Examples of Null Expriences |
Introduction:
The situations describe below are typical. They show that everyone has numerous "experience gaps." A gap is an empty place. It gets noticed because that empty space creates a problem, that's why it is called a "gap." Something needs to be there but it isn't.
Many experience gaps do not cause problems in relationships though they retain the potential to do so. On the other hand, most persons have encountered problems in their relationships caused by "experience gaps." Some problems have more far reaching consequences than others.
One of the most important problems our society faces in the 21st Century is the problem of racial prejudice. As the process of globalization brings persons of different races together, many issues flare up when the newcomers enter the places long inhabited by the indigenous population. One aspect of this problem is that persons of one race cannot have many experiences persons of another race typically have. When persons of one race migrate to neighborhoods inhabited by persons of a different race, tensions erupt. For example, when African Americans migrated from the south to Chicago early in the 20th century, the inhabitants of near south Chicago moved away creating a ghetto. The infamous race riots of 1919 were set off when a few African Americans wandered onto a white beach of lake Michigan just north of 32nd street.
The fear white persons had of the African American migrants was surely inflamed by the fact that white northerners could not experience being black descendants of slaves from the south. As is typical in situations of racial tension, the whites who were in command of the media published and circulated stereotypes of African Americans much in manner in which during the First and Second World Wars, Germans were caricatured by the English, French, and American media. The same phenomena persists today in the American media's presentation of the Arab world. Members of one race tend to stereotypically caricature persons of a different race who are struggling to obtain the same supply of jobs, land, money. This tendency signals the fact that the persons caricature or demonize persons of other races to emphasize their differences. This is a symptom of their inability to understand other races empathetically.
What would enable persons of different races to understand each other?
The "Configuring" section of the C_CS site addresses this question In it I delineate a theory of configuring as a description of the art of understanding persons unlike us. Practice in this art has the potential to ameliorate the social problems brought about by null experiences.
I offer ten types of null experience below as examples. This list is not exhaustive.
Persons of one race cannot have many experiences persons of another race typically have.
1.) Irene and Claire discuss passing.
Consider this passage from Nella Larsen's Passing, written in 1929. In it two Black women are talking, Irene Redfield and Clare Kendry, both white in appearance and childhood friends who followed different paths through life. Clare is explaining to Irene how she first began to "pass" as a white woman:
I knew I wasn't bad-looking and that I could 'pass.' You can't know, 'Rene, how, when I used to go over to the South Side, I used almost to hate all of you. You had all the things I wanted and never had had. It made me all the more determined to get them, and others. Do you, can you understand what I felt?"
She looked up with a pointed and appealing effect, and, evidently finding the sympathetic expression on Irene's face sufficient answer, went on. ....
When the chance to get away came, that omission was of great value to me. When Jack, a schoolboy acquaintance of some people in the neighborhood, turned up from South America with untold gold, there was no one to tell him that I was colored, and many to tell him about the severity and the religiousness of Aunt Grace and Aunt Edna. You can guess the rest. After he came, I stopped slipping off to the South Side and slipped off to meet him instead. I couldn't manage both. In the end I had no great difficulty in convincing him that it was useless to talk marriage to the aunts. So on the day that I was eighteen we went off and were married. So that's that. Nothing could have been easier.
"But you've never answered my question. Tell me, honestly, haven't you ever thought of 'passing'?" ....
Irene answered promptly: "No. Why should I?" And so disdainful was her voice and manner that Clare's face flushed and her eyes glinted. Irene hastened to add: "You see, Clare, I've everything I want. Except, perhaps, a little more money." ....
Money's awfully nice to have. In fact, all things considered, I think, 'Rene, that it's even worth the price." ....
Irene could only shrug her shoulders. Her reason partly agreed, her instinct wholly rebelled. And she could not say why. And though conscious that if she didn't hurry away, she was going to be late to dinner, she still lingered. It was as if the woman sitting on the other side of the table, a girl she had known, who had done this rather dangerous and, to Irene Redfield, abhorrent thing successfully and had announced herself well satisfied, had for her a fascination, strange and compelling.
[From Nella Larsen's Passing (1929)]
C. OTHER TIMES (THE PAST)
Person's living in the present cannot have many experiences persons in the past typically had.
