Evolving Systems course, week 9: moving from cultural to individual change

So pretty much everything I would have wanted to say about the fusion of our ESem groups has already been said. I guess that's what I get for falling asleep last night before I posted. Oops! But going back through and reading all the comments gave me some interesting thoughts. One theme throughout a lot of them is a conflicting opinion as to which class is "better," which reminds me of a discussion we (Anne's group) had about human nature and mankind's desire to always designate a winner. How do we decide who wins? Why do we always do so? Should we always do so?

Another thing I'd like to say is that going into Paul's classroom gave me a different perspective on this online forum. Because I've now experienced all of you in your natural habitat, so to speak, I feel more of a desire to read all the postings, not just the ones from Anne's section. I feel now like we should be more collaborative, more open to each other's inputs and opinions. Our two classes are very different sides of the same coin, but that coin doesn't necessarily always have to land on heads OR tails. We complement each other. I personally loved visiting the other class, after (of course) the inital shock of learning how to be heard in such a different environment. But isn't that what we're all having to learn how to do as we join the community of Bryn Mawr? We all have to learn to make ourselves heard in this big, new environment, whatever way we feel best expresses ourselves, whether we're "loud" (like Paul's class) or "quiet" (like Anne's).

Frankly speaking, I have always felt hard to read cartoons since I was a little child. Struggling to understand what the painter was trying to interpret, I would either consider myself lack of talent or the authors insane. How could they spend much more time drawing those silly pictures just to make the simplified word more difficult to understand? It is embarrassed to confess that reading Logicomix was a challenge for me. Even though the book brought up tons of interesting ideas as well as an amazing inner-world evolution, I still didn’t see the point of putting them into pictures. Last lantern night totally changed my idea. Standing under the shining stars, listening to the most beautiful song in the world and seeing those twinkling lanterns, I suddenly realized that there are a lot of things on earth that could not be recorded by video, described by words… Everything has their best way to be interpreted. Like people could never get the secret of lantern night except actually coming here, the best way to show the culture and individual evolution in Logicomix is by using graphs.

Other than focusing on the evolvement of Russell’s logic, I find myself also interested in Russell himself. Actually, he reminds me of the main actor of the movie: a beautiful mind. Even with different fields of interests, both of them are passionate, curious but depressed and sad at the same time. They all believe there is a particular rule about the world that we can finally find if we think about everything rationally. They get better off and worse off at the same time when each improvement is made. This highly similarity let me feel that Russell indeed represents not only himself, but a kind of people in the world, who are constantly researching the truth that are good to have but hard to reach? Can human really tell how the world works? Or is it a “black-hole” that will trap the ones who are highly evolved and drive them crazy? I don’t know...

I hardly ever read graphic novels. I don't read graphic novels often because they don't seem like real "novels" to me. I like my books wordy, real wordy. Lines upon lines of text please and thank you.

However, I enjoyed Logicomix overall. The images were striking and not as bad as a distraction from the words as I had originally thought. I didn't really look directly at the images while going from one speech blurb to the next but I found vague images in my mind anyway. Every so often I found myself stopping to just look at the pictures to try to glean some more information. I kept thinking - where's the waldo in these pictures? Is there symbolism in the bushes in the corner?

... somewhere when writing this I caught a new train of thought...ish....

Logicomix is mostly dialogue so I guess we are supposed to get a lot out of the images (Russell's wife's faces...changes in light, etc.). It was just so strange to have the scene or the emotions depicted in such a literal way. I guess I am used to a scene subtly created through a few choice words. I feel that literal representation in the scenes in Logicomix, as background for the words, are just that, backgrounds for words, and not really part of the story. I prefer, I think, to have a dreary afternoon be suggested and clarified by an umbrella by the door and the description of a draft coming through the old window panes then a image. I think that because the images of a graphic novel are so immutable they are less vivid in my mind, despite the super-high-quality toner the printer used. When I read a novel, I just read and the words create the story and it just flows. I felt like I was searching for the story, getting somewhat befuddled with the speech blurbs and irritated with the matter of fact, absolute scenery.

