Fisher:
I liked this part of the article: “Human beings as story tellers allow symbols to be created and then communicated as stories in order to give human experience and to induce others to live to establish ways of living in common in communities in which there is sanction for the story that constitutes one’s life.”
That quote made me think about how writers write using methods of relatability. Some of these methods could include a chore from their daily life to try to ensnare the readers who could use that to find meaning in what they read.
“Rationality = nature of human beings as storytellers.”
“Narratization = came from social conditioning and is a feature of human nature.”
There was one part in the reading where they discussed where people interacted (or argued) with one another in a social environment. Even though they did not hear the discussion from the very beginning, the people ended up forming their viewpoint and thus felt the need to include their own opinion. Some people aligned against the newcomers while others did not (it also showed how being rational can lead to differing of views/arguments).
On a related note, I wonder if perhaps our lives are like a type of narration. We go about our lives, some with a purpose and others without one, and then the book ends when we die. Like in the previous paragraph, the social interactions we’ve made along the way were what could have helped us form our own life’s narration.
H. Graves:
This reading discussed the roles of rhetoric in science and I found myself enjoying this reading as well.
I liked the discussion about how science is either concrete facts that exists prior to human contact or it was constructed by human beings, and the possibility of what we define as real in our universe are based on theories or models. This discussion made me wonder if we’re designed (or wired) to think a certain way. For example, what if, like the different types of colors we can’t see with our naked eye, there are different types of knowledge or perspectives we don’t know about?
I also thought this was cool to think about: “people are integral with what they create (machines) and thus their motives and intentions shape the design and purpose of an instrument which, in turn, shape the data generated by technology.” Would this point to data in a scientific collection as a construct? Personally, I think it does, which leads me to my next point:
Lastly, I began to wonder about how science could be rhetorical. The last quote alludes to my thinking on this, but this also further illustrates it: There was one part in this article where a man interacted with his colleague to see if his interpretation of his experiment was correct. That interaction was not only a potential elimination of objectivity, but could have also revealed how a person uses language (orally and/or written) to construct knowledge based on their findings.
Thomas:
This reading was a nice mental break compared to the other two readings. I loved his discussion of wonders! When he wondered about humans, I instantly thought of this: I wonder if human beings are capable of being peaceful with one another of if they have an instinct to fight/cause conflicts with out another (e.g wars) like the rest of the animal kingdom.
Lastly, I just wanted to say this: I love cats deeply (wild, domestic -- you name it) – Always have and always will. They’re such beautiful and amazing creatures.
One of my wonders with cats is if they truly have emotions or if they behave in certain ways because they associate a certain action with their own needs (e.g food). In other words, can cats feel love or affection for their owner? (I like to think they do! :) )I’m also fascinated with the similarities and differences between big cats (like tigers) and house cats. For example, how different are their stalking methods from each other?
I liked this part of the article: “Human beings as story tellers allow symbols to be created and then communicated as stories in order to give human experience and to induce others to live to establish ways of living in common in communities in which there is sanction for the story that constitutes one’s life.”
That quote made me think about how writers write using methods of relatability. Some of these methods could include a chore from their daily life to try to ensnare the readers who could use that to find meaning in what they read.
“Rationality = nature of human beings as storytellers.”
“Narratization = came from social conditioning and is a feature of human nature.”
There was one part in the reading where they discussed where people interacted (or argued) with one another in a social environment. Even though they did not hear the discussion from the very beginning, the people ended up forming their viewpoint and thus felt the need to include their own opinion. Some people aligned against the newcomers while others did not (it also showed how being rational can lead to differing of views/arguments).
On a related note, I wonder if perhaps our lives are like a type of narration. We go about our lives, some with a purpose and others without one, and then the book ends when we die. Like in the previous paragraph, the social interactions we’ve made along the way were what could have helped us form our own life’s narration.
H. Graves:
This reading discussed the roles of rhetoric in science and I found myself enjoying this reading as well.
I liked the discussion about how science is either concrete facts that exists prior to human contact or it was constructed by human beings, and the possibility of what we define as real in our universe are based on theories or models. This discussion made me wonder if we’re designed (or wired) to think a certain way. For example, what if, like the different types of colors we can’t see with our naked eye, there are different types of knowledge or perspectives we don’t know about?
I also thought this was cool to think about: “people are integral with what they create (machines) and thus their motives and intentions shape the design and purpose of an instrument which, in turn, shape the data generated by technology.” Would this point to data in a scientific collection as a construct? Personally, I think it does, which leads me to my next point:
Lastly, I began to wonder about how science could be rhetorical. The last quote alludes to my thinking on this, but this also further illustrates it: There was one part in this article where a man interacted with his colleague to see if his interpretation of his experiment was correct. That interaction was not only a potential elimination of objectivity, but could have also revealed how a person uses language (orally and/or written) to construct knowledge based on their findings.
Thomas:
This reading was a nice mental break compared to the other two readings. I loved his discussion of wonders! When he wondered about humans, I instantly thought of this: I wonder if human beings are capable of being peaceful with one another of if they have an instinct to fight/cause conflicts with out another (e.g wars) like the rest of the animal kingdom.
Lastly, I just wanted to say this: I love cats deeply (wild, domestic -- you name it) – Always have and always will. They’re such beautiful and amazing creatures.
One of my wonders with cats is if they truly have emotions or if they behave in certain ways because they associate a certain action with their own needs (e.g food). In other words, can cats feel love or affection for their owner? (I like to think they do! :) )I’m also fascinated with the similarities and differences between big cats (like tigers) and house cats. For example, how different are their stalking methods from each other?
Quick Connections:
* When I read Thomas’ article, I was instantly sucked into the narration technique he used. He discussed his personal wonders about different things in our world. Because I could relate with his curious mind, I immediately thought of my own wonders.
* I also tried to think about how this (Thomas’) article related to H. Graves’ article. I thought of how those five pages were also a type of construct as the result of a man-made technology. Going even deeper than that, I also thought about objectivity and the information he presented within his seven wonders. Being objective would mean there were no emotions involved in what he wrote. However, because he was curious of his wonders, I’m assuming he was passionate as well. Because of his passion, I don’t think he was truly objective with how he presented the information.
* When I read Thomas’ article, I was instantly sucked into the narration technique he used. He discussed his personal wonders about different things in our world. Because I could relate with his curious mind, I immediately thought of my own wonders.
* I also tried to think about how this (Thomas’) article related to H. Graves’ article. I thought of how those five pages were also a type of construct as the result of a man-made technology. Going even deeper than that, I also thought about objectivity and the information he presented within his seven wonders. Being objective would mean there were no emotions involved in what he wrote. However, because he was curious of his wonders, I’m assuming he was passionate as well. Because of his passion, I don’t think he was truly objective with how he presented the information.
“On a related note, I wonder if perhaps our lives are like a type of narration. We go about our lives, some with a purpose and others without one, and then the book ends when we die. Like in the previous paragraph, the social interactions we’ve made along the way were what could have helped us form our own life’s narration.”
ReplyDeleteLike I mentioned in my blog post, some people may strive their whole lives to know “the” purpose of life, but I think this is distinct from living life with or without “a” purpose. For some people, they may live for the purpose of personal happiness. But without purpose, one loses hope, and without hope, one doesn’t stay in this world for very long. Hope looks forward to purpose, for “a sense of purpose goes along with building hope for the future” (http://www.storiedmind.com/purpose/finding-purpose-life-overcome-depression/). I worked at a summer camp for ten weeks before returning to school this year; some kids confided to me that they had struggled with depression and had tried to take their lives ultimately because they felt “unneeded”—no purpose, no hope for living.
The reason why I went off on that tangent about purpose is because I don’t think narratives exist without some kind of purpose. Liam had posted on his blog about the interconnection between narrative and problem-solving; if some sort of “problem” is intrinsic to narrative, then the purpose of the narrative is to find the solution to the problem or arrive at some sort of equilibrium. Thus, if our lives “are like a type of narration,” then the people living those narratives are living with *a* purpose. And perhaps too, some people believe “the book ends when we die.” In such cases, those people may live with the purpose to make sure the book doesn’t “end” when they die, that at least their books appear intertextually in other books—in other words, these people live to leave a legacy.
