Reply to comment

I have to say that this past class was one of my favorites (perhaps in terms of helping create for me a coherent structure regarding our conversations throughout the semester up until now?). Personally, the idea of the storyteller brought everything home for me, and the ability to look at mental discrepancies as variances in the storytelling ability of the "I-function" just really logical (for lack of a better term). 

In the discussion Dr. Grobstein mentioned after class, I raised the question which had been bogging me down: if people made up stories to explain their unconscious actions AFTER the action impulse, how much consciousness was necessarily involved? And in some ways, might what we consider "consciousness" just be, really, our storytelling ability -- our ability to explain our actions? 

Additionally, it seems to me that in many ways we think of ourselves as inevitable, as the culmination of some sort of long process of evolution heading toward the perfection that is us, simply because having I-functions deem this necessary. It is easy for us to say that we pick up a glass of water because of an unconscious desire, but it is harder to admit that our essays (or message board postings) all stem simply from unconscious impulses explained by the storyteller. Still, in some ways, it seems to me like the conscious can almost be explained away. (I'm not sure I agree, in fact, with an assertion Dr. Grobstein made after class that there *can* be something new under the sun.) At the same time, having a storytelling ability gives us a storytelling need ... If we have the ability to explain things (rightly or wrongly) with stories, we need to use them, and not only do the stories need to make sense, but, for the most part, they need to function like stories we are familiar with. If we can explain things, we must. If we can explain them coherently, we must explain them coherently. Once things cease to be coherent, they enter the realm of terror.

I think I am excited about our next discussion because it seems to me the storytelling function is only of benefit in that it allows us to coherently share our narrative world with others in very specific and helpful ways. (At this moment, I feel unconvinced that our so-called "consciousness" can do anything more than that.) Still, I also think this ties in to what we discussed very early on -- that perhaps the aspects of "mental illness" that stem from "deviance" from normality are still relevant in some ways. It is not that there is one way to be, but if your schemata prevent you from dialoguing and sharing with other, there probably is something that can be gotten less wrong.