Because more is left to the imagination(this is definitely part of it) in real novels, I "see" the story. Even if I do not have the book anywhere nearby I can just have the image of a passage in my head and it's beautiful or strange or ghastly but definitely there. It's intriguing just how much the medium a story is told in affects the reader's perceptions, obvious but something I'm interested in. I didn't really realize it before.

I wonder if there will be a trend towards more graphic novels  - will books like Logicomix be ubiquitous in the future?

p.s I couldn't find the research on existing evidence of crime and violence causing more crime but I think this paper on the concept of street efficacy is also very interesting, especially considering our discussion of the Parable of the Sower and now individual change over time (as it relates to societal change and local cultures (and subcultures) and much more I suppose)

asr.sagepub.com/content/71/5/826.abstract

I love Logicomix! The book presents so many things in such a vivid and clear way. I think I need to read twice to deeply exam all the information this book contains.
I like how it shows the evolution of Logic. Before I thought reasoning and logic are things can not be put into doubts; and they are sound and certain. But in the book, it says "Logic is all about rules. In fact, it begins with definitions and continues with rules.", which immediately gives me a sense of uncertainty. Logic is just rules. then how do I know the rules are right? And the idea that logic is rules evolves into that "logic is the form of the language. And it is embedded in it, like the iron structure that supports a building." At the end logic seems to be useless.
I also like the idea of set, a collection of objects. In the book, some one says that the set is the future and can solve everything. And do think set is powerful. For instance, we can make a set of culture evolution problems, and we just need to put factors in the set and exam the set. To me, it is really a clear and simple mode of analyzing cultural problems.
The evolution of Russell is also in accordance with the evolution of Logic. The Logic improvement was partly made by him, and he was hugely influenced by the logic evolution.
And also the idea of map vs. reality.....

There are just so many interesting ideas, and the book is so inspiring.

I don't know how I have the free time, it's truly astounding.

Anyway, I read a book the other day and it was quite ridiculous so I won't go into it much, except to say that there was a plot point involving genetically engineered werewolves (I read a surprising number of books where this is a plot point. I should perhaps look into other hobbies?). Now, all of the pseudo-science in this book was absolutely laughable, but for whatever reason the genetic modification of individuals really got to me. Not because I'm morally opposed to it, but because for whatever reason people seem to think that going in and switching around genes to achieve certain results is easy. Admittedly, we can make flies grow eyes on the ends of their antennae and other similar things, which are quite specific, but when we do this we don't use a fully grown fly. We change the fly's DNA when it's an egg so that it develops into an eye-antennae'd fly, as that's the only time when anything's actually developing, and therefor, y'know, changing. Or we make changes to an adult and breed it, and watch the changes over generations. What am I trying to say? We don't have a fly without eye-antennae one moment and then have one the next. It doesn't work like that. We have to change nucleotide sequences to do this-- and contrary to popular belief, there is not a magical telepathic link between every single DNA strand in your body that allows them all to change based on the changes made to a single strand. So I mean, theoretically we could shuffle around human DNA and mix it with wolf DNA. But only in a single cell. And then it would probably die. And unless that cell was incredibly important, then that death would probably be totally unnoticed in the greater scheme of things.

Analysis applied to everything ever: 1. If you change one individual sometimes you'll change the whole (and get a freaky eye-antennae) but more often than not nothing will happen and life will continue on as normal. 2. Adults are harder to change than children/infants/fetuses/blastula/unfertilized eggs. 3. Changes are typically more evident over generations. 4. Radical change often results in death.

I had other things to say. Probably about how individuals change based on cultural change based on biological change based on geological change based on cosmological change. And what's cosmological change based on I wonder?

Oh! I hate the term "personal" or "individual" evolution. It promotes the use of the term evolution in what I feel are misprepresentative ways. Personal or individual change is fine, but not evolution.

