[-empyre-] empyre Digest, Vol 68, Issue 12

[j.martin.pedersen]

hmm...  am I just going in circles...

On 16/07/10 14:43, Kriss Ravetto wrote:
> 
> Martin also seems to agree with you about the human striving, and its
> connection to agency, yet Martin, your notion of agency seems to involve
> the will, it is not as autopoetic as James suggests???

I am not sure that my will to the power of (my) agency leaves out any
autopoietic aspects or dimensions, - that I act out of my own as free as
possible will, does not mean that I do not act in and with  - emergently
with - other people's wills, expectations (and whatever else flows in
the real of dark matter); and at any rate my acts - the moment of agency
- will be beheld by others, in their perception as my acts - even if
someone thinks that "He did that because his father beats him" or
"...because he was acting out of fear that his boy friend would
otherwise be jealous" or whatever it may be, they will still locate and
accumulate their observations with primary reference to me (in them).
Even if that "me" is not a stable animal, there is still a centre of
gravity that friends and family - not to mention enemies -  will
recognise as me - that is, the accumulator of acts, the investor of
action, the engine of agency, the beast that I feed my daily bread.

I want to have agency, I will act accordingly. Equally, perhaps, the
actress's act - her agency - is directed by the director and there are
many overlaps and interactions through which the film emerges, but how
can they communicate about the acts and the sequence of stages, if not
by reference to acts of each agent in the production?

> Martin,
>  Your play with words is quite poetic, an example of gathering together
> ("agency involves ourselves" gray matter or dark matter) or falling
> apart (the case of wankers, which is just an more exclusive way of
> saying "agency involves ourselves")?

Did I play with words, or was I merely an instrument of dark matter
acting in and through my bloody tissue?

It is great to explore and probe the inter-subjective/objective
dimensions - the social space and time of the unknown and bespeak it
with fancy terms and highbrow references and referees - and it is nice
to break down all kinds of barriers of this and that kind, but who are
we - writing these things - if not ourselves? Us agents, feeding
ourselves brain candy? Does it make sense to not return to ourselves
upon journeying across boundaries? Do we not need us to act and to have
a will to say no, and, one wishes more often that it was enticing and
desirable to do so, to say yes? No?

-martin