The Storyteller

"I tell stories, therefore I am"

In his book 'Tell Me A Story' (Northwestern University Press, 1990, pp152)

Roger C Schank looks at how the same story

varies according to the skeleton which assimilates it.

"If we construct our own version of the truth by reliance upon skeleton

stories, two people can know exactly the same facts, but construct a

story that relays those facts in very different ways. Because they are

using different story skeletons, their perspectives will vary. For example,

a United States Navy warship shot down an Iranian airliner carrying

290 passengers on July 3, 1988. .... All the stories that

follow are excerpts from various New York Times reports in the days

following the incident:

Mr Reagan smiled and waved at tourists as he returned to the White

House. But in speaking to reporters he remarked on what he had previously

called "a terrible human tragedy...we're talking about an incident in which a

plane on radar was observed coming in the direction of a ship in combat and the

plane began lowering its altitude. And so, I think it was an understandable

accident to shoot and think that they were under attack from that plane," he said.

...Mr Reagan has chosen a common skeleton: understandable tragedy. The skeleton

looks something like this:

Actor pursues justifiable goal.

Actor selects reasonable plan to achieve goal.

Plan involves selection of correct action.

Action taken has unintended and unanticipatable result.

Result turns out to be undesirable.

Innocent people are hurt by the result.

In essence, what Mr Reagan has done is to select this skeleton and to interpret

the events of the shooting down of the airplane in terms of that skeleton. ...

he merely had to recognise that that skeleton was applicable and to use the phrases

"terrible human tragedy" and "understandable accident", which are well-known

referents to that skeleton. ...

After expressing "profound regret" about the attack, Mrs Thatcher said:

"We understand that in the course of an engagement following an Iranian

attack on the US force, warnings were given to an unidentified aircraft. We

fully accept the right of forces engaged in such hostilities to defend themselves."

Mrs Thatcher has used a much more specific skeleton, namely the

justifiability of self-defence. This skeleton proceeds as follows:

First actor pursues unjustifiable goal.

First actor selects plan.

Plan has intention of negative effect on second actor.

Second actor is justified in selecting goal.

Second actor selects justifiable plan.

Plan causes action to take place which harms first actor.

Let's look at the other side of the political spectrum now:

Libya's official press agency called the downing "a horrible massacre

perpetrated by the United States," It said the attack was "new proof of

state terrorism practiced by the American administration" and called

Washington "insolent" for insisting that the decision to down the plane

was an appropriate defensive measure.

Here two different skeletons are invoked. the first is state terrorism and the

 second is insolence. The insolence skeleton is an amusing one to invoke, but

we shall ... concentrate on the terrorism skeleton:

Actor chooses high-level goal.

Country blocks high-level goal.

Actor chooses secondary goal to harm citizens of country.

Actor endangers or actually harms citizens of country.

Actor expects blockage of high-level goal by country to go away.

... Notice that the events under discussion fit as easily into the state terrorism skeleton

as into the above two skeletons. The art of skeleton selection is just that - an art. No

real objective reality exists here. One can see and tell events in any way that one wants to.

In each case, certain elements of the story being transmitted are being enhanced

and certain elements left out altogether.

...

In the Times of the same period, we have another reference to how Reagan

commented on a similar situation some years back:

President Reagan, in a speech after the Korean plane was shot down after

straying over Soviet airspace above Sakhalin Island, said: "Make no

mistake about it, this was the Soviet Union against the world and the moral precepts

which guide human relations among people everywhere.

"It was an act of barbarism," Mr Reagan went on, "born of a society which

wantonly disregards individual rights and the value of human life and seeks

constantly to expand and dominate other nations."

While the Americans used the barbarism skeleton, where the Koreans

were the victim and the Russians the actor, to describe the shooting

down of the Koream  airliner, the Russians, in describing the Korean Airlines

attack, used the military aggressor skeleton, where the Koreans were the

actor and the Russians the victim. this same discrepancy occurred in the

Russian statement about the Iranian airliner:

The Tass statement said the attack Sunday was the inevitable result of the

extensive American military presence in the Persian Gulf... It added: "The

Soviet Union has repeatedly warned at different forums that the path of military

actions cannot lead to a normalised situation. If the warnings had been heeded

the July 3 tragedy would not have occurred."

