Communicator (communicator) wrote,
Communicator
communicator

Widening gyre

M John Harrison writing in his blog on personality:
Personality (is) a product of all the interacting systems of a body... Every process is responding to every other one via “rules of engagement” that only apply to that type of transaction. No station-master is needed—or could be developed—to oversee the process... “You” is the second-by-second product of a billion decisions taken second-by-second by thousands of totally autonomous systems. “You” stacks up; it accretes, or agglomerates–but it also falls down and changes and shifts evanescently moment by moment...
Yes, I do think this is true.
He also says:
You don’t like to be told that. It’s offensive.

It's not offensive to me. I find it relaxing. Though perhaps if I argue against him a little that will seem defensive, as if I were trying to fight back on behalf of the station-master.

I am thinking about how systems emerge from the interaction of multiple autonomous processes. Some examples - cultures, TV series, wars. They have emergent properties which can be better or worse. In a human being or a human process, awareness of a better way of being is an input to the agglomerate. So a culture can change, or a person can change. There is no controller who takes control, but nevertheless the collective self develops into a team with a project. I think that's why we love TV programs where groups of individuals come together and make a team which is greater than the sum of the parts. Well, I do anyway, and I link it in my mind with the idea of a personality developing cohesion and power.
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