vatican City that the pontiff is struggling to find an appropriate response to the issues raised by the new belief, known as...
Isotrope Magazine "A response to the psychoanalysis argument"
"...as already demonstrated by its effectiveness in counter-pointing the 'definition' and 'authority' arguments against psychoanalysis, narrativism is not an easy theory to philosophically compartmentalize. It seems pervasive, it seems to be relevant to all of our thoughts, yet it still survives Poppers test of falsification, which Freud’s theory does not. Of course, if this was the be all and end all..."
The Newtonian Society
One cannot imagine movement through space without a corresponding movement through time. The uncertainty principle says that we cannot measure both the position and direction of a particle at the same moment ' if the position is known, then the speed and direction cannot be derived from this measurement and vice-versa'. A summary of the particle, then, must include a description of the time unit within which the particle changes position, and from these two descriptions the direction of the particle will also be known. When the speed, direction, position and intervals of the particle's movment are combined into one moment of apprehension, we have the chronotopian description of the particle - a beginning and ending. To investigate the meaning of the particle then, it's chronotope must be expanded to include a larger description of the other particles around it until a context is found, much as a chemical equation can be expanded to include the elements of the chemicals surrounding it until a description of simple plasmas and trace minerals are found...
Reverend Pellar's address to a shocked clergy
"...additional information is what the world has to offer us. There is no such thing as a pure abstract, as God himself proved by creating the Universe. - Pause - Since the Universe provided a context in which God could exist, so too does God give the Universe meaning. While it is easy to imagine an ephemeral being that exists purely on an unbroken plane or field, we are only able to do so because we have had experience of unbroken fields and abstract concepts and ephemeral beings that have..."
Cornucopia - Fairy Froth's Tail of the Munth
Goldilocks didn't die, of course she didn't die, though that's what they told all the kids to stop the nightmares of course. No, Goldilocks was the first woman besides Mother Bear to appear in the...
Narrativism summit - plots and outlines
"...example of the practical application of chronotpian demaracation would be in meteorology, in the study of the Earth's weather systems. Even this example illustrates that any practical application will be performed on the subjective level. Indeed narrativism does come under the banner of a subjectivisit theory, but it manages to avoid most of the philosophical problems inherent in that field of thought. To illustrate subjectivism in relation to the weather - A storm cloud clings to the side of a mountain, dropping rain, hail and snow on the the hills below. A man stands in the valley with water running off his nose, cursing the weather while his brother stands on the pinnacle of the mountain blessing the sunshine. The cloud is both one cloud and many.
This example might seem to imply that reality is demarcated along lines of subjective observation - and this implication may prove to be correct - however, two, five or a hundred people might be cursing that rain cloud. The suggestion is that individual meaning may rely to some extent on the agreement with others, on the intake of their information, rather than meaning being formed entirely through their own individual observations. Of course, such agreements and especially the conference of observations that lead to them are still imbued in subjectivism, but this is the problem or reduction at its best. Who analyses the weather, who are we agreeing with? The answer should be obvious. We all do. But who is correct? Narrativism would suggest that the answer is the same - we all are...
Stream of consciousness - year 13. Theory in art and media.
"...the human mind impresses meaning onto unknown objects and events and always provides context as this is the nature of the mind. No mind exists in an information vacuum and if such a mind did exist it wouldn't know that existed..."
The simplification of complex systems by Alexander Knot
"...one might suggest that qualitative descriptions of mathematical equations is impossible, but such descriptions are becoming increasingly possible with the understanding that it is dynamism - intervals of difference in equations - that usually produces the catalyst for a qualitative aspect to appear within the system being measured. When mathematical descriptions are provided we can begin to apprehend unadulterated truth in the form of numerical measurements, but much like language, these measurements can be unpacked. In other words, the components that make up a mathematical equation each have their own components and equations that have produced them, and so on. Equations that may attempt to qualitatively describe the material world are usually made up of quantative figures that relate to time and physics, but it is the dynamic nature of figures produced in these systems that allows meaning to emerge..."
Knitting with timelines - Melissa Moore
And when she appeared in his dram fifteen years later with her eyes grown to those of a woman with her body still that of a girl, he sank to his knees and wept and pleaded for the waking world to stay away forever.
The survival of the most likely - Dr. Will Fo
"...story of the qwerty keyboard, which, although designed to slow down the earliest typists to preserve both accuracy and the delicat teeth of the first typewriters, has persisted to become the standard keyboard layout for the western world. Despite the ease with which keyboard layouts can now be reconfigured, qwerty continues to..."
The wrong word - a collection of ramblings.
"...existence of platonic forms, units of language that have inherent, uncollapsable meaning is yet to be proven. Saint Augustine attempted to find a way that Platonic forms may be apprehended, and discovered several 'truths' which were to become canonic for the next six centuries..."
Kill the author, Kill Barthes
Any text which contains an argument for the death of narrative employs that very thing which it seeks to destroy. This is akin to using mathematics to disprove the existence of numerical formulas, or using psychanalysis to disprove the existence of the unconscious. Or gravity, which can be experienced...