Schank continues to beautifully illustrate his point with statements

on the same event by the Rev Jesse Jackson based on the skeletons

bad technology causes errors, and vague policy causes problems;

while the presidential candidate Dukakis used much the same skeletons

as Reagan. An exiled Iranian PM, concerned at the strengthening of his

home enemies by the event, used the skeleton fanatics find fuel to add to fire, and

the commander of the Iranian armed forces used the skeleton avoid revenge

 to show up opponent...

The basic brain structures being used here are Heroes and Villains. Follow the

rest of the tribe and cast its opponents as villains, and act accordingly. The variations

just reveal different strategies in the pursuit of this meaning of the event, and the world

is assimilated by the stories these tribally given skeletons (or 'titles' - or 'idols' even) create.

We are what we are, and we do what we do, because of the stories we tell.

BUT...

who exactly is telling these stories??

We all do. You do, I do. But wait, what exactly do I mean by 'I'?? Let's look at

the Realm this innocuous little pronoun seeks to appropriate... let's challenge

its ownership for a moment... Who is this Storyteller??

In 'The Meme Machine' , (Oxford University Press, 1999, pp219) ) Susan Blackmore

reveals the truth about 'I'...

"Think for a moment about yourself. I mean the 'real you', the inner

self, that bit of yourself that really feels those heartfelt emotions,

the bit of you that once (or many times) fell in love, the you that is

conscious and that cares, thinks, works hard, believes, dreams

and imagines; I mean who you really are. Unless you have thought about

this a good deal you probably jump to many conclusions about

yourself - that it has some kind of continuity and persists through

your life, that it is the centre of your consciousness, has memories,

holds beliefs and makes important decisions of your life."

But surely these are not conclusions being jumped to, but everyday common sense?

I mean, it is so fundamental to everything we think and do and say, it HAS to be true,

...doesn't it?

"Hold out your arm in front of you and then, whenever you feel like it,

spontaneously and of your own free will, flex your wrist. You might like

to do this a few times, making sure you do it as consciously and spontaneously

as you can. You will probably experience some kind of inner dialogue

or decision process in which you hold back from doing anything, and then

decide to act. Now ask yourself, what began the process that led to the

action? Was it you?

This task formed the basis of some fascinating experiments carried out by

neurosurgeon Benjamin Libet (1985). His subjects had electrodes on their

wrists to pick up the action, and electrodes on their scalps to measure brain

waves, and they watched a revolving spot on a clock face. As well as

spontaneously flexing their wrists they were asked to note exactly where

the spot was when they decided to act. Libet was therefore timing three

things: the start of the action, the moment of the decision to act, and the

starty of a particular brain wave pattern called a readiness potential.

this pattern is seen just before any complex action, and is associated

with the brain planning a series of movements to be carried out. The question

was, which would come first, the decision to act or the readiness

potential?

...you may think that the decision to act must come first. In fact what Libet

found was that the readiness potential began about 550 milliseconds (just

over half a second) before the action, and the decision to act about 200

milliseconds (about one-fifth of a second) before the action. In other

words, the decision to act was not the starting point - a finding that

can seem a little threatening to our sense of self. ... There is no separate

self jumping into the synapses and starting things off. My brain does

not need me."

So 'I' am not making the decisions,

if by 'I' I mean the 'conscious I' we think

we all know... it is done subconsciously, and when the action is

underway the Storyteller - 'I' - is informed, below the level of

consciousness, and it then pretends it made the decision itself. It is

good at making up stories. That is what it does.

Susan continues...

"So what does my self do?

Surely it must at least be the centre of my

awareness; the thing that receives impressions as I go about my life?

... let us try to introspect carefully. Sit down comfortably and look at

something uninteresting. Now concentrate on feeling the sensations

from your body and on hearing what is going on around you. Stay like

that long enough to get used to it and then ask yourself some questions.

Where is that sound? Is it inside my head, or over there? If it's over

there, then what is hearing it? Can I be conscious of the thing that is

hearing it? If so, am I separate from that thing as well?

