All Mind!!!

In Walter R. Fisher’s “Narration as a Human Communication Paradigm: The Case of Public Moral Argument” an interesting question is raised about the use of argument and its interaction with humans. Fisher introduces the idea of the Communication Paradigm. This first takes Aristotle’s Organon that builds the “Rational World Paradigm” (The basic idea that Argument is what makes us human) and begins to deconstruct the RWP and construct his Communication Paradigm around it (Fisher 378). The idea was that humans used a personal narrative (not an argumentative base) to conduct their daily lives— including arguments—whether they be scientific, political, or social exchanges. But, where Fisher’s argument was to lead next blindsided (and enlightened) me.

Fisher shatters the oppressive walls of hierarchy using this paradigm to state, “In theme, if not in every detail, narrative, then, is meaningful to for persons in particular and in general, across communities as well as cultures, across time and space” (Fisher 384). A stunning statement that leads me to my definition of what writing is (writing being all forms of communication whether implicit or explicit). A stream of human consciousness that has been removed from the linear time table. The collective conscious is happening at all times in all space. A pretty bold statement to claim. However, if we analyze Dell Hymes who says, “the narrative use of language is not a property of subordinate cultures, whether folk, or working class, or the like, but universal function” (Fisher 384). And include what Gregory Bateson who says, “then thinking in terms of stories must be shared by all mind or minds” (Fisher 384). We can see that the human consciousness is in fact a collection of narratives (stories) that have been passed or are inherent to the human mind by an extensive and exhausting research of mythology: its similarities, its subconscious travel through humans (attachments such as daily rituals), its existence in symbol form (writing, which stands outside of time to tell the story through millennias), and spirituals implications.

Interability is the concept that traces of writing continue to reappear through time, according to James Porter’s “Intertextuality and the Discourse Community.” However, considering our last statement, we can see that interability might exist in more than writing by bland definition. It may be found in a narrative that stretches through all of humans’ existence. In Karen Armstrong’s “A Short History of Myth” she traces (through hypothesis) the inherent need for humans to look to the sky when praying or speaking to the ethereal. She believes that it begun with the first humans realizing the physical separation of us from the sky. It quickly led to mean a celestial (or holy) place which we cannot attain. Even though, in our current time, we have proven through exploration that this is not the case, we still look to the skies when praying or asking something of the world we do not understand. It can thus be concluded that through our stream of human consciousness, interability, exists in more than writing (the bland version) but also in our subconscious discourse  and all forms of the narrative paradigm that make up the “all mind” human consciousness.    

In an after thought I am unhappy with my definition of writing (human consciousness)  existing in all time in all space. I realized that I didn't explain or even consider the future from our perceived place in time; and how the future could possible be included in the current human consciousness (including primal humans) if that narrative hasn't been said yet. However, I had an epiphany this morning involving intertextuality. On the same lines of looking toward the sky, narratives that we include into the stream of human consciousness (of here and now) will ultimately influence, through intertextuality, the future human narrative. Thus, I would consider the future human narrative existing in our present as well as the beginning of humans through intertextuality of consciousness.