|
3.39 |
Within an idiom of algebraic structure, logical
formalization is not so far away from topological
schematization. The Klein group operation
resulting in no change corresponds to paths that do not
cross catastrophic strata in Petitot's elementary
catastrophe representation of the semiotic square.
|
3.39 |
|
3.40 |
Whether or not this overlooked isomorphism between
representations of the Klein group as a table of
operations and as a square-shaped diagram resolves the
logical/syntactic binary that informs Ricoeur's
discourse, it opens a new vista. Both the Klein
group comparison and Petitot's schematization
demonstrate that the generative trajectory with some
adaptations may be able to account for steady states,
those stretches of discourse where no events are said
to happen. The narrative may be at a standstill
and the narration carries on. Thus, the nuance
between no events and nothing happens.
|
3.40 |
|
3.41 |
Often the affinity of narrative doing to moments of stasis turns on this subtle distinction. For example, in a work appearing the same year as his study of Greimas's generative trajectory, Ricoeur postulates that the complexity of narrative activity arises from its power to combine sequence and configuration. This he characterizes as a competition: tout récit peut être conçu comme la compétition entre sa dimension épisodique et sa dimension configurationnelle, entre séquence et figure. (Narrativité 21) |
3.41 |
|
3.42 |
What if the dimensions were not irremediably set in
opposition? What if one considered sequence and
figure to collaborate? One would face a
machine. Every description as a state of being
(configuration) possesses indexes translatable into
questions for configuration's transformation
(sequence). The nucleus of a narrative would be a
description plus a question.
|
3.42 |
|
3.43 |
Just as a Turing machine's configuration can be
interpreted as states of being or as instructions, a
story can be considered an apparatus processing
descriptions and questions, figures and sequences.
|
3.43 |
|
3.44 |
The locus of configuration has shifted. Or rather
it has expanded. Configuration is not only an
attribute belonging to the narrative, to the
story. It also belongs to narrative structure and
to narrativity.
|
3.44 |
|
3.45 |
A story is at once product and apparatus of production. It is an autopoetic structure. It will take a picture, a question, a description, an imperative and transform either it, itself, or both. A story is a machine that learns. It emulates a model of the human nervous system, especially that described in his 1970 essay "Biology of Cognition" by Humberto Maturana: Learning is not a process of accumulation of representations of the environment; it is a continuous process of transformation of behavior through continuous change in the capacity of the nervous system to synthesize it. Recall does not depend on the indefinite retention of a structural invariant that represents an entity (an idea, image, or symbol), but on the functional ability of the system to create, when certain recurrent conditions are given, a behavior that satisfies the recurrent demands or that the observer would class as a reenacting of a previous one. (Maturana 45)
This is closely akin to Greimas's statement on
transcoding (n8). For him it is possible to
summarize the complementary activities of coding and
decoding by the notion of "un algorithme de
démarches qui, à partir d'instructions
initiales, se développent comme des règles
d'un savoir faire implicite qu'il s'agit de
formuler" [an algorithm of procedures which
develop like the rules of an implicit know-how which
must be formulated from initial instructions] (Du Sens 245).
|
3.45 |
|
3.46 |
The recreation of behaviour and the generation of
stories are not only isomorphic. They are also
linked by feedback and reduplication. Not only is
storytelling a type of behaviour, it also emulates
behaviour. It is both the real thing and a
rehersal. By enabling observation, it permits
desire. In his analysis of the modelization of
the actants in terms of wanting to do, knowing how to
do and being able to do, Greimas begins with wanting to
do. It is possible to begin elsewhere.
|
3.46 |
|
3.47 |
Maturana in his introdution links the ability to
observe and the capacity for desire. "If
human beings were not observers, or capable of being
so, the stabilization of their properties would not
appear to matter because they would not be able to
desire something else" (xxxviii).
|
3.47 |
|
3.48 |
As a signature of desire, a question might modify a
description, might modify itself or change
nothing. It's that banal. Just as Ricoeur
concludes, applications of semiotic squares are hit and
miss. Some seem more or less forced; others yield
true heuristic value. Like all autopoetic
structures, the semiotic square is sensitive to initial
conditions (n9). Likewise, the transcodability of
the story told, the picture drawn and the questions
asked, all depends on where one begins. Eye or
ear. Child or parent.
|
3.48 |