...Staring determinedly into your own

experience does not reveal a solid world observed

by a persisting self but simply a stream of ever-changing

experience, with no obvious separation between observed and

observer. The eighteenth-century Scottish philosopher

David Hume explained that whenever he entered

most intimately into himself he always

stumbled upon some particular

perception - of heat or cold or pain or pleasure.

He could never catch himself without a

perception, nor observe anything

but the perception. He concluded that

the self was no more than a

'bundle of perceptions'... the very natural

idea that 'I' hear the sounds, feel

the sensations, or see the

world may be

false."

In other words, the Storyteller is NOT

what is hearing and seeing all that goes on around it. It may be

advised of a few selected titbits, may ask to be advised

of more... But overall, the 'observation', selection, and decisions

on what to do are happening unconsciously, and the

Storyteller makes up a more or less plausible

version of what seems to be happening,

at the same time aggrandising its

own role. In fact, it is rather like the spokesperson

for a company, one not present when the decisions are made, poorly

briefed on what they were, especially poorly briefed on why, and largely

ignorant of what the company is actually doing and planning.

Sadly, this spokesperson is so much in the dark

it has elaborated grandiose fictions about

its role in the company. It thinks it is

the board of directors, the chief executive

and all the employees rolled into one.

Hmmm.

And Susan, having slipped the knife deep into 'I',

starts to turn it...

"Another series of experiments by Libet (1981) adds an interesting

twist to the argument. Conscious sensory impressions can be induced by stimulating

the brain, but only when it is continuously stimulated for about half a

second. It is as though consciousness takes some time to

build up. This would lead to the odd idea that our

conscious appreciation of the world lags

behind the events [by half a second],

but because of a process Libet

calls 'subjective antedating'

we never realise it is lagging behind.

The story we tell ourselves puts events in order.

Further experiments showed that with short stimuli (too

short to induce conscious sensation) people could

nevertheless guess correctly whether they were

being stimulated or not (Libet et al 1991)

In other words they could make correct responses

without awareness.

Conscious awareness comes, all right,

but not in time. The hand is removed from the flame

before we consciously feel the pain. We have

whacked the tennis ball back before we can

be conscious of it coming towards us.

We have avoided the puddle

before we were conscious of its

existence. Consciousness follows on later.

Yet we still feel that 'I' consciously

did these things."

OK. 'I' doesn't make the

decisions. It isn't what is doing the perceiving.

It becomes conscious about half a second after it has

happened. But it believes it is in control, that

it is the puppet master.

'Believes'?

Yes, the Storyteller thinks it believes things.

You think 'you' do, I think 'I' do. We find ourselves

arguing for these beliefs, maybe even fighting for them, and

perhaps dying for them too. But we have touched on beliefs before.

They were the pathways, refuges and castles of a realm... We held onto

some as justifications for why we were doing something. Most of them

were not worked out by ourselves, but inherited, borrowed

from our peer group, our tribe. They were not conscious,

but strongly held nonetheless. If we gave them up,

then our tribe might see us as changelings,

tricksters, enemies in disguise,

betrayers.

We used them in defining

what treasures we wanted in life,

and how to get them, how to win friends

to help us, how to defeat the enemies

who would frustrate us. They

were tools we used, and

which used us.

They caught us in bad moods,

they made us climb ladders against

the wrong walls, they did not

always work for our

happiness.

'We' didn't believe

them. They 'believed' us.

We were NOT in control.

We did NOT choose

them... not

consciously, at

least.

And we looked at Mimetics

and how people are infected by ideas,

their Life's Realms assimilated

by them...

Wait...!

There has to be some

resistance to this. It's outrageous.

I know I think things out sometimes. I list

the pros and cons, I use logic, I buy 'Which'

to decide which car is sexiest, or most cost

efficient, or most environmentally

friendly...

"Why?"

Why is it important for you

have a sexy car, or one which is cost

efficient, or environmentally friendly? Because

you 'feel' it is important? Why? Because...

'I' just... feel it.

Aaaah.

[The Feeling of What Happens p199]

I guess I am at an end. But since we

know now there are no endings, only Portals to new beginnings,

I thought perhaps you would like to start

with this one...

"'I' is just a Pathway

for the

Storyteller."

(Kleber Augusto dos Santos Gabriel, 1.03.2002)