Individuals are just cultures (and languages, which are like cultures, which are like languages) on a teeny tiny scale. They are the combination of tidbits from every which way fitted into different shapes. The greatest difference is that it usually takes slightly less time to notice the change in an individual than in a culture. But only usually. That statement/idea/what have you possibly has something to do with genes. Not possibly, in fact, but definitely.

Interpret as you will.

 As my class has mentioned a dozen times already, Paul's students are very, very loud. Overwhelmingly so. Although I thought they were quite hospitable toward us strange, quiet folk, I still felt out of place among them. Our class is quiet, but there's a clear and even ratio between those who enjoy voicing their opinions, and those who need coercion to speak. Paul's class had no obvious distinctions. Everyone was talking; some participated readily in the class discussion, yet many other students seemed to hold private conversations through whispers and sideways glances. I was not offended by that class' tendency to interrupt the speaker, but the side conversations bothered me. I believe you (this being the universal "you") should share your thoughts or shut up. Side conversations are exclusive...and for newcomers, slightly foreboding.

Of course, I only spent 1 1/2 hours in Paul's class. Perhaps the unique arrangement of the room caused some people to sequester their conversations. They do seem awfully nice, so I probably just experienced a culture shock. But that "culture shock" led me to wonder how Paul's class formed such a unique culture to begin with. What is the culture of noise?

Can noise be a culture? For my purposes, yes. Let's call it something conventional - extroversion. Extroverts are social butterflies: loud, effervescent, and comfortable around people. I define them so easily because I know they're everything I'm not. Extroversion is a very individualistic culture; personality is the extrovert's only defining, unifying feature, since his/her interests and tastes vary. How does one become an extrovert or an introvert? How does one become any personality-type? By birth? By evolution? Discuss. 

When we first entered this session—topics about cultures, I regarded the culture as something that must be established on the big circumstances and involve a long time span and a wide range of people. Thus, after I got the prompt of the first paper—to write a culture that I am familiar with—in this session, I did a lot of researches about  online about Chinese civilization and struggled to avoid being too general and insipid. After talking with Anne, I realized that the cultural evolution can happen within small region and during short time, like my community and even my family. There could be a culture belonging to my small community and family.

Then, I almost did not notice that two distinguished cultures had already been formed in our two classes until Paul and classmates started to conclude the similarity and difference between two sections. Physically, we are divided by a wall; however, we are more distinguished by the cultures formed in two classes. Why we feel no that comfortable when we are in the other class? The reason I come up with is that we are like infants when we first get into an unfamiliar cultural environment. We form our special culture in our class and feel comfortable to stay here, because we shape the culture all the time with our own flavors and at the same time adapt to the culture with gradual process. In this class, we and our culture shape each other. To some extent, the culture, which is established in certain period and by certain group of people, is naturally exclusive.

Many of us have already mentioned the amazing differences in two classes.
Actually I am enjoying my fantasy to run certain experients on two classes, for example swap the instructors, or simply turn on the lights and open the door in Anne's section and do the opposite to Paul's. But these experiments can never be carried out under rigorous control of variances,as we've already developed certain culture atomosphere in our places. And the possible result of mixing sections, like being louder in Anne's class or letting others finish in Paul's class, is due to our ability of adapting to new environment and capability of expressing ourselves in different ways. Individuals definitely have these abilities, just of different ranges. Thus the evolution of individuals will have two parts, one for self-adjustment as adaption to enviornment pressure, and one for individual's impact on external environment including other individuals.

Dragging my thoughts a bit back, I love my class culture. It makes feel comfortable to think deeply for a question. And well, there has to be inevitable consequences after two classes all realized the differences...All we can do is to hug the coming change.

About Paul's talking on Thursday, the rationality to solve human problems, it reminds of the S3 E3 of Fringe. In that episode, a man with severe cognitive disorder have the ability to think like a computer and calculate most the possibilities of development of things, thus he can predict things,and meanwhile kill people by his ability. This is too sci-fi, but actually this is way of solving human problems:rationality. Rationality doesn't include human emotion, and it should be right all the time. So this is a good assumption but too hard to reach. But logic, on the hand, could possiblity give a chance to rationality to solve some human problems. People think and remember things following logic, and the logic could be the only way to connect every scene in the progress of all evolutions when we think about it.