3) Virtual Harlem experience … Going to the Cotton Club and listening to Duke Ellington [for me this is a null experience] < experiencing VH by AA persons who lived in Harlem [for me this is a null experience of VR]>
The most exciting time to be in Harlem is at night. The city comes alive with the flashing lights of marquees and the faint glow of the lampposts. You may choose where to go by reading the bills posted on billboards outside the bars. Or, you may simply stroll the streets, peering into windows to decide what interests you most. At the Nest Club, waiters are setting up for a fancy dinner, while across the street people are eating at a more casual doughnut shop. Passing one club, you can hear Bill “Bojangles” Robinson tap dancing inside. Remember the time that he tapped five miles down Broadway on his sixtieth birthday, followed by more than five hundred well-wishers. Or visit the Hot Cha Club, where Billie Holiday got her start, or the famous Savoy Ballroom, where dances like the Charleston and the Lindy Hop were popularized. Tonight, the Chick Webb Orchestra and the Jimmy Lundsford Band are playing in the “Battle of the Bands,” an all-night concert that continues until one band quits or the sun comes up, whichever happens first. You can stay and listen or just watch dancers perform nearby, while down the street Myra Johnson is singing at the Apollo Theater on amateur night. What is fascinating about the clubs in Harlem is the diversity of the clientele, from the “all white” Cotton Club to the interracial men’s club called Barron’s Cabaret and the predominantly gay and lesbian Edmund’s Cellar. But what most people want to experience is Harlem’s famous Cotton Club, where African Americans are not admitted. The gold- and wood-crafted doors of this Mafia-controlled club are unmistakable, and as they open, you have a sense of entering a world of wealth, exoticism, sensuality, and illusion. Designed to be reminiscent of old plantation life, the interior strikes you as a combination of the Old South and an exotic island jungle. There are palm trees everywhere, and the room is filled with laughing guests in evening gowns and tuxedos. If you stay long enough, the curtains will part, and actual filmed footage of a performance by the Duke Ellington Band will play on stage while dancers tap in the foreground as an introduction to singer Freddie Washington.
Janice’s Florence Mills [for me & Janice this is a null experience]
INTRODUCING MISS FLORENCE MILLS From Writing a Narrative for Virtual Harlem: A Learning Experience
By Janice Tuck Lively
ABYSSINIAN BAPTIST CHURCH
Scene opens with Nora standing in front of the church. Her friend Helena walks up. Both are attractive, well-dressed middle-class Negro women in their early twenties.
NORA: It’s about time you got here. I thought we were supposed to meet at 1:00. So, what is it that you have to show me?
HELENA: Girl, I’m so sorry. It was just too crowded at Madam C.J. Walker’s Salon today, so it took longer than I thought. It seems like every Negro woman in Harlem was in there to get her hair cut. Everybody that’s anybody wants their hair done up in a Florence Mills bob. Ever since she was featured in Vogue and Vanity Fair. But can you blame them? She’s so beautiful and fashionable. Not to mention one of the biggest stars in the world, colored or white.
NORA: Florence Mills is the cream. I’ve seen her in almost everything she’s done—Shuffle Along, The Plantation Review, Black Birds on Broadway, and Dixie to Broadway. She was wonderful in all of them. It was the best dancing and singing I’ve ever seen. She’s amazing. When I first saw her perform, I couldn’t believe all that music and energy was coming out of such a petite woman.
5) North Star [for me this is a null experience]
In a USA Today article entitled "Experiencing the Bonds of Slavery," Janet Ginsberg describes her participation in one of the nation's most ambitious museum programs—“Follow the North Star,” a part of Conner Prairie, a 1,500-acre living history museum in Fisher, Indiana. "Conner Prairie is rooted in history," says the museum's Marcel Riddick.
During the day, it’s an exquisitely detailed recreation of an early 19th century prairie settlement. On a sunny autumn morning, gardens are bursting with pumpkins and squash, and smokehouses are filled with pork. Everyone seems industrious and content. But all is not goodness and plenty in this frontier Eden (1D).
The “North Star” program aims to provide a firsthand historical experience, in this case, of American slavery and the Underground Railroad. Janet Ginsberg describes her experience as a virtual slave at the museum. The Conner Prairie staff developed the North Star program to give people "an even richer and deeper experience putting them in the shoes of the runaways" (1D), says Marcel Riddick, who also helped develop the slave auction program at Colonial Williamsburg in 1994. (That program stirred controversy when civil rights groups complained the auction trivialized the slave experience. By contrast, North Star has been extremely popular.)
Janet Ginsberg gives us some idea of the script they enacted in this living-history museum. "We 11 middle class professionals, men and women, black and white – find ourselves being sold illegally under cover of darkness in a field somewhere in central Indiana,” Ginsberg writes, “The year is 1836, and our night's journey has just begun” (1D). She recounts her experience as a drama in which she finds herself playing the role of a slave who is sold and then runs away:
"You! Get in front of the line! ... Get that face on the ground!"