So if people (consciously, subconsciously, or unconsciously) live their lives as narratives, they live under hope and a purpose. As science writers, we could ask ourselves why a particular scientist chooses the work he does; we could investigate the driving purpose(s) of that scientist’s “narrative.” People’s passion lie in their purpose, and by discovering what they deem as their purpose, we discover what they’re most passionate about. At the end of your blog post, you raised questions about objectivity and passion, implying that passion obscures objectivity. Do you think this is connected to Hancock’s advice about “do not set out to write a story about the subject closest to your heart” (31)? Should we be wary, then, of the dangers of subjectivity inherent in a scientist’s life’s work (especially if he means to leave that as a legacy)? Hmm…wow, that [entire comment] was just out of the blue. Thanks for putting up with my crazy line of thinking!
Hi Kelly. Nice post. Sadie already tackled your question of “I wonder if perhaps our lives are like a type of narration,” so I’ll try and be brief in my response to that. I think part of Fisher’s idea might be that people have reasoning capability through narrative precisely because lives can be viewed as narratives – not just in the grand scheme of things, but in mundane situations as well. It might be easier to think of our lives as myriad narratives through which we build experience, awareness, and the ability to make good decisions (at least, ideally).
ReplyDeleteI think you (and Sadie in her response to you) posed some really interesting questions about objectivity, subjectivity, and when it’s ok to express one or the other. I think the Thomas article was subjective, simply because it’s his list of what he finds most fascinating. The bigger question, about passion influencing one’s work, was broached in the Polanyi article. I was really struck by the element of Mooallem’s text that dealt with perspectives. This is right on the border of subjectivity, and I was impressed by the idea that scientists who identify as gay are sometimes better equipped to detect heteronormative frameworks (254); I think Anjeli mentioned this in class as well. I’m not sure if it helps at all, but that’s what has been floating around in my mind concerning bias and perspective.
Liam
Kelly,
ReplyDeleteA few things came to mind when you talked about Fisher's discussion of the newcomer entering in partway through a conversation and still developing an opinion. Perhaps this scenario has happened to us all at least once in college: you're 20 minutes late and the class is in a heated discussion when you obnoxiously open and close the door and sit at the least intrusive desk. You feel the pressure...and the resentment...from every student who feels that you should have just stayed home if you were going to be so late. But perhaps it is this pressure that puts the brain into a type of "survival mode." The few times I have been that student, my brain works doubly hard to extract something insightful for me to say and prove to the class, "See? I'm sorry i'm late but I swear i'm not an idiot and I swear I deserve to be here as much as the punctual people." Because of this adrenaline fueled situation, I believe that entering midway through a conversation can actually HELP develop an opinion, because your brain is trying so hard to connect the dots to the information you missed. Clearly this does not happen 100% of the time, but in my experience when it does work, it REALLY works. If only there were a way to determine when it was appropriate to miss the front half of a conversation, we might simultaneously save time AND develop solid opinions.
I have a feeling that today in class we will discuss Graves at length (which I sort of need) so moving right along to Thomas...
I'm glad you seemed to like this article as much as I did, because this sort of "head in the clouds" writing is not for everyone. You're totally right when you say there is a degree of passion in this article that might hinder his objectivity, but I'm not bothered by that. I enjoy reading what comes out of a person's imagination rather than what came out of an observation (which this article does a little of both). Perhaps this article speaks to the creative writers more than the science writers, but from all the blog posts i've read about this article, no one seemed to hate it. We have a pretty diverse span of interests in our class, and if this article informed and entertained each of these diversities, then I think Thomas has an element of magic in his writing that we should all try to tap into. Universalization is an awful word, especially in this class, but I think that this article may have accomplished just that.
Slightly unrelated to class discussion....but I am also a feline addict. I'm constantly observing my cat's behavior and reading articles to try and better define what i'm seeing, but the issue of human objectivity comes into play once again. Cats are something I would love to write about from a scientific perspective, because i'm genuinely interested. However, I'm terribly biased, and I can already see myself sugar coating any "unfavorable" findings. Animals in general are hard to write about in an "honest" fashion...because we so badly want to believe they are capable of love. Even if the animal is not particularly cuddly (Albatross) then we want to believe that they can love each other. Love is a terrible thing, because it gets in the way of true discovery. But if not for love, we may not possess the passion to go out into the world and discover.