Ancestors

Written by Irenes (many) on 2024-05-01 at 19:37

most off-the-beaten-track thing that's been on our mind lately is the different philosophical and literary concepts of "mimesis" that all have the same name, and what we think about them

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Written by Irenes (many) on 2024-05-01 at 19:38

we come at it from a weird background because in the interactive fiction community, "mimesis" is seen as a desirable thing for games to create through their writing - the player's sense that the world they're interacting with is real, or at least real enough for the purpose

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Written by Irenes (many) on 2024-05-01 at 19:39

so it was a bit of a trip learning that in fact the term is also at the center of this debate on where the stuff people care about comes from - whether it's all humans imitating other humans at the core, or if some forms of meaning also emerge from the world

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Written by Irenes (many) on 2024-05-01 at 19:40

we're doubtless summarizing that badly because this is, like, our first impression of a debate for which most of the participants are long dead and which we've read none of the primary sources for

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Written by Irenes (many) on 2024-05-01 at 19:41

but we're, like, pretty firmly in the latter camp? life rituals - eating together as a family; starting gender transition; that sort of thing - do get meaning in part through repetition and expectations, through the stories we're always telling ourselves about who we are and what we're doing... which sounds like mimesis in this sense to us

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Written by Irenes (many) on 2024-05-01 at 19:43

but it seems pretty clear that there's an emergent and measurable truth there, as well? life tries to keep living, simply for the sake of living, that's why it is alive at all. to that end, we need to eat. intelligent life tells itself stories about living because making sense of things is what we do. to that end, we NEED to invent concepts such as feeling pretty, not that specific one, but there must be something.

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Toot

Written by Irenes (many) on 2024-05-01 at 19:44

anyway that's where we are with it so far. we're not clear on the extent to which this agrees or disagrees with what's been written before, heh.

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Descendants

Written by Irenes (many) on 2024-05-01 at 19:45

now we have said it "out loud", so at the very least we can stop thinking about it quite as much, and perhaps someone enjoyed reading it :) that would be a nice bonus

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