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-----Original Message-----
From: Chris Lofting [mailto:ddiamond@ozemail.com.au]
Sent: Thursday, 29 June 2000 4:28
To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Subject: RE: Cons and Facades - Welcome to My Nightmare Part 1
(2) The sensory systems, although having unique areas for processing
'primary' data in the neocortex, SHARE neural networks both BEFORE birth and
in association areas in developing into adulthood.
This sharing implies the presence of hybridisation in expressions, by this
the frequency data from DIFFERENT senses can be combined to give an abstract
('virtual') waveform which captures the 'essence' of both senses and so a
sense of 'meaning' that is 'outside' of either sense.
The differentiation at the PRIMARY level is strong such that the degrees of
synesthesia we find in infants soon dissapears. How about secondary/tertiary
areas? see below re emotions.
(Good ref:
Stein, B.E., and Meredith, M.A., (1993) "The Merging of the Senses" MITP
There are a number of popular texts as well on synesthesia etc)
What is implied by the sharing is the use of complex, sensory-based
dichotomisations in the form of vision-data/audition-data that are processed
(a) in opposition (what I see is not what I hear) as well as (b) cooperation
(what I see validates what I hear - congruency). I will 'refine' the
dichotomisation concepts further on.
(3) The process of habituation at the sensory (and associations) level
suggests a system that has evolved to sense DIFFERENCE and that once the
difference has been categorised and experienced further to the degree of
being 'common' it enters the realm of SAMENESS and is then ignored; we do
not have to keep identifying the 'old', just the 'new' or variations on the
'old'.
(I recall this is covered to some degree in:
Posner,M.I., Raichle, M.E., (1994) "Images of Mind" Scientific American
Library )
This emphasis on DIFFERENCE suggests the presence of genetically-determined
'seeds' in the form of fundamental distinctions to 'something'. (1) above
suggests SAMENESS in the form of an archetypal fundamental and a set of
archetypal harmonics.
Samness links to the concept of a local, a particular. The work discussed in
(1) shows that locals do not explicitly influence/interfere with a
non-local, generals, but non-locals can influence/interfere with locals.
What this suggests is that a sameness can be 'modified' by a difference.
What is of interest here is that at the *implicit* level, local distinctions
can create general patterns but there is no 'intent'. E.g. the flocking of
birds, neural network synchronisations etc; interactions of 'SAMES' lead to
an expression, a Difference that is not sourcable to any particular; the
flock behavour continues even if a few of the flock wander off.(This data
comes from complexity/chaos research and in particular simulators used in
Artifical Life programs).
(4) The hemispheres of the neocortex manifest a fundamental dichotomy in the
form of a 1:many distinction.
There is a LOT of references possible here, enough to make it an axiom. We
can just stick 'local' and just use the data from (1) above, single,
fundmental, harmonic to the left and multi frequences and so multi contexts
to the right.
The 1:many format ties to the processing (extraction/fitting) of TEXT
from/into CONTEXT. This has been demonstrated in rCBF studies on negation.
In particular, the making of a request, where one wishes to satisfy a
context (as in asking a parent/spouse etc "can I go to X's place for
dinner") puts the individual in a 'single context' frame of mind. Approval
of the request just satisfies the context and so a 'thank you' or 'great'
and end of story. But a refusal actually elicits a change in 'dominance'
where there is a switch from 'left' to 'right'. What is going on?
The original studies just noted an emotional bias to positive/neutral
thinking to the left and negative and so critical thinking to the right.
(See Gainotti, G., and Caltagirone, C., (eds) (1989) "Emotions and the Dual
Brain" Springer-Verlag for papers on processing negation etc)
However I find this general interpretation 'weak'. I would suggest that the
switch more manifests the use of abductive processes where in one form of
abduction the individual switches to trying to find a context that can be
introduced to change the refusal to an approval (e.g. "But last time it was
OK" or the initial "But why not?") IOW you go through harmonics to find one
that can be accentuated to get what you want.
This methodology, abduction, is common in us as a species where we hold a
LOCAL text constant (the 1) and scan through *different* contexts (the many)
to get a match. (the difference of abduction from induction is that
abduction has, or assumes there is, a context that 'fits' the text.
Induction starts local with no initial assumptions of there being a
contextual, general, link. For example, mathematical induction stays 'local'
by simply emphasising 'if N is the case, consider N + 1.." This emphasises a
more 'within' perspective, there is no need to step outside of the local box
other than perhaps 'a little'.)
(5) Emotion is the general response system to all sensory inputs, internally
derived or externally derived.
As (4) has shown there seems to be an emotional 'tie' to left and right
hemispheres. This has been supported over more recent times through the work
of such people as A. Demasio and J. Ledoux. In (4) there is also some work
by Doty, R.W., (1989) "Some anatomical substrates of emotion, and their
bihemispheric coordination" IN "Emotions and the Dual Brain" p57-82
This work links to the limbic system etc and leads to the realisation that
it is sensory harmonics, colour from vision and multi-frequencies (chords)
from music that elicit 'refined' emotions and these harmonics are of course
in the form of frequencies. These 'refined' emotions, being 'many' linked
tie to right hemisphere processing biases and there is ample evidence to
show that musical chords, colours etc, being SECONDARY+ and not fundamentals
(black/white) elicit a more right hemisphere response.
It is only with musical training do you get a more 'left' oriented response
to music, especially when reading since the 'dots' are very 'fundamental' in
interpretations!; the dots are like words.
Combined with the information from (1) and (4) we can see how the left side
is more often linked to 'single context' expressions of emotion whereas the
right is more 'multi-context'; there seems to be a degree of 'finess' linked
to the right since the expressions of emotions other than as pure forms (all
hate, all love, single colour (?), single note etc) require multi-frequency
data; the entanglement of harmonics to give more subtle expressions and this
is low, multi-frequency data, something the right does 'better' with than
the left.(Perhaps we need to make the distinctions of emotions (raw) from
feelings (refined) but then this 'containment' of expression is not
'precise', it needs decoding, interpretation. M. Gazzaniga links
interpretation (extracting the one from the many) to the left.).
There has been strong links in various texts to the right being 'better' at
processing emotions/feelings and the data from the other references above
suggest that, other than extreme expressions of emotions, there is more of a
bias to emotions being 'in the background' to a communications and so more
'low' in format and so more favouring of the right hemisphere. As we saw
from (4) this includes the concept of negation where negation is 'NOT' left,
it is considered a harmonic in that to express negation you need a
fundamental first.
(See the reviews on hemispheres and emotion in such texts as:
Springer, S.P., & Deutsch, G., (1998) "Left Brain, Right Brain :
Perspectives from Cognitive Neuroscience (5th Edition)" Freeman.
the ref in (4) above, or any of Ledoux or Demasio books).
)
I am going to end this here with the next part expanding on dichotomisations
and method in general.
To summarise I think we can say that:
The analysis and synthesis of information is done through a set of filters
that act to distinguish 'precise' data from 'approximations'; to make
'clear' identifications as well as allow for RE-identification.
This analysis/synthesis process lead to the use of set of fundamental
filters expressed in the form of 1:many dichotomies:
SAMENESS : DIFFERENCE
PARTICULAR, LOCAL : GENERAL, NON-LOCAL
TEXT : CONTEXT
PRECISE : APPROXIMATE
POSITIVE/NEUTRAL : NEGATