embodied temporal nonrivality
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the pigeon’s gaze is a daily collection of hemingwayan stories in both style–e.g. parataxis, tourist-esque references–and substance–love, war and money.
there are many ways love can be, and one which is relevant to the pigeon’s gaze is love being embodied temporal nonrivalry.
this way is primarily understood through heartbreak and unrequited love, which most of the stories deal or end with.
it is when the body of the loved is not present, physically or digitally, for a possibly undecided duration of time, during which the lover and the loved go about their daily lives with or without either of them stopping the other’s flow of time.
with this, each property of the concept–embodiment, time, and nonrivalry–along with the full concept, is described below with examples from the stories.
embodiment is the lived experience of the phenomenal body.
merleau-ponty distinguished between the objective body, which is the physical organism studied by biology, and the phenomenal body, which is the body as it is lived and experienced.
with this, ponty stated that the body is not an object owned by a mind i.e. the objective body, but is instead the subject of experience.
this is the phenomenal body, and hence, it is the limits of one’s body that define the limits of their world and the actions they can take in it.
anthropology adds that, due to embodiment, culture is not a set of ideas held in the mind, but a set of bodily states.
for example, mauss stated that even natural actions such as walking, sitting, or sleeping are culturally specific techniques.
bordieu further stated that the social structures formed by a culture are grounded in the body, e.g. through postures, gait, and gestures, and usually reflect one’s social class and upbringing.
because of this, social positions are inscribed i.e. known instinctively by an individual, because they remind and are reminded of it through their bodily states.
the lived experience of one’s body can be given to physical objects, divided into tools and non-tools (i.e. sartrean objects and subjects), in order to use and understand them better respectively.
extended embodiment or tool incorporation is when an individual, while using a tool skillfully, treats the tool as part of their own body.
projective embodiment or anthropomorphism is when an individual treats a non-tool as having a body and hence a consciousness of its own.
additionally, extended embodiment and projective embodiment, but with the positions reversed, respectively correspond to role-playing and objectification.
some examples,
6.04
“locked his romanticism away in an old safe”
“their eyelashes, their eyelids, and their eyes were made entirely of sunset”
16.05
“i was afraid, afraid because the faces spoke”
“used the yellow crayon when she stopped to look at me”
18.05
“stairs never end... find fragments of feet, of faces...”
“abstract painting of triangles and pain”
24.05
“a bullet blew off his index finger”
“on that finger lived the tip of his wife’s nose”
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time can be theorized in many ways.
substantivalism states that time exists independently of the objects or events within it.
relationism states that time is not a thing in itself, but rather a system of relations between events.
eternalism states that the past, present, and future are equally real, meaning all events across time exist regardless of the observer’s current position in time.
presentism states that only the present moment exists, with the past and future being nonexistent.
from eternalism and presentism, we get the a-series and b-series respectively.
the a-series states that events are ordered as past, present, and future, and that an event that is in the future, eventually becomes present, and then moves into the past.
the b-series states that events are ordered according to the relations of earlier than and later than.
some examples,
8.04
“a car honks and that moment lost in time and space ends” (presentism)
“...more time to fall in love, said the narrator after selling his car...” (eternalism)
10.04
“he hasn’t seen her for a day, or maybe a month. the last time, she had a math test coming up.” (relationism)
“he returns home after a few years...” (substantivalism)
13.05
“gathers leaves carried by a twenty-year-old wind” (a-series)
23.05
“after a few years, they pull up...” (b-series)
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nonrivalry is a concept in economics that states that a good is nonrival if its consumption does not prevent other individuals from simultaneously consuming it.
it contrasts with rivalry, which states that a good is rival if its consumption prevents other individuals from simultaneously consuming it.
for example, broadcast television is a nonrival good, because when a individual turns on a tv set, it does not prevent the tv in another individual’s house from working.
however, the television itself is a rival good e.g. when a sibling is watching tv, it reduces the ability of another sibling to watch tv.
some examples,
13.04
“let’s just go straight, then” (rivalry)
“then, they took two different directions” (nonrivalry)
26.04
“he sits on the swing, but her scent is gone” (rivalry)
30.04
“they think of the unlit bulb... heavy breathing of the ones they love” (nonrivalry)
14.05
“checks her watch... no button to pause the storm”
19.05
“sleeps on that hood because his first red cat used to do it”
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embodied temporal nonrivality is when an individual is embodied in time such that their embodiment does not reduce the ability of other individuals to be embodied in time.
for example, imagine an individual moving into an apartment, and their friends are helping them move in.
if the individual is unpacking the boxes, while one friend is dusting the rooms, another is talking with the landlord, and another is checking the switches, and the individual sees all the friends doing so, they would feel love in the form of connection, comfort, and a sense of “i’m glad they’re here supporting me”.
now, if instead the individual is unpacking the boxes, and one friend takes the items out, and another friend puts them in their place, and another moves the empty box away, and the individual sees all of them, they would feel less love and more responsibility, toil, and perhaps irritation if any of the friends are slowing down e.g. one friend doesn’t know where to place the items, so the others have to shout where to put it.
overall, in the former scenario, since all of them use their bodies to do activities in a causally independent way, they are all in embodied temporal nonrivalry.
and in the latter scenario, since all of them are causally dependent, they are all in embodied temporal rivalry.
the ground of embodied temporal rivality is the mirror neuron. a mirror neuron is a neuron that fires both when,
i
an organism acts
this corresponds to embodied temporal rivalry, since when an organism does an action, it reduces its ability to simultaneously do another action.
ii
an organism observes an action being performed by another organism
here, its mirror neurons make it feel as though it is doing the action as well.
this corresponds to embodied temporal nonrivalry, because the organism still has the full ability to simultaneously do an action of its own.
the action need not be different from the action of the other organism–it can be the same, because the number of actions is still simultaneously two, with one in the mind and one in the world.
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emotional contagion, interpersonal emotional regulation, self-expansion, and co-regulation are guided by nonrivalry.
for example, interpersonal emotional regulation is the process of changing the emotional experience of one’s self or another person through social interaction, and can be done intrinsically or extrinsically.
the intrinsic involves regulating one’s own emotions by sharing them through social interaction e.g. calling a friend to share good news, venting to a partner about a stressful situation.
the extrinsic involves regulating the emotions of others e.g. cheering up a friend who is upset, making one’s partner feel guilty for neglecting oneself.
co-regulation is similar to interpersonal emotional regulation, but additionally does physiological regulation, such as regulating heart rates, respiratory rates, and cortisol and oxytocin levels, among others.
personal boundaries, self-regulation, secure attachment, and self-expansion are guided by rivalry.
some amount of rivalry is required when the past, either negative (e.g. minor infraction) or positive (e.g. had a great time at the beginning of a relationship), makes one unable to act in the present.
for example, a personal boundary is a rule that affects the behavior of the person who chooses to make the rule, meaning it controls one’s own reaction, rather than controlling other people’s behavior.
self-regulation is the process where an individual regulates their emotion, behavior, and physiology in a given situation by themselves.
some examples,
12.04
“she loves feeling nothing” (self-regulation)
“she wasn’t alone anymore” (co-regulation)
16.04
“the dog greets him like it’s the first time...” (co-regulation)
6.05
“our vacation is when i remember how to make her smile” (extrinsic interpersonal emotional regulation)
11.05
“she didn’t have the money for a therapist or the strength to get angry, so she washed the dishes” (self-regulation)
“when i heard the water running, it felt like hearing her cry” (co-regulation)
“forgive me, but my hands can’t wash any more dishes” (personal boundary)
21.05
“why won’t you answer me? i just want to know why” (personal boundary)