“Stories only happen to those who are able to tell them.” Paul Auster

[Catherine.L]

Well, what do you think about it?

[YesNo]

I was looking at how children learn to identify agents recently even before they are able to speak. They identify agents by the way agents act on objects that don't have agency. What the agent does is the story present to them. They do this prior to learning to tell anyone about it. So I suspect Auster is wrong.

[Catherine.L]

hmmm I know what you mean.... are you studying psychology??

Anyway, I think that Auster's quote has a metaphorical sense...
He might wants to say that you have to live your life within the sphere of imigination to be able to realize that "a story" is happening to you and then be able to narrate it..

[YesNo]

I am re-reading Justin Barrett's "Born Believers" which is a summary of child psychologists' experiments on how children view agents motivated by a thread on Freud's "oceanic feeling". I don't study psychology normally.

On one hand, Auster's view is correct. Language boxes us in with metaphors and yet allows us to clarify ourselves with language and so expand that box at the same time. We are doing that now by writing about this. All of this clarification could be called a narrative or story.

On the other hand, how far can language explain us away? Can our consciousness subjectivity be reduced to language which can be pointed to as an unconscious object? Then one could say, what about children prior to leaning a language. What about our pets? What about our own functions in a culture where we don't speak the dominant language? There are other languages, species and periods of life when language may not be readily present. What about machines?

Language does have a communal aspect to it that challenges individualism. Language seems more like something that our conscious species uses to express itself communally. It is not primary. Our reality can't be reduced to it.

Anyway, I am no expert on this topic. How do you view it?

[Catherine.L]

I am not an expert on the topic of language either... and I feel that we are going far away from Auster's quote.
But because you are influenced by the book you're reading right now and because you've mentioned laguage, I'll suggest you to watch this video by Chomsky and Krauss which is really interesting and maybe will give you some answers...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ml1G919Bts0

Chomsky says: What is important about language has nothing to do with the communication. The important things about language is not external but internal.So, 99% of your use of language never gets expressed.

That possibly is the answer to the question "how far can language explain us".... well, according to Chomsky and statistically speaking it should be about 1% !!!

It is not language the element that can help us to explain and interpret ourselves and the world.... It should be something else...something beyond our comprehension

[Catherine.L]

If you watch the video, tell me your impression :)

[YesNo]

I watched over an hour of the video. It makes sense whatever evolved would be linguistic capacity rather than language itself. It also makes sense that 99% of the use of language is internal. That might be a way to distinguish us from machines. Chromsky claims that we are the only species to use language beyond the use of signals keyed to external events. I wonder if that is true. I don't know what the internal (subjective) life of a cat is, for example.

Back to Auster's quote, “Stories only happen to those who are able to tell them,” what does it mean for a story to "happen" to someone?

[Catherine.L]

I am thinking of something clever to answer you but it is difficult.... I really don't know what does it mean for a story to "happen" to someone... It is a very good question though, I'll think of it more!

[YesNo]

I also looked at the Wikipedia article on Chomsky: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noam_Chomsky

I agree with him on civil liberties. Also I think our language ability is part of our nature and is not the result of learning like the tabula rasa approach that Skinner is supposed to have promoted. I wonder what I don't agree with. Members of other species seem to communicate with each other as well, but it may not be through something we would recognize as a language.

[North Star]

Most humans encounter sequences of incidents that would make for a story, but only some notice them, and only some of those can form, and tell, a story of them. Similarly, a painter or a photographer will be able to create a work of art from a scene where others don't see the potential for a work of art, and composers can get ideas from bits of speech, noise, etc.

[Catherine.L]

You say "only some notice them" but who are those "some" and why some other do not notice them?

[Catherine.L]

YesNo,

After mentioned Skinner, I am convinced you're studying psychology!

[North Star]

You say "only some notice them" but who are those "some" and why some other do not notice them?
Our interests and social background, among other things, influence what we see, pay attention to and how we interpret and connect those things. Someone will notice a behavioral pattern that differ from what they are used to, while it's normal to others, or they are looking at the landscape or reading a book or on the bloody smartphone. I bet the one who is constantly on their smartphone will have lots of interesting stories about battery longevity and Wi-Fi issues. I suppose everything humans communicate is a story at some level. If you do that, this happens. If you want to go to B, you must travel through here and there. If you bought some milk, you had to go to the grocery store and on the way you saw this happen.

[Catherine.L]

I liked what you said: "everything humans communicate is a strory at some level"

Our interests and social background, among other things, influence what we see, pay attention to and how we interpret and connect those things. Someone will notice a behavioral pattern that differ from what they are used to, while it's normal to others, or they are looking at the landscape or reading a book or on the bloody smartphone. I bet the one who is constantly on their smartphone will have lots of interesting stories about battery longevity and Wi-Fi issues. I suppose everything humans communicate is a story at some level. If you do that, this happens. If you want to go to B, you must travel through here and there. If you bought some milk, you had to go to the grocery store and on the way you saw this happen.