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How and Why do we tell Stories?

Adam Karaoguz

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Why do we tell Stories?

“Story is a vessel for carrying meaning It is the currency of human interchange, the net we cast to capture fugitive truths and the darting rabbits of emotion.” – Daniel Taylor, Tell me a story.

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Complexity

Complicated

Nonlinear Unorder

Chaos

Simple

Linear Order

The Arena

Reality is a Hot Mess

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The Arena

Simple

Equilibrium

Sense-Categorize-Respond

Best Practice

Propositional Knowing

Real Time/Rule Based

Known Knowns

Left Brain

Having Mode

Predictable/Deterministic

Examples

Getting a drink of water

Following a recipe

Multiple choice test

Complicated

Close to Equilibrium

Sense-Analyze-Respond

Good/Expert Practice

Procedural Knowing

Time to Analyze

Known Unknowns

Left Brain

Having Mode

Predictable/Deterministic

Reductionist/Mechanistic

Examples

Wristwatch

Airplanes

Skyscrapers

Linear- Tyrannical Static Order

Chaos

Randomness

Act-Sense-Respond

Novel Practice

Participatory Knowing

Real Time/Principle Based

Unknown Unknowns

Right Brain/Whole Brain

Being Mode

Unpredictable/Stochastic

Sensitivity to Initial Condition

Examples

Shooting Class V Rapids

Weather Patterns

Natural Disasters

Complexity

Edge of Chaos

Probe-Sense-Respond

Emerging Practice

Perspectival Knowing

Time to Experiment

Unknown Knowns

Right Brain/Whole Brain

Being Mode

Simple Rules/Emergence

Holistic/Organic

Self-Organization

Examples

Cities

Raising a child

Ecosystems

Nonlinear- Free Flowing Complexity

Nonlinear- Anarchic Capricious Chaos

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**Stories as a method to maintain coherence and attunement in a very complex and chaotic system called reality. To do the ‘complexity’ shuttle.**

In the mathematical theory of bifurcations, a Hopf bifurcation is a critical point where a system's stability switches and a periodic solution arises.^[1] More accurately, it is a local bifurcation in which a fixed point of a dynamical system loses stability, as a pair of complex conjugate eigenvalues—of the linearization around the fixed point—crosses the complex plane imaginary axis. Under reasonably generic assumptions about the dynamical system, a small-amplitude limit cycle branches from the fixed point.

Perhaps the most important implication of the correspondence between Jung's theories and chaos research is that fantasies about order, that

spurious product of reductionism, being the most desirable state-of-being are slowly giving way to the realization that chaos is far healthier

than previously imagined. If that proves to be the case, we shall have to revise some of our basic notions about mental health. Like Jung,

we may be forced to conclude that, at least with regard to psychological development, chaos is not only unavoidable, but necessary.

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“Apprentices talk Tactics, Journeymen talk Logistics, and Masters talk Information.” –COL Jim Greer, USA

“Apprentices talk Tactics, Journeymen talk Logistics, and Masters talk Information Narrative.”

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Narrative

Meaning
Identity
Content

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Obligatory Vervaeke Evangelism

4 Ways of Knowing:

Propositional Knowing
Procedural Knowing
Perspectival Knowing
Participatory Knowing

“When the Grip is Optimal”

**Storytelling to maintain Optimal Grip on Reality**

https://www.reddit.com/r/JohnVervaekeMemes/.

1) Propositional Knowing: This is belief-centric, arising in the form of “knowing that…<insert proposition>” — e.g. knowing that a cat is a mammal; knowing that Paris is the capital of France, knowing that Vervaeke is a professor of cognitive science, etc. In propositional knowing, memory is a set of facts you believe to be true.

2) Procedural Knowing: This is “knowing how” to do something — e.g. how to catch a ball, how to understand other people, how to engage in productive conversations, etc. In procedural knowing, memory is not about facts - true or false - but about embodied skills, how apt they are, how well they fit the context.

3) Perspectival Knowing: This is the knowing you have because you’re a conscious being with a perspective on your context. Knowing what it's like to be here right now – situational awareness - including which skills to apply, and/or you need to acquire, and to what degree. In perspectival knowing, memory is about how things are in the foreground and background of your evolving outlook - your salience landscape - enabling you to get an optimal grip on a situation, based on your state of mind.

4) Participatory Knowing: This is the deepest form of knowing and the most backgrounded in your salience landscape. It's your sense of attunement, connectedness, co-identification, of being at home.In participatory knowing, memory is about how you, your agency, and the arena relate to each other. It's the sense you lose in an alien culture when you, your agency, and the arena aren't quite in sync.

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https://www.anopticalillusion.com/2016/01/rotating-chains-by-akiyoshi-kitaoka/

Stare at one wheel. Notice that it stops. Now move to another wheel. It stops, and the first one starts to move. You need to view this illusion from nearly head on for it to work. Magic. What’s going on here? I don’t have a hidden camera watching the eye movements of each one of you and changing the animation accordingly. This illusion, like all optical illusions, exploits how our brains work: You don’t actually see anything. Here’s a greatly over-simplified description of what’s happening: The brain sits alone in the skull, isolated and in the dark, a roughly 3 pound gelatinous blob with an average volume of around 1200 cc or 73 cu in. and containing, by the current estimate, 86 billion neurons. It has been estimated that there are approximately 1 quadrillion synapses 1(inter-neural connections) in the human brain. This works out to about a 800 million synapses per cubic millimeter, about the size of a grain of sand. And these little guys are firing all the time. Ref: Tompa, R., “Why is the human brain so difficult to understand? We asked 4 neuroscientists.” Allen Institute, 4/21/2022. You could think of perception, and perhaps even consciousness, as an emergent property of a very complex system consisting of 86 billion neurons communicating across a quadrillion synapses. There may be other factors at work, such as the hotly contested theory of “quantum consciousness,” but the description above is complex enough for our purposes. Our perception of the universe, then, is our experiencing a mental model, updated in near real time by sensory inputs. It is an illusion, which is usually very accurate — otherwise we’d be bumping into walls and driving a car or flying a plane would be unthinkable. But like all models, it is not the real thing, and it can be fooled, as we just saw. Thought we saw.