The man's voice is full of anger and whiskey. Although I can't see him I can feel his cane—or is it a sword?—pressing into my back. I have been a slave for less than five minutes, and my owner is making sure that I and the others in my sad little party understand exactly how things are.
"Get over there, boy.... You sassin’ me boy? Did I tell you you could look up?" A slave kneels on the ground, meekly presenting his hands for inspection.
"Ain't no calluses on those hands," a would-be buyer says with disgust.
Our nervous laughter has evaporated into an edgy silence. We're dependent on these foul-mouthed, tobacco spitting, gun-toting thugs, who are sizing us up as "bucks" and "breeders" while we move a pile of wood from point A to point B and back again.
We become so submissive that the traders put one of us in charge while they go off somewhere. Their parting words: "If you stop or they stop, you die" punctuated by a shotgun blast.
We're still moving wood when a woman approaches, demanding to know what we're doing on her husband's land. There are 11 of us, yet we follow orders, line up, and keep our eyes down. The world has taken on a surreal quality of soft shadows and hard words.
"In Indiana we've got two kinds of darkies," the woman says. "We've got free darkies, and we've got runaways. Let's see your free papers."
When we can't produce any, the woman curses us but leads us into a barn, where she advises us on finding our way to the Underground Railroad and freedom.
We have moved up in the world, from slaves to runaways, and we'll spend the rest of the evening trying to hang on to our new status.
Our little band of runaways learned that lesson as we tried to figure out which cabin with a light in the window was the "good" one with the friendly Quaker family. No clue we'd been given seemed solid.
We are directed to the cabin of a free black couple, the Wards from North Carolina, who encourage us to keep heading north to places such as Cass County, Michigan, whose larger black community would make it easy to blend in.
We have traveled in 90 minutes what might have taken months in 1836. But before we can return to the modern comforts of indoor plumbing and central heat we meet an older man sitting on a cabin porch, and he tells us our fates. One of us makes it up to Cass County. Another drowns in a river. Quakers nurse others after injuries. Then the prophet points to me: "They capture you and take you back to your master. He brands you for running away. But you get away again ... and you make it to freedom this time." My slave self, I think, is more courageous than my real self, and I wish her the best as I head back to my life in the 21st century (1D-2D).
As Riddick notes, the staff of the living museum developed the North Star program to give people “an even richer and deeper experience—putting them in the shoes of the runaways.” We call attention to the fact that Janet Ginsberg and her fellow museum visitors were never slaves. The time was not 1836. They did not go to Michigan. Visitors to the living history museum play the part of runaway slaves, and, at the end of the evening, they find out how their play ends. Ginsberg for instance, was captured and returned to her master. The living history museum in Fisher, Indiana, can give its visitors only a virtual experience of "the bonds of slavery." Yet, though not real, this experience, as the staff guarantees, leaves a powerful impression on those who endure it.
2) the Panopticon
In his Discipline and Punish, Michel Foucault argues that one of the experiences characteristic of the modern era is that of "panoptic surveillance." To illustrate this experience, he draws upon Jeremy Bentham's architectural model of a prison designed in the late 18th C. Of course, persons reading Foucualt's text in the 1970s, nearly two hundred years after Bentham designed the Panipticon, cannot have had the experience prisoners incarcerated in such prisons would have had. For them, it is a null experience. Nonetheless, Foucault used Benthan's design as a configuration of panoptic surveillance to great effect since it makes us keenly aware of the extent to which we are constantly under surveillance.
A sketch of a prison modeled on Bentham’s design.
Foucault uses the figures of the prisoner in the cell, the supervisor in the tower, and the architectural structure of the panopticon to tell a story: the supervisor in the tower may or may not be observing the prisoner in the panopticon’s cell. But at any moment, the prisoner in the cell feels that he may be under observation.
Foucault then points out that panoptic technologies characterize the modern period of our history. This story allows Foucault’s readers to transfer their experience of surveillance cameras to this historical setting and capture what it feels like to be under surveillance. When a reader views this image in the context of Foucault’s analysis, she perceives an analogy between experiences rather than between essential (abstract) properties. A school is not the same as a prison, but Foucault asserts that schoolchildren, workers, prisoners, and soldiers are subject to analogous experiences of being under surveillance. Although most readers of Foucault have never had the experience of being in prison, they obtain a virtual experience through Foucault’s use of Bentham’s model. The result is that readers perceive that being subjected to the panoptic surveillance of school, church, government, credit checks, health maintenance organizations’ medical histories, sorority and fraternity and country club membership checks, job searches, and universities’ annual reports of professional activities feels like being in a prison in which you experience the sense of being watched all the time even while you know that you don’t know when you are being watched.
6) Fondly remembering St. Germain which no longer exists.
Alan, our usual server, would typically escort us to a booth near the bar in the back of St. Germain, a lovely bistro a few blocks from our condo. I'd sit facing the fire while Patty would face away from it looking toward the front so as to better facilitate people watching. Alan would bring a Cabernet Sauvignon and a Pouilly-Fuisse without our asking and then drape himself lazily around the back of the booth:
"So what have you two been up to?, he would ask."
St Germain was usually empty at this early hour--we tended to go to dinner at 5 instead of the more urbane 8. Since Alan had no one else to attend to, he would often sit down in our booth for a conversation with us.
We'd chat for several minutes. Excellent Alan always said as a comment on our week’s adventures in the same tone waitpersons use when you select something from the menu “Excellent choice!” On Cue, I'd take another sip of Cabernet and say "did we come here to eat or to talk?"
"Well, talking is much better than eating with all that cholesterol and all those calories. Just think how slender you would be if you didn't have to eat," Alan would counter
“Well whatever,” Patty would chime in as Alan, taking his curtain call as friend, would stand up and return to being our waitperson.
"I'll have the usual steak and frites," I invariably indicated without opening the menu.
Giving up on her attempt to quickly review the menu and falling back on an old favorite, Patty would follow suit, "I'll have the salmon."
"Excellent" Alan would say and then leave to put our orders in to the chef.
B. OTHER GENDERS
Men cannot have many experiences women typically have.
The most obvious and compelling example of a man’s inability to experience what women normally do is getting pregnant and giving birth to a child. However, in our cultural women are generally thought to be mysteries to men. This motif appears constantly in our novels, films, and TV shows. Western mythology configures the mysterious aspects of women in archetypes that have down to us over the centuries that continuously re-emerge in various art works. One of the earliest figures of the mystery of women is the Great Mother Goddess, the all powerful creatrix of matriarchal power.
The resurrection goddesses who preceded Osiris, Isis and Ishtar, have powers beyond those of their male consorts.
In a more patriarchal climate, powerful women are usually demonized. The femme fatal motif and its endless variations has come down to us in the figures of temptresses, witches, vampiresses, vamps, and black widows. In encounters with such women, men are thought to give up their rationality and succumb to these seductive women as they are enthralled, entranced, and beguiled, all configurations of feminine wiles that are incomprehensible which can only be countered by masculine force.
from a transgendered person.
Mr. Sosnoski,
Hello, I was reading the magazine insert from Sunday's Northwest Indiana Times newspaper, and happened to come across the copy block reporting on your "Null Experience" study.
I took a more than casual interest in the study due to the fact that I am a transgender individual.
I wondered if you had thought of asking individuals who are either transgender or intersexed as the answers might be surprising.
For the record, I am very much a believer in the emerging science that gender identity is hardwired into the brain during gestation and not something one chooses. God knows I would not wish "this" on my worst enemy.
Anyway, the example I can think of off the top of my head is the battle over the thermostat setting in the winter. Every genetic girl I have ever known always has the thermostat setting up extremely high in the winter.
I of course would then complain that it was far too hot and to turn it down to something more "reasonable". However, since I began the medical process of HRT, I now realize why the temperature is set so high.
One of the drugs you take when commencing transition is an anti-androgen. In my case I am prescribed Aldactone. One of the so-called side-effects of this drug, originally prescribed for high blood pressure, is the retreat / thinning of secondary extremity hair,
i.e. arms, legs, etc.
Finally this past winter, I became enlightened to why the thermostat is set higher. Now that I have lost the natural warmth of male type secondary hair, 72 degrees in the middle of winter just does not seem quite as warm as it use too.
Sorry if I made your skin crawl as I am fully aware that we are usually portrayed as side-show attractions thanks to the PR provided by the likes of Springer, but the nerd in me could not help but ask the question.
Allison
9) My gay colleague and her partner
Over the years I have had many colleagues who were gay both male and female. In several instances, I became good friends with gay colleagues. Some years ago, I spent quite a bit of time with two women who were lovers. One of the women was a colleague of mine whose lover was still working on her dissertation at another university. Since my wife was teaching at a university several hours away, she had an apartment there and returned home on weekends. Owing to this circumstance, I was often invited over to my gay friends’ apartment for dinner during the week. Afterward, we would often watch a film together. I enjoyed this situation very much. However, I was constantly aware of the many null experiences involved in it. This was the first time I had an extensive relationship with a Lesbian couple. Not being gay and not being a woman, I was quite self-conscious about the way I dealt with the situation. Being a gay woman relating to a heterosexual male was a null experience for me. All of the signals to which I had become accustomed in relating to women were no longer available to me.
