Tuesday, August 21, 2018

Caitlin Johnstone — Society Is Made Of Narrative. Realizing This Is Awakening From The Matrix.


It's actually more than this. All of us have a world view, but we don't all share the same world view. Everyone takes their own world view to be "reality," and rejects other world views as erroneous, deceitful, degenerate, primitive, or uneducated, or primitive view of reality.

Culture, including early upbringing and education, and especially group think heavily influence the formation of one's world view. Group think is fostered by narratives. Whoever controls the narrative controls the view of reality in that group, whether it be a subgroup or an entire society. 

America and Britain as doing their best to impose their joint world view on the world in the name of liberal globalization based on "freedom and democracy."
In the movie The Matrix, humans are imprisoned in a virtual world by a powerful artificial intelligence system in a dystopian future. What they take to be reality is actually a computer program that has been jacked into their brains to keep them in a comatose state. They live their whole lives in that virtual simulation, without any way of knowing that what they appear to be experiencing with their senses is actually made of AI-generated code.
Life in our current society is very much the same. The difference is that instead of AI, it’s psychopathic oligarchs who are keeping us asleep in the Matrix. And instead of code, it’s narrative.
Society is made of narrative like the Matrix is made of code. Identity, language, etiquette, social roles, opinions, ideology, religion, ethnicity, philosophy, agendas, rules, laws, money, economics, jobs, hierarchies, politics, government, they’re all purely mental constructs which exist nowhere outside of the mental noises in our heads. If I asked you to point to your knee you could do so instantly and wordlessly, but if I asked you to point to the economy, for example, the closest you could come is using a bunch of linguistic symbols to point to a group of concepts. To show me the economy, you’d have to tell me a story.…"
Caitlin Johnstone — Rogue Journalist
Society Is Made Of Narrative. Realizing This Is Awakening From The Matrix.
Caitlin Johnstone

9 comments:

Matt Franko said...

“To show me the economy, you’d have to tell me a story.…"

Well you wouldn’t have to do this with me...

This female probably could not even check the oil in her car....

Matt Franko said...

“but if I asked you to point to the economy, for example, the closest you could come is using a bunch of linguistic symbols to point to a group of concepts. ”

Only Art Degree people would do this...

Tom Hickey said...

Well you wouldn’t have to do this with me...

Because you are convinced that your story is the only right one. On what grounds, one wonders?

Tom Hickey said...

“but if I asked you to point to the economy, for example, the closest you could come is using a bunch of linguistic symbols to point to a group of concepts. ”

Only Art Degree people would do this...


Let's see you do this without doing that.

Matt Franko said...

“you are convinced that your story is the only right one. ”

I’m not telling a story .... Artists tell stories (like The Matrix.... hellllooooo) ... im not trained in Art I’m trained in Science... they are different methodologies...

Tom are you saying that if you look at the Wachowskis and then look at the Computer Engineers who design and manufacture the GPUs that they use in producing their motion picture are “doing the same thing” ?

It’s a completely different methodology..

The Chemists who design and manufacture oil paints are doing the same thing as Damien Hirst?

Tom Hickey said...

I am saying that when "scientists" are talking and acting in their field they are qualified, and that "artists" are talking and acting in their field they are qualified. They may not always be correct even in their field, and their are disagreements in any particular field, as well as failures.

And I dispute the "scientists" and "artists" distinction as a fallacy of the excluded middle.

The middle is actually the most important in life since this is where people of many field interface to do the socially necessary work to support a society, achieve its objectives, and unfold its potential.

Of course, qualified people should be responsible for that in which they are qualified.

But we don't hire construction engineers to design buildings, although they could presumably do it. Instead, we hire architects, who are trained in both design and engineering to bring the two together in a structure that is sound, functional, and aesthetically pleasing. Life is like this. Fields are not only interface but also overlap.

Science, too, is a story of sort. Models may be conceptual, like a science a fiction story, or they may be expressed in highly abstract formal theories that consist chiefly of math.

Personally, I find no pleasure in doing math, and I prefer to other that do enjoy it "do the math." But I also have to know how to "read" math to understand the story that is being told. Then, I can compare it with reality.

Often this "story" doesn't fit around the margins owing to simplification. Understanding that the story is limited in scope. I realize that it is not properly applied beyond its scope and that the margin is a grey area, so be careful. Of course the goes for purely conceptual models as well.

Scientific modeling is more rigorous that most conceptual modeling but that is due to the nature of the subject matter, which differs across the science and begins to blend with narrative beyond the natural sciences.

But take QM. It's a theoretical structure expressed by mathematical modeling. However, physicists attempt to construct narratives about what it means using ordinary language using conceptual modeling. While physicists agree about the standard model, they disagree about what it "means" conceptually.

The scope of a science or technology is limited, often severely, to that it is only applicable to a very narrow slice of life. All the important slices of life are not covered by a science or technology owing to the nature of the subject matter and the capabilities of rigorous modeling and technical skills.

Thus, to make a general distinction between scientist and artists is arbitrary and not useful, especially when the terms are not defined operationally (as science requires for rigor).

Tom Hickey said...

If you want to define "scientist" as one that uses mathematical models and a technologist as one that uses materials skills, I am OK with that. But then scientists can't say anything authoritative outside the scope of this field of expertise in a particular science, and technologists (I don't limit this to engineers) beyond their application of their skill and training.

That puts most of life beyond the scope of those individuals to deal with rigorously without having additional knowledge and skill in the other applicable fields.

Beyond the limited scope of their expertise, the so-called authority of "experts" is just mystique.

Matt Franko said...

“ trained in both design and engineering to bring the two together in a structure that is sound”

Ok right I agree here.... so show me where perhaps Larry Kudlow who is now CEA has ever been trained in non-Art methodology ? He’s a Art Degree in History from Princeton... where is his Science training?

So then things ofc are all F-ed up and you guys say Kudlow is part of the “neoliberal conspiracy!”

Matt Franko said...

You guys are all biased anti science because you’ve never rigorously trained in it... you don’t appreciate the value of the science methodology in pursuit of material goals... again no (rigorous) training...

So you drift towards thinking we are living in a fictional movie like The Matrix and other things like conspiracy theories...