Problems of binary - the computational model of reality
"In one of it's more simplistic guises, binary coding can be seen as a duality of descriptions where one symbol presupposes the existence of it's opposite. Thus one becomes positive and the other negative. From this key, a series of questions may be asked of any given situation with the sequences of binary responses providing an unambiguous summary of the details that make it up. These questions may take the form of variation, in position or progression (i.e. is x at position y? does x have/still have the value of y?) and at this stage we may actually take lead from the virtual descriptions used in computational programming, such as gaming environments and virtual spaces..."
Classified email, interdepartmentary, A.D.F.
"...emergence of the Story Party and its integration into society heralds a shift in the values of Western cultures. The rate at which Narrativism has been adopted into public and private life in unprecendented, resembling something more like a fashion trend than a burgeoning belief system. This absoroption rate is increasing exponentially as cultural leaders around the world find parallels in its teachings and their own established systems. Although it is an established anthropological fact that there have been marked similiarities in unconnected cultures and religions throughout history, in their expressions of prayer, song, magic and godheads, yet Narrativism is unique in it's ability to compliment all..."
Cave
It hurts here in the dark, it hurts here in my heart, it hurts from above it hurts when I love it
Bullet-holed roadside sign in Kansas.
"Faith should not exist at the sacrifice of intellect."
Note in the departure lounge, S.I.A.
"...has been the most wonderful eight years of my life, bt I have not been able to shake the idea that something was missing, that our love and lives wasn’t quite complete without my..."
Note to self
"...to admit, despite all this noise, that one day I would be such an ingrained part of a moment that has passed forever, that there will be a moment in which I cease having any potential, in which I am relegated to the realm of those that, having existed, dwell only in memories. Memories degrade faster than bloodless fleshed when they are not renewed. The most memorable character to ever exist will soon be forgotten. Memory does not persist and passions flare and fail with the flow and ebb of time, forgotten like waves on a beach, remembered like a curving wisp of smoke..."
The evolution of mythology
The Ark of the Covenent, that sacred object revered in the Bible and awed in the Koran, journeyed across the Red desert in the arms of the Egyptians under the command of Moses and it was not returned the world until the Second World War, when Indiana Jones single-handedly stole it from the clutches of the German Nazi's who had uncovered it in order to increase their power...
The other worlds
Although Freud made - more than significant, invaluable - contributions to our understanding of dreams and the symbols they contain, he could also perhaps e blamed for setting back investigations into consciousness by establishing his ideas to firmly into a blooming field. Freud's quasi-scientific reports and essays read as self-assured and authoritive, however the method of psychoanalysis that he championed proved in later years to be absolutely feaught with difficulties and problematic systems of assessment. When one isprovided with the opportunity to apprehend an assessment or report on psychoanalytical symbology, there is always the problem of interpretation - who is to say that any particular interpretation of a symbol, even a trained psychoanalysts, is more correct than any other? A dagger, for instance, can represent many things to many people. Surely the subject who is the dreamer will be able to provide the most accurate theory upon the meaning of the symbols in his dreams. Not so, according to Freud and many...
Letter to the editor - The Mercury
"...the Story Party does come into power, will this mean a rewriting or re interpretation of our history books, or laws and customs? Will the Story Party allow the public to make its own decisions in regards to policy or will its dogmatic 'prominence of narrative' philosophy overrule democratic prodcedures? How can we expect honesty from a group that has been quoted as proudly declaring that 'truth does not exist' and that 'every man can and will believe that which his experience tells him is the most appropriate'?
Where is the leadership?
The Story Party claims to be based on the teachings of Narrativism, some new cult. It is difficult to see how democracy can survive in the face of subjective determinism, or how anything might have cohesion in the midst of this active contradiction...
On the resolution of opposites. Professor J.M. Suzuki
R.A.A.F confidential memo
Although the spread has been contained to a restricted area of the state, the Premier is obviously still very concerned with the fatalities that have already occurred and the potential we have for further fatalities. The public will not be informed of this outbreak unless a critical level of danger is reached since all reports and directives indicate that this is not a high likelihood.
The Tasmanian Royal Society of Players
"...success of the summer improvisation programme, highlighting individual achievements of our talented writers and actors. Parents are very welcome to attend with additional..."
My history of the World
"...the first appearance of global consciousness, or the first markers of the evolution of such, is with the invention of the written word, the hieroglyph, the transmission of meaning from one unit of observer to another. Since then, communication, that skill that propels the human race successfully into the future, has passed many benchmarks. Papyrus, vellum, paper. Ogham, Latin, Hebrew. The illumination of the prophecies. The songs of the Celtic bard. The dialogues of Plato. The plays of Shakespeare. The diaries of Marco Polo. The printing press. The emulsion process. The wire telephone. The electric telegram. Radio waves. Cinematographs. Spectrum analysis. Pheromone- cloning. Binary coding. Virtual networking. Instant messaging. Scrapbook.
To be continued. Continued. To be.