D. OTHER CULTURES
Persons from one culture cannot have experiences people from another culture have had.
10) rituals (Easter breakfast) [for me this is NOT a null experience but for Patty it is]
Chicago is a city of ethnic neighborhoods. You don’t have to travel very far to experience a different culture. For example, the Polish population of Chicago is larger than that of Warsaw, Poland, and, as a result, there are several Polish neighborhoods with restaurants where you can order Pierogi or Kielbasa. My son lived in one of them for a few years. Next door was a Polish bakery and across the street a deli where they spoke to their patrons in Polish and served them before the outsiders. On “Holy Saturday,” the day before Easter Sunday, you can find churches in this neighborhood where you can bring a basket of breads, Kielbasa, and Easter eggs to have them blessed for your Easter Sunday “break fast” when you can break the fasting you have been doing during Lent, the period between Ash Wednesday and Easter Sunday.
I grew up in a Polish neighborhood in eastern Pennsylvania. My wife, who is Irish, grew up about 200 miles south of me in Philadelphia. For her the Easter Sunday breakfast is still a null experience even though she has had Easter Sunday breakfast as my parents’ home. To fully experience the ritual, you have to be Catholic, have to believe that the blessed food must be consumed entirely and cannot just be thrown out with the other garbage, have to experience the occasion as a time of breaking your long fast. None of these requisites to the experience were available to her.
11) Shaillah on marriage [for Shaillah & me this is a null experience]
I have noticed that the concept of "null experiences" exists in many aspects here in India... for instance: There are over 1,000 languages spoken here and Hundreds of different cultures... well, unless you are living THAT very culture you cannot know how it is to be a part of that culture or religion for that matter. EVERYTHING is different within different religions and cultures... Take for instance...the idol worshiping of the hundreds of gods, the particular rituals, the wedding rituals that differ from household to household…the way of life itself! I never viewed this concept this way until now!
I feel I cannot relate to many of these things although I share similar backgrounds and speak the same language sometimes spoken here.
The way the relationships exist between husbands and wives.. Its sooooooo different... There is sooo much of a difference in the way a man is above the women....
I am feeling as if the concept of "nullness" exists EVERYWHERE but no one till today has recognized it like you... It's amazing!!!
A later email:
12) something I recently came across that made my experience relate to that of the "null" concept was the marriages and rituals I am attending. All these years I thought that I was culturally inclined to all the various Islamic rituals that coincide with the Hindu customs of marriages... Being Muslim but raised by parents with Indian Backgrounds I thought I knew and related to everything there was to my culture and religion. I was wrong.
I almost feel NO connection what so ever to the customs here. I feel I " cannot" feel or relate to what the others are relating to here. Its SO different. I mean I asked myself last night in the wedding I attended that " Is this bride REALLY happy marrying a man she has never met" ? I mean how can I EVER relate to that? how will she feel sleeping by this man tonight.... not knowing what type of person he is.. or what his nature is like? But I was talking to my grandmother about all of this... feeling so horrible for my cousin who was the bride.. and she consoled me by telling me that I was crazy, and that my cousin is happy that her PARENTS are happy! and thats all that mattered...
this is normal.. by all means.. it happens every single day. and yet the divorce rate is far more less than in America. I thought to myself.. "how is this possible?" I was never arranged when I got married so I will never know or experience the pain or sorrow or happiness and contentment of a new bride>>> this right here is a prime feature of "nullness".... just as I have been Reading stories on newly wed brides being burned alive after the "Dowry" (money) had been paid to the grooms family!! how awful is that ?
Just as I will never know how it feels to beg with tears in my eyes all day for a piece of bread... something that just takes my breath away every time I go outside.
Or, what does it feel to deliver your baby on the filthy streets in 115 degree heat?.... with tons of people just watching "a show". All I know is that I delivered my child in the best conditions possible with bed side assistance 24 hours round the clock.. but what about these poor women who get raped by there brother-in-laws or even more sick... there father-in-laws and have to deliver there unborn child in shame... and still feel its there fault? I mean.. as I am keeping the concept of " nullness" close to me..the more I find my self relating to it more and more.. especially over here. This is something thats apart of my Diary of " nullness" that I couldn't help but share with you... I'm sorry for the long e-mail.. but couldn't help writing.....
shailah
E. OTHER GENERATIONS
Older persons cannot have many experiences younger persons typically have in their generation.
