Week 11 Blog

The quote “It matters what matters we use to think other matters with; it matters what stories we tell to tell other stories with; it matters what knots knot knots, what thoughts think thoughts, what ties tie ties. It matters what stories make worlds, what worlds make stories,” means to basically be open and try to understand other perspectives.

In the article SF: Science Fiction, Speculative Fabulation, String Figures, So Far, Donna Haraway explains how a British social anthropologist Marilyn Strathern taught her that “It matters what ideas we use to think other ideas with”, thinking about anthropology as the knowledge practice that “studies relations with relations, that puts relations at risk with other relations, from unexpected worlds. Haraway explains how “speculative thinking” is very important. Now, this is speculative because it pertains to an object or concepts of an object to which one cannot attain in any experience and is opposed to the cognition of nature.

Now in the next article “Devil Girl From Mars”: Why I Write Science Fiction by Octavia Butler talks about the effects of the media on her and her work. A quote she wrote in another novel says “Beware! All too often, we say what we hear others say. We see what we are permittied to see. Much worse, we see what we’re told that we see. Repetition and pride are the keys to this. To hear or to see even an obvious lie again and again and again, is to say it, almost by reflex, and then to defend it because we have said it, and to embrace what we’ve defended. Thus without thought or intent, we make mere echoes of ourselves and we say what we hear others say.”(Butler, 1998). This quote is basically saying that people are followers, however need to be leaders and have their own opinions and thoughts not just based off other peoples opinions.

The video What is the Universe Expanding into? Explains how there are a bunch of “Branes” and how our universe may be contained on one on these branes and “other branes containing other types of universes may co-exist in hyperspace and neighboring branes may even share certain fundamental forces like gravity for example.”

Overall this quote is telling me that you must be open to all perspectives and ideas. It is important to put yourself in another person’s shoes to gain their thoughts and perspectives and an answer to WHY that choice was made, or that idea was used, or why they said what they said. In order to truly understand you have to look at it from all angles, get every part of every story.