https://slightlyeastofnew.com/2022/08/28/do-you-believe-in-magic/

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Liminal Thinking by Dave Gray

**Stories**

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How do we

tell stories?

“A tale shall accomplish something

and arrive somewhere.”

– Mark Twain’s first rule of writing.

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Story is Psycho-Technology

Story-telling is a deliberately designed tool, one of the first that humans created.

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Entertain
Inform
Transform

We want to figure out how to be in the world!

Survive
Thrive
Derive

Prescriptive or Cautionary Tales

Lascaux is famous for its Palaeolithic cave paintings, found in a complex of caves in the Dordogne region of southwestern France, because of their exceptional quality, size, sophistication and antiquity. Estimated to be up to 20,000 years old, the paintings consist primarily of large animals, once native to the region. Lascaux is located in the Vézère Valley where many other decorated caves have been found since the beginning of the 20th century (for example Les Combarelles and Font-de-Gaume in 1901, Bernifal in 1902). Lascaux is a complex cave with several areas (Hall of the Bulls, Passage gallery) It was discovered on 12 September 1940 and given statutory historic monument protection in december of the same year.

Paintings of the animals would seem to be in motion when viewed by firelight.

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Inciting Incident—The Call to Adventure.

2. Turning Point Progressive Complication—A Shift in Value. EVERY SCENE MUST TURN.

3. Crisis—The Dramatic Question. Best Bad Choice or Irreconcilable Goods (or Both).

4. Climax—Making the choice.

5. Resolution—How did it work out?

Story Grid 5 Commandments

**Story is Fractal- It exhibits self-similarity at different levels**

Inciting Incident—The Call to Adventure.

Causal—Result of decision or action.
Coincidental—Weather, chance encounter.
Direct, Indirect, Random
How does it create imbalance?
What does it promise?
How is it an invisible phere gorilla? Protagonist has a fundamental misunderstanding of what the incident means.

2. Turning Point Progressive Complication—A Shift in Value.

Active- Change in situation, actions of character, environment, or external force.
Revelatory—Must change direction because of new information.
Look for the moment that the initial protagonist’s strategy no longer works. What to do?
Before the turning point, PCs are escalating obstacles and windfalls.

3. Crisis—The Dramatic Question.

Best Bad Choice. Two incompatible problems. Minimizes Harm. Self-focused
Irreconcilable Goods. Good for character vs. Good for everyone else. Other-focused.
What options does the protagonist recognize for reacting to the turning point?
What is at stake (risk) or what do they stand to gain from each option?

4. Climax—Making the choice.

Protagonist must choose, no Deus Ex Machina.
Do they choose one of the options found in the Crisis, or find another way?
Is it a full unit of story by itself (it has its own mini-five commandments).
Character revealed—They either change or they don’t.
Should be a surprise revealed to protagonist.

5. Resolution—How did it work out?

What is the outcome of the Climax?
What is the fallout from the path not taken?
Prescriptive—It all worked out!
Cautionary—Watch out, this could happen to you.
Needs processing time, for Protagonist and audience.
Sets the conditions for a new inciting incident.

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Beyond The Surface

CATHARSIS

TRANSFORM

ETERNAL

DESIRE

DERIVE

MEANING

Above the Surface

INTRIGUE

INFORM

DURATION

NEED

THRIVE

INFORMATION

On the Surface

EXCITEMENT

ENTERTAIN

NOW

WANT

SURVIVE

ENERGY

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Take Aways

Reality is messy, and made of ever-changing complex adaptive systems, oscillating between static order and capricious chaos.

Storytelling is an anti-fragile psycho-technology purposefully designed by humans to allow proper attunement and optimal grip with that reality. (Vervaeke + Coyne)

Story shows others how to be in the world. To Entertain, Inform, and Transform, slipping sneakily past our paradigms and biases- Piercing our bubbles of belief.

Stories follow general macro and micro principles to convey their given message, just like architecture.

Values must turn/change during flow of a story to maintain excitement, intrigue, and ultimately create catharsis in the recipient.

A complex adaptive system is a system that is complex in that it is a dynamic network of interactions, but the behavior of the ensemble may not be predictable according to the behavior of the components. It is adaptive in that the individual and collective behavior mutate and self-organize corresponding to the change-initiating micro-event or collection of events.^[1]^[2]^[3] It is a "complex macroscopic collection" of relatively "similar and partially connected micro-structures" formed in order to adapt to the changing environment and increase their survivability as a macro-structure.^[1]^[2]^[4] The Complex Adaptive Systems approach builds on replicator dynamics.^[5]

The study of complex adaptive systems, a subset of nonlinear dynamical systems,^[6] is an interdisciplinary matter that attempts to blend insights from the natural and social sciences to develop system-level models and insights that allow for heterogeneous agents, phase transition, and emergent behavior.^[7]