Just as Young persons cannot have many experiences older persons typically have while they are young.
13) the Michael episode A few weeks ago, I was playing catch with my grandson in a park to the extent that a 2 ½ year old can do so. We were at the edge of the park where a grassy incline ran up to a fence. Michael stood at the top in front of the fence. I threw a soccer ball up near him. He picked it up and rolled it back down the slope to me. I then tossed it back so that he could roll it down again.
To my left an older boy lunch, sat midway down the slope. He was wiping tears away from his eyes with his left hand and holding onto his knee with his right, an image of distress. When Michael noticed the sad boy, he disregarded the ball I threw to him and went over to the older boy. He bent down to look at the boy’s face and said something I could not hear, probably asking the boy what was wrong. The older boy answered him, saying that nothing was wrong.. Michael remained crouched over intently looking into the boy’s face with a sympathetic expression. After a few moments, realizing there was nothing he could do, Michael rose up and returned to our game.
I was very impressed by this episode. Later I realized that Michael’s state of mind was not only a null experience for me since I cannot experience what goes on in it, but also, that what Michael felt could neither be what I would have felt as his grandfather if I were him but also it could not be what I might have felt in similar circumstances when I was his age. The generation gap is an experience gap.
14) Thinking of the generation gap as an experience gap, I’m reminded how commonplace it is to hear adults describe the music to which their children listen as "noise." They can't experience it in the same way. Some years ago, my son who is an avid music lover, gave me an album of some musicians he admired that he thought I might enjoy. In fact I did enjoy the music. However, it is quite unlikely that I heard it in the way that he heard it. Moreover, the way he heard it was and is a null experience for me.
15) the Round Earth project
url: http://www.evl.uic.edu/roundearth/
developers: Tom Moher, Thomas DeFanti, Andrew Johnson, M. Gillingham, J. Hemmerich, J. Jain, M. Orr, S. Ohlsson, T. DeFanti
funding: NSF
The concept of a round Earth is not a simple one for children to acquire. Their everyday experience reinforces their deelply held notion that the Earth is flat. Told by adults that the Earth is round, they often react by constructing a mental model of the Earth as a pancake, or a terrarium -like structure with people living on the flat dirt layer inside, or even a dual model with a spherical Earth and a flat Earth coexisting simultaneously. In effect, children attempt to accomoodate the new knowledge within the framework of their existing conceptual models. Unfortunately, holding tight to the features of the prior models inhibits fundamental conceptual change
The Round Earth Project is investigating how virtual reality technology can be used to help teach concepts that are counter-intuitive to a learner's currently held mental model. Virtual reality can be used to provide an alternative cognitive starting point that does not carry the baggage of past experiences. In particular, we are comparing two strategies for using virtual reality to teach children that the Earth is round when their everyday experience tells them that it is flat.
One strategy starts the children off on the Earth and attempts to transform their current mental model of the Earth into the spherical model. The second strategy starts the children off on a small asteroid where they can learn about the sphericality of the asteroid independent of their Earth-bound experiences. Bridging activities then relate their asteroid experiences back to the Earth.
In each of the strategies, two children participate at the same time. One child participates from a CAVE while the other participates from an Immersadesk. The child in the CAVE travels around the Earth or the asteroid to retrieve items to complete a task, but can not find these items without assistance. The child at the Immersadesk with a view of the world as a sphere provides this assistance. The children must reconcile their different views to accomplish their task.
16) the NICE garden
One of the early VR experiments at UIC’s Electronic Visualization Lab was the NICE (Narrative Immersive Constructionist/Collaborative Environment) project. As Maria Roussos, Andrew Johnson, Thomas Moher, Jason Leigh, Christina Vasilakis, and Craig Barnes explain in their “Learning and Building Together in an Immersive Virtual World”:
OTHER ILLNESSES
Persons who have not had cancer cannot have had many experiences persons ill with cancer have had.
17) Mr. and Mrs. Unfortunate
Imagine the following scenario: A middle-aged married couple both are diagnosed with cancer within months of each other. Mr. Unfortunate has prostate cancer and Mrs. Unfortunate has breast cancer. Both are operated on successfully and the cancers are surgically removed. After their recovery periods, they discover that they cannot return to their customary sexual life. As a result of Mr. Unfortunate's prostate surgery, he is now impotent since Dr. Effective had to remove one of the muscles that produce an erection. As a result of Mrs. Unfortunate's breast cancer surgery, she no longer has a left breast. Depressed, they seek Dr. Effective's advice and he recommends that they see Dr. Helpful, a psychiatrist. She advises them to accept their sexual limitations and seek alternative sexual practices. Mr. and Mrs. Unfortunate attempt to follow her advice but both are too self-conscious to enjoy intimacy with each other. They are plagued by memories of the way it used to be.