I think that the last week's combined discussion was interesting. I was excited to find that there are actually a lot of differences between two sections. I think to a certain extent this proves the point that individuals play a vital role in shaping our culture. Two sections are instructed by two professors with quite different characteristics (Paul is always quiet, more interested in discussing ideas and Anne is always loud, more into discussing writing styles.) and are comprised of students with different backgrounds. However, I think that no cultures are deeply formed in either of the two sections since we only meet twice a week in total of three hours. Each of us chooses different courses besides esem and most of us lives in different dorms. We barely meet each other on campus. I think the aforementioned situation applies to the other esem session too. Time is really important for a culture (The set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes an institution, organization or group) to be formed within a group of people.Hence, I think that a new culture (a totally different culture from the original two cultures A+B=C) would be created from the intersection of the two.

I was so happy that the mixing of the two classes on Thursday wasn't as awkward as it has been in the past. When talking to some of the students in Paul's class before Thursday, we shared a little bit of anxiety on how mixing the two classes would turn out. All in all though, it went pretty well. There's no doubt that the two classes are both very different in style, structure, and overall atmosphere. But I like our class. Even though Paul's class feels exciting and lively, I feel like I always have to fight to speak and that even when I do speak, no one paid much attention because they were focused on something else. Like nina said, our class feels very relaxed and laid back. I like letting people talk and having time to think about their opinions and ideas rather than jumping into a heated debate. Paul's class also kind of confused me. I'm still not quite sure on what our essay assignment is or when it's due, but I guess I'll figure that out tomorrow. I think us going into Paul's class was a good experience. It gave all the students a look and better understanding into each other's class cultures.

I wonder what would happen if we switched environments...

What I noticed right away in Paul's class was the excitement that this group felt in their discussion and how boisterously they communicated with each other. That’s not to say that Anne’s class isn’t excited by the material or the discussion, but we take a more graceful approach to the discussion.

I think this comes from both our personalities and our environment. It is likely that many of the students in Paul’s class are naturally extroverted people, while those in Anne’s may not be, or at least aren’t in English. But I also believe that the classroom has something to do with it as well. In Anne’s classroom the lights are usually dimmed and the door is closed, giving the room a certain serene environment, thus leading to a calmer relationship and discussion between the students. Paul’s classroom on the other hand is brightly lit with the door open, giving off a certain excited and alert atmosphere, affecting the class’ interaction.

I must note that during our collaboration with Paul and Ann’s group, I was so happy that we did our best to assure that everyone was well integrated into the group. However, I still feel that our class tended to take over, but I’m sure it is due to excitement some of our classmates tend to experience during all discussions in general. It was collaboration I was glad to be a part of, but I wonder what differences we would find if instead Paul, Ann took over. Would we find that our classes would be more open to discuss and collaborate?

From joint class, 28 October
(click on image for enlargement)

 Some similarities

• "philosophical", go deep
• no hand raising
• class diversity
• not "class" like others

Some differences

• AD section less loud, more polite/structured, less argumentative
• PG section louder, more raucous/argumentative
• PG section mostly discussion re topics, more use of student papers in AD section
• AD more directive, PG rarer to interject
• AD "Anne" from outset, PG -> "Paul"

Rich conversation, partially documented/excerpted above.  Help deciphering notes, additions, corrections, further thoughts all welcome, of course. My sense was that, as in many cultures, participants in each culture felt their distinctive practices were preferable, which make this a nice illustration of how cultures first interact at interfaces between them.  The issue of how each culture might impact the other was only briefly explored (students in AD section would have to get louder or those in PG section quieter) but might be worth going into further.  What more effective cultures might be conceived by observing the contrasts between these two?