Friday, December 3, 2010

STUFF TO WORRY ABOUT [WHEN WRITING FICTION] #21

The fear/greed dichotomy seems a symptom of a matter-based reality as opposed to a consciousness-based reality...We are "consciousness conductors."



Fiction...transcends...wish-fulfillment, exceeds mere daydreaming...the fictionist relates fantasy to time by using, according to Freud, "an occasion in the present to construct, on the pattern of the past, a picture of the future...pleasure...[is] connected with the dynamics of the work of art"...While the daydreamer's fantasy succumbs to egocentric opposition, the fictionist devises strategies to transcend mere ego through writing by using the same methods the subconscious uses to subvert egoistic intent...and so the fiction/reality dichotomy dissolves and consciousness expands accordingly...ego may be at the helm, but a much wider and deeper awareness captains the ship.

2 comments:

  1. On Facebook today, Robert D. Pohl points out:

    "New theories of consciousness tend to focus on somatic awareness rather than a Cartesian 'ghost in the machine.'"

    My response: Yes, many do. Those who see things somatically seem to think that spirit, if it exists at all, must be connected to matter, an effect of some material cause--spirituality=perception+meaning. Yet we know matter and perception have become all... the murkier thanks to quantum physics. I used to fully agree with the general somatic view that mind extends from the body as opposed to the body extending from the mind, but lately, I'm not so sure. It seems equally possible that matter is an effect of mind. Therefore, both views could be true. There might also be a "machine in the ghost." That said, I agree that things are a good deal more complex than Descartes ever imagined. I see feedback loops, coaxial esemplasies, chaos and fractals as higher forms of order than what we normally imagine or intuit. But I'm an amateur. I'm not a paid expert. I have no advanced degrees. I'm limited to the likes of Gleick and Fritjof Capra when it comes to science. Forget math. I'm no Dawkins or Dennett. I come to my opinions by way of curiosity and find this subject creatively stimulating. It points to alternative ways of approaching narrative to see what might be said and done...providing architectures for telling stories one needs to tell. Its biggest effect on my own writing seems to be what I don't or won't say more than anything else. What I find most interesting in some somatic theories of awareness is that the mind may not be centralized in the brain, but more resemble an electron which can be both particle and wavelength, existent in multiple locations simultaneously ... in that the mind seems to have a recursive symmetry or common "mechanism" as matter...and vice versa...it affects the way one might write. It seems to me there might be an almost tangible seam among these matters...but I'm not sure...still feeling my way.

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  2. Also, please see:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTrjGJivsF4&feature=related

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4YVCZBc7hA&feature=related

    Somatics, to me, seems a "Western" construct where the distinction between science and mysticism still exists. Kathy Acker visited SUNY Buffalo in 1995 and spoke of her aim being to "explode the duality." I always wondered what she meant by that. I now think it might have something to do with the painful mind/machine distinction. I think we've entered a transhuman phase where we're increasingly becoming cyborgs...something else...glued to our technology.

    And finally:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UV402vPn8JU&feature=related

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