There are several null experiences in this scenario. Mr. Unfortunate's surgery is a null experience for Mrs. Unfortunate and vice versa. Mr. and Mrs. Unfortunate's experience of their loses is a null experience for both Dr. Effective and Dr. Helpful neither of whom have undergone cancer surgery or experienced the loss of functioning sexual organs.
G. OTHER SOCIO-ECONOMIC STRATA
Persons from one socio-economic strata do not have experiences persons from other socio-economic strata typically have.
18) Shaillah on hunger
Poverty is something I related to the "Null experience" concept.....I cannot even begin to express the level and nature of poverty here... and what people will do to earn a dollar! How can we be sitting here in the most liberal and powerful country understand or relate to the sadness and sorrow for these helpless unfortunate people....
Children are crying and begging for 1 meal a day! and we have all the access to food all day long in the states!
19) Dining at Everest, a five-star restaurant in Chicago
Last night Patty and I as usual celebrated her birthday by going out to dinner at an expensive restaurant following our plan to experience the city's finest cuisine by visiting a different four or five star restaurant twice a year on our birthdays. Two years ago we went to Charlie Trotters for her birthday and Ambria for mine. Last year we went to the dining rooms at the Ritz and the Four Seasons. This time we tried Everest.
I didn’t realize that Everest was located on the top of an office building in Chicago's financial district. When we arrived in the lobby, an attendant (probably a night guard) asked where we were going and then directed us to a elevator and instructed us to exit on the 30th floor, turn right and take the special elevator that went up to Everest. We followed a young couple into the first elevator and then into the second. The young man, who was very well dressed, had obviously been there before. While we were waiting to be seated, Patty studied the few patrons who had arrived before us—we could only get a 5pm seating. She whispered to me that the young man with whom we rode up on the elevator was in the process of impressing the attractive though in her words, “unsuitably dressed” young woman. As the Maitre de led that couple to a table, Patty directed my attention to an apparently gay couple seated a few feet from us. We watched the man facing us present his partner with an engagement ring. Everest was certainly a place for special occasions Patty whispered to me. I couldn’t help but notice the older clientele whom the waiters greeted familiarly and whose clothes and mannerisms spoke of wealth. Before I could point this out, Patty and I were ushered to a table that was farthest from the spectacular view the roof top restaurant afforded of the city. The empty tables adjacent to the windows sent the message that we had already been perceived as interlopers who were crashing the party to get a look at the rich and famous. The young couple with whom we had “escalated” Everest had been seated at an adjoining table. As soon as we were seated, Patty began eavesdropping and told me that the waiter just informed the young man that the item he requested was not available. I then heard the young man complain in a tone that was intended to impress his date that he had special-ordered caviar several days ago. It seemed obvious that he was sorely disappointed that his plan had been thwarted probably because he didn’t have enough clout.
Without seeming to be affected the complaint just registered, the officious waiter moved over to our table and asked us (in a tone that let us know our place) if we wanted something to drink. Patty asked for a Dubonnet. The waiter looked at her in disbelief and said he had never heard of that drink. Patty repeated her request for a Dubonnet, emphasizing the fact that it was a French word. The waiter responded, Oh you mean Dew-bon-net, pronouncing the word in Americanese as it is spelled. I ordered a Compari with a twist of lemon. The waiter said nothing and turned toward the bar.
Patty was furious. I reminded her that some famous restaurants employ haughty waiters who insult the clients, especially if they were not regulars. Patty was not consoled by my remarks but the officious waiter arrived at the adjoining table with the aforementioned caviar recapturing her attention. I noticed that he served it wordlessly without bothering to apologize. Back on course, the young man began to explain why it was that caviar was such a delicacy. From my point of view, this was a way to inform his date that he had gone well out of his way and to some expense to please her. Patty whispered to me that the young man could have ordered her peanut butter and jelly on crackers and saved himself a ton. I didn’t get it until she explained that the young woman’s dress cost less than the appetizer. The waiter returned with our drinks and I wondered if he heard Patty’s remark. Astonishingly, he said: “your Dubonnet,” pronouncing the word as Patty had earlier. I noticed that my Compari lacked the twist of lemon I had requested but unlike the young man didn’t bother to complain. As soon as the waiter was out of ear shot, Patty vented: “that pompous twit,” using the expression she usually reserves for David L. I enjoyed discussing whether the bartender or someone else had corrected the waiter when he asked for Dew-bon-net because it seemed to make Patty feel vindicated.
