"does A Story Need To Mean Something" I Think I Know What People Are Trying To Get At Here But It Is

"does a story need to mean something" i think i know what people are trying to get at here but it is also worth reiterating that 1) stories or narratives always convey meaning, question of 'need' irrelevant 2) that meaning is not necessarily or solely determined by authorial intent and it's not a property that the story in itself possesses transcendentally but comes about also as the result of an interpretive act occurring within a given set of social relations and circumstances. the iliad probably did not mean to homer exactly what it does to me. a generative language model can't imbue its output with its own 'intent' and yet if i read that output and interpret it, i'm engaging with it in a way that creates meaning, structured by the particular narratological frameworks or schemata i've learned. a story might 'mean' something internally, and 'mean' something quite different when that internal meaning is contextualised in its social and historical circumstances. etc.

More Posts from Awaybyrail and Others

awaybyrail

1 month ago

nooooooo free her

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awaybyrail

1 year ago

Hello everyone i know you already did a lot to me and to my family I'm shy asking your help and your support but this family really need your support ( i know them in person) Mohamed is a hemophilia patient who needs access to medicine and to do surgery on his knees, his 11-year-old daughter also needs thigh surgery (she was supposed to do it outside Gaza in November but couldn't travel due to the border issues). I appreciate you guys and love you. Share it as u can.

GoGetFunding

Helping a Family to Evacuate Gaza to Save Their Lives

Hello, I hope you all are doing well! My name is Mohamed, I’m a hemophilia patient from Gaza. I decided to start this campaign with all the

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awaybyrail

2 months ago

you can find some of Yefremov's sci-fi in English - at least Andromeda. there is also a fan translation of The Bull's Hour by what looks to me like some sort of esoteric red-brown cult, which means it probably sucks

Are there any actual communist fiction writers from the Soviet Union whose works are accessible in English today?

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awaybyrail

5 months ago

hilarious that the south korean soldiers seem to be getting absolutely clowned considering they’re supposed to be an all-elite super fighting force or whatever

lol. lmao, even

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all these tags and comments seem to think that the soldiers sent to potentially arrest people in parliament are conscripts and also that being through mandatory military service makes you some sort of fighting machine

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awaybyrail

10 months ago

the game Season: A letter to the future is like if the person who wrote that "disco elysium but a witch in the alps" tweet had actually good ideas for a disco inspired feel-good game

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ok. got it. intriguing description

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awaybyrail

2 months ago

yeah elon definitely did sex selective ivf for his kids thats so crazzy

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wow! i hope elon's fucking liver gives out!

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awaybyrail

1 year ago

nothing that stimulant medication and a coffee and an energy drink and a bump of coke and a good hard slap in the face and seven years in the harsh wilderness and a hug from a friend and a firm prostate milking and 250mg of MDMA crystals and a top of the line gaming PC and a tall glass of water and a distant memory of summer and piano lessons and four 20mg edibles and a sword that hungers for human blood and a well socialized tuxedo cat and a sushi dinner and a leather jacket and a power nap and a single beautiful rod of depleted uranium and regular estradiol injections and a typewritten sheet of paper bearing the solution to the hard problem of consciousness and nipple clamps and a lobotomy and a gun and another coffee can't fix

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awaybyrail

4 months ago