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From “Traces” and “Human Trace” to “Human-Trace Paradigm”

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First Complex Systems Digital Campus World E-Conference 2015

Part of the book series: Springer Proceedings in Complexity ((SPCOM))

Abstract

In the e.laboratory of Human-trace DC-CS complex system, the colleagues in charge of axes use the term “trace” in different ways. This diversity produced many interactive processes and led to test the anthropological paradigm of the Human-trace (written with a hyphen). This new paradigm aims to create distance with contemporary questions on traceability and tends to resituate the consequences of the appearance of new tools in the context of the knowledge of humanity history. This paradigm offers also the opportunity to emerge from customary divisions (innate/acquired, individual/milieu) and from reasonings that posit subject and object as independent entities. In this paradigm, the Human lives in a set of multi-level interactions and all this process produces a lot of traces in the body (and the brain).

Or the foundations of a humanism of the trace.

Pr. Béatrice Galinon-Mélénec, full professor, UMR CNRS IDEES LH, (https://www.linkedin.com/pub/b%C3%A9atrice-galinon-m%C3%A9l%C3%A9nec/60/10a/931), Founder of the laboratory on The Human-trace DC Complex System UNESCO (https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Portal:Complex_Systems_Digital_Campus/E-Laboratory_on_human_trace). galinon@free.fr.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Finally, we emphasised how the process of trace visibility worked: we concluded that, in our view, it corresponds to processes of reciprocal excitation of traces, leading to what we call ‘the echoing of signes-traces’ which itself defines the relationship”. See : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Traces#Other

    In this chapter, we have seen how essential a role trace plays in this. As a consequence, we invited the reader to:

    • question what is the relevance of a one-to-one correspondence between traces and signe,

    • develop a wider understanding of interactions and relationships between trace and signe, the role of relationality and interdependence in any situation.

    • establish how these interpretations of the trace correspond with complex interactions.

  2. 2.

    More scientific terms? Please refer to the text of the e. session 2014 (open source); Galinon-Melenec [1].

  3. 3.

    More scientific terms? Please refer to the text: Galinon-Melenec and Zlitni [2].

  4. 4.

    We already said in the 4th International Conference on Complex Systems and Applications: “A distinction must be drawn between the terms “trace” and “imprint”. The origin of the term “imprint” (originally as “emprint” – late Middle English) is from Old French empreinter, based on Latin imprimere, from in- “into” + premere “to press”, whose original meaning (1250) was “to stamp (a mark or outline) on a surface”. The term “trace” covers a greater degree of general connotations and nuances. Our notion of trace includes the imprint that is a connoted trace of a more accentuated marking. On this basis, any imprint is a trace but any trace is not an imprint”.

  5. 5.

    Galinon-Melenec [3].

  6. 6.

    Galinon-Melenec Béatrice, “Des signes-traces à l’Homme-trace. La production et l’interprétation des traces placées dans une perspective anthropologique”, dans Mille [4], pp. 89–113. (From “Sign-Traces” to “Human-Trace”, translated L. Brown, Hong Kong, 2013).

  7. 7.

    But, if this logic has enabled us to go back in time to the Big Bang, it does not prove that by using another form of logic, it would not be possible to gain access to what happened before it.

    It is not because our logic has proved itself on earth that it is necessarily relevant for the whole of the universe.

  8. 8.

    Estimations vary.

  9. 9.

    We already said so in the 4th International Conference on Complex Systems and Applications: “In March 2014, the astrophysicists who have been on a quest to find traces of a fundamental wave responsible for the origin of the universe think they have perceived a fossil vibration of the universe. It appears to be the oldest trace of the world’s early development to have been discovered. Il is important to take account of the fact that this was only made possible because scientists started looking for its existence, that is, from the moment it was assumed that the Universe began with the Big Bang, followed immediately by primordial waves. We will return later to the abduction process underlying this discovery. Thus, palaeontology and astrophysics are making considerable advances in what we know about humanity and the history of the universe. Their progress, in conjunction with observation of traces, shows how fundamental the question of trace is for the representation humans have of themselves and their place in the universe. This journey into history is equally relevant as it makes it possible to attempt to conceive human sustainable development. Furthermore, building on the ever increasing capacities of technology, research is making great strides in a number of major fields of knowledge including that of the human body (molecular genetics, genetic transmission, the brain, etc.)”.

  10. 10.

    Bennington and Derrida [6].

  11. 11.

    We already said so in the 4th International Conference on Complex Systems and Applications: “We had noted that the selection among traces of the same sign by two individuals might lead to a difference in signals according to how they are interpreted, i.e. to two distinct signes-signaux. In other words, the same signe-trace could be seen by two individuals as two completely different signes-signaux.

    The ex-post analysis of a communicative relationship can help to demonstrate that signes-traces have echoed one another. This echoing comes from interactions between signes-traces that are entwined in their complexity. The nature of the relationship established cannot be reduced to the rational knowledge of the identity of individuals and communication frameworks. What underpins the relationship profoundly is taken to be a process whereby signes-traces are echoes of one another, the complexity of which is beyond explanation: “If you press me to say why I loved him, I feel that I can say no more than it was because he was he, and I was I. There is, over and above all my discourse, and all that I can say in particular, some inexplicable and fatal force fostering this union.” (MONTAIGNE M., “Of Friendship” in Essays, 1580).”

  12. 12.

    Cf. Derrida, op.cit.

  13. 13.

    Cf. Intellectica, op.cit.

  14. 14.

    In our paradigm, when the trace is identified as a trace, it becomes a signe-trace and, “If any sign is, in fact, a “signe-trace”, a trace is not necessarily a sign”.

  15. 15.

    Barthes [7].

  16. 16.

    We already said in the 4th International Conference on Complex Systems and Applications: “In our paradigm “L’Homme-Trace”, we posit that the complexity of the real is inaccessible to the human mind. When a human distinguishes signs in a continuum of the real, it is the result of a sorting process; yet this process is linked to his/her history. An individual’s history is an uninterrupted continuity of interactions with a human and non-human environment. These interactions produce a magma of traces inside the individual and they are themselves in the form of continuous and constantly renewed interactions. As a result, when humans perceive the world, they have the impression that it is a juxtaposition of emerging images of discontinuity whereas it is not the world itself (…).

    “If reality (the entire universe) is defined as a complex referential inaccessible to humans as a whole, and if the universe is evolving (thus leaving in the matter and in the universe the traces processuelles of this evolution), it must follow that humans have access to only fragments of the real. The fragment selected by an individual represents what a human calls a “sign”. However, the selection and interpretation of the sign is filtered and processed by the brain according to the “embodied traces” which are also the traces processuelles of its history”.

  17. 17.

    The present, an indefinite time between the past and the future.

  18. 18.

    Galinon-Melenec [3].

  19. 19.

    Open source: Galinon-Melenec [1].

  20. 20.

    Reeves and Simmonet [8], pp. 9–10.

  21. 21.

    This term has been translated into English by the Human-Trace and more generally by Ichnos-Anthropos (ichnos = trace; anthropos = man).

  22. 22.

    HUMAN-TRACE: “Man is both a producer of traces and a construct of traces, operating in a loop, a system in which each builds the other in a continuum” [9].

  23. 23.

    Cf. http://www.unesco.org/culture/humanity/.

  24. 24.

    La plus belle histoire du monde, op.cit, p. 165.

  25. 25.

    Ibid, p. 166.

  26. 26.

    In the 4th International Conference on Complex Systems and Applications (2014), We already posit that:

    “- Humans and Milieu never cease to mutually influence one another through a system of interactions with traces;

    - By observing a milieu, signes-traces (signs of traces) of human existence can be identified.

    For us, these two dimensions are indissociable. Concerning technology, if it is recognised today that humans’ use of it leaves traces in their bodily matter – in their brain – the notion of milieu will be used when reference is made to its symmetrical and immediate influence on the technology itself, on its matter; both as continual and retroactive influences”.

  27. 27.

    Galinon-Melenec et al. [10].

  28. 28.

    For more scientific terms please refer to:

    – Galinon-Melenec [11]

    – Galinon-Melenec Béatrice, Martin-Juchat Fabienne, “Du genre social au genre incorporé: le ‘corps genré’ des SIC” in Bernard F. et Loneux Ch. (dir.), Recherches au féminin en sciences de l’information et de la communication, Revue Française des Sciences de l’Information et de la Communication n°4. En ligne sur http://rfsic.revues.org/857.

  29. 29.

    Hugues Duffau, a University Professor at Montpellier, is a neurosurgeon and researcher in neurosciences (“a field which examines the neurobiological mechanisms which underlie cognition: motor function, perception, emotions, reasoning, language, memory, etc.”. Cf. Duffau [12].

  30. 30.

    Cartography of the human brain.

  31. 31.

    Starting with traces processuelles? We suggest examining this hypothesis.

  32. 32.

    DUFFAU H, op cit, p. 43.

  33. 33.

    The role of psychic traces inscribed in the bodily matter should be stressed: embodied (in-body) interactions of humans with their milieu produce psychic traces. These are externalised in the milieu in the form of behaviours and practices, “signes-traces” of embodied psychic traces. The transformation into a signe-trace occurs as soon as another body perceives it.

  34. 34.

    Francis [13].

  35. 35.

    This example can also illustrate the fact that we apply the term “sign-trace” to behaviour.

  36. 36.

    Fish et al. [14].

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Galinon-Mélénec, B. (2017). From “Traces” and “Human Trace” to “Human-Trace Paradigm”. In: Bourgine, P., Collet, P., Parrend, P. (eds) First Complex Systems Digital Campus World E-Conference 2015. Springer Proceedings in Complexity. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-45901-1_36

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