I hate when restaurants try to make you have two drinks before dinner. Like clockwork, our waiter came over when he noticed that our drinks were low but didn’t ask us what we wanted for dinner. This time, however, he was much more deferential. He asked politely if we would like another Dubonnet and Campari. I don’t believe he had true contrition. After what seemed like a long time (punishment for not ordering a second drink before dinner), he returned and asked what we had “chosen” to have for dinner in a tone that emphasized the remarkable choices on the menu. Patty ordered salmon poached in a white wine sauce. I didn’t have to choose and ordered the only dish that had appealed to me--rack of lamb with a port and black olive sauce.
I wonder if we will ever return to Everest. The waiters treat their non-regulars with a kind of contempt. However, the food was spectacular and once it was served we were left quite alone. This was the first time we were treated poorly. Was it the waiter or the restaurant ambiance? We’ll probably have to go back again to find out.
H. OTHER POLITICAL CONDITIONS (PEACE – WAR; REVOLUTION)
Persons who have not fought in battle cannot have had many experiences soldiers who have fought have had.
20) My cousin fought in the battle of the Budge during WWII. After he came home, though reluctant to talk about his experiences, one night he described what it was like. I was a young boy sitting on the floor of his family living room. I still have a vivid memory of his saying that he was in a foxhole and the soldier next to him had his head blown away. Fortunately I have never had this experience.
21) On Living in Columbia,South America (Two passages from an MA thesis.)
The paramilitaries have historically been used by the state to exercise military coercion. During the first half of the twentieth century the groups were created as private armies and mercenary groups in the service of landowners and the state. …. In Colombia, the self-defense groups received initial support from associations of cattle ranchers and since the 1980s from the drug traffickers, who were the newest and some of the largest landowners in the country. During the last two decades the paramilitaries have been acting as armed wings of drug traffickers, have increased their economic and territorial power, and have gained the support of important political, economic, and social actors.
The paramilitaries’ main strategy is the intimidation of the rural population that supposedly supports the guerrillas. Therefore, selective homicides and massacres conducted by the paramilitaries aim to displace the native population to clean specific areas and to control coca cultivation and cocaine production.
I. OTHER DISCIPLINES
Persons who are not highly skilled cannot have had many experiences highly skilled persons typically have.
programming (solving a problem, e.g., the note taking macro – change from basic to object oriented language, the difficulty of grasping the differences >> moving from a null experience state to an experience state)
Sub findreplaceloop()
'
' findreplaceloop Macro
' Macro recorded 6/29/2005 by Jim
'
With Selection.Find
Do While .Execute(FindText:="x", ReplaceWith:="y") = True
Loop
End With
End Sub
22) I have never built an Iglo.
23) VR experiences (e.g., the Thing Growing)
“The Thing Growing” begins with a stark landscape in which a box is visible. Soon, the audience hears "Let me out!" repeated louder and louder in a woman’s voice. With instructions from the "voice" to use the remote control in the hands of their "leader," the leader frees her with a key, which the remote becomes as it is pointed toward the screen. The woman then jumps out and exudes joy, praising the audience. After a few moments, villainous figures appear in the landscape and the voice begs the audience to save her. Again following the voice's instructions, the leader of the group, using his or her remote shot the villains, who disappear as they are hit. Again the voice expresses delight, suggesting that she and the audience leader dance. She gives instructions by waving her arms up and down and invites the leader to join her in a dance. If the leader does not move his remote in the manner she suggests, the voice complains loudly. Depending on whether the leader "dances" or not, the voice becomes increasingly domineering and emotionally ruthless. After a time, audience members find themselves desperate to get out of the situation. Finally, again depending on the tactics of the leader, either the voice is killed with the remote control or, after a lengthy period, she dissolves.
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J. OTHER PLACES
Americans who have never been to Europe have not had experiences that Americans who have been to Europe have had.
24) Edinburgh My wife did a rubbing of one the tombstones in the cathedral. For me this is a null experience even though I have been in the cathedral because I have never done a rubbing.
There are places we have never been.
25) I am Polish but I have never been to Poland. I have no idea of what it is like to live in Poland.
26) Creoland is a virtual reality scenario. If you have never been inside the CAVE at UIC, it is a null experience for you.
jjs
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last revised:
September 4, 2007
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