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Paul's script for the skit by Angela Allard, Eva Collier, Illana Mittleman, and Carolina Parra:

Stories - Welcome to ESem section 21… call me Paul-y G. or P-Grobes. Everything is a story.  All science, history, memories are tales we tell.  In Thomas King’s novel, he notes that all of history is a story.  The truth about stories is that that’s all we are. How do these stories intersect, affect one another?  That’s what this ESem wants to explore.  We are about to embark on a story ourselves.  

Biological evolution - Evolution is a story. What one has always learned as truth is a narrative story in the creation of universe. The leading story is descent with modification. The way the universe was created according to this story involves a zero-sum game, but remember it is still just a story.

Cultural evolution - The individual changes the culture and the culture changes the individual simultaneously. But, the change that occurs cannot be totally controlled because many things occur randomly and without choice. And while this cultural change and individual change is constantly going on, all there is, is evolution.

Randomness - There is no answer to why things happen. Once the answer is found more questions will rise. Everything at its core is randomness and everything moves towards randomness. One may ask many questions but still the answer is randomness. We should move away from stability as an answer because nothing in the world in stable. We will always know more but never everything.

Reality - There is no truth and there is no reality. We have no way of ever knowing anything. Everything is relative; it is just up to us to make interpretations. There is no such thing as everything. We tend to think that reality is the prototype of the schema, but that is only a construction of the brain.

Morality - There is nothing intrinsically wrong or right. What is wrong or right to you is only a construction of your brain. Therefore, morality to each individual only exists in their own reality.  And by trying to understand each other’s own realities and finding commonalities, we can work to become progressively less wrong. You can never be absolutely right or have an absolute truth, but you can continue to work towards being less wrong.

Conscious/unconscious brain - The subconscious part of the brain is much larger than the conscious. When something happens, bits of the unconscious brain are altered for the conscious brain to make sense of later. When a memory is recalled, the conscious brain is putting these bits together and creating a story. Similarly, the brain makes sense of ambiguous figures. Time, causal relationships and meaning are a result of the relationships between subconscious and conscious brain. Also, there is no way of knowing if those around you are conscious.

Stories - The truth is, that reality doesn’t exist.  We only have our perception of reality.  Our ESem class has been a story that we created together through co-constructive dialogue.  I’ve evolved, you’ve evolved, we’ve evolved.  In the end, the truth about stories is that’s all we are.   It’s all we have; it’s all we’ve been.  It’s been a great class.  Thank you very much.