Things and the Things of Things: The Complexity of Stories

Introduction

The word thing is inherently problematic but I will ask that you excuse that for a moment and think about a thing as something. As anything we can draw our attention to and distinguish out of the rest of the environment. A thing is that which we can behold.

I am interested in how we tell stories about things and whether we can consider the stories told to be complex or simple. This concern ultimately flows from my own deep independent study of the work of biologist turned philosopher Humberto Romesin Maturana. Practically, I hope exploring this concern will shed further light on how the narrative of our everyday lives influences how we make sense of an act in the world around us (Snowden, 2008).

Simple and Composite

In his work, Maturana introduces the concept of simple and composite unities which I have recently been focused on as I seek to understand what his theory of language has to say about absorbed sense-making. Note he uses the word composite and not complex, though g…