Re: [xmca] latour

Dear Luiz,

Thanks for the article; I look forward to it! Ah, Paris...have only
ever been in the airport en route to Sri Lanka.

Not sure I think reality and fiction are opposites, or, in Mike's terms,
an either/or....can also be a both/and, to my way of thinking. Real and
fictitious seems perfectly possible, even probable. I think Harry
Potter is real in important senses of the word, especially in terms of
having a measurable economic impact on the world. And, then, of course,
there 's G-d. Real?

Sounds though like we may be saying similar things. I don't
counter-point reality and fiction which is, perhaps, like your point
that there is no absolute view-from-nowhere distinction between reality
and fiction. But then what is unreal? What were you...or were
you...counter-pointing online games as being like to other people that
makes you want to argue for them as "real worlds"? Counter-pointing
"real" and "virtual"? Or "real" and "something else"?

Anyway, I'll be digesting in Brooklyn

In Peace,
K.

Luiz Carlos Baptista wrote:
> Food for thought indeed. I'll spend next week in Paris digesting it :)
>
> As far as I understand what it's going on in this thread, it is the idea
> that agents need not be persons. Or, to put it in the analytic flavour I've
> been savouring in the last few years, being person is a sufficient, thought
> not necessary, condition for being an agent. If that is the point, I must
> say I am inclined to agree.
>
> As a contribution to the discussion, I attach a recent paper by the analytic
> philosopher Peter Ludlow (who also happens to be a cyber buff), in which he
> defends a "contextualist" view of what counts as real. Basically, the idea
> is that what counts as real depends on the context, so there is no absolute,
> view-from-nowhere distinction between reality and fiction.
>
> Cheers,
> Luiz
>
> **********
> "The brain is a wonderful thing. Everybody should have one."
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] On
> Behalf Of Kevin Rocap
> Sent: sábado, 8 de Março de 2008 19:47
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> Subject: Re: [xmca] latour
>
> Dear Martin,
>
> Hm. Definite food for thought.
>
> At some level since Greimas's usage is targeted at fictional characters
> as "actors" and, I guess, the deep narrative grammatical/semantic
> features of those characters (???) as "actants", isn't this, in a way,
> parallel to the roles of motivations, influences and, dare I say,
> objects for a live person/live people? Although I'm not oblivious to
> the possibility of treating live folks as actors and these things we
> commonly refer to as motivations, objects, etc. as "actants", perhaps
> you see what I'm grappling with?
>
> And of course the "characters" in online games are a kind of hybrid,
> being caught in a narrative determined, significantly, by the parameters
> and affordances of the game, but being avatars of living persons (some
> of them anyway) as well as having potentially scripted interactions or
> mixed scripted and "live" interactions (e.g., Luiz's passive or scripted
> character, in his absence, could be dealt a blow by an avatar controlled
> by a living person). But even the "objects" for the living person are
> forged significantly by the parameters and affordances of the underlying
> game narrative, no?
>
> Part of me wants to pull this out of online gaming too. Since online
> gaming, being story-like, does, indeed, resemble aspects of novels,
> etc. And how do we know what characters in a novel are doing while the
> book is on the shelf anyway? Even if they do re-assemble themselves
> into predictable roles and actions when we re-open the book? (they may
> simply not be interested in our interference in their affairs -
> fictional autonomy as it were)
>
> But I think what we are discussing could be described as well with
> regard to things like "smart agents". We, live folks, (and I swear to
> you I am one ;-), do you believe me?) - anyway, we, live folks "educate"
> smart agents to troll the info-verse for websites, newsgroups, news
> items, that may, presumably, be of interest to us, and they do that
> while we're absent. So a kind of "real world" of smart agents, a la
> your delibrations, Luiz?
>
> Thanks all.
>
> In Peace,
> K. (Kevin Rocap's avatar - Kevin's busy today packing, by the way)
>
>
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Received on Sat Mar 8 14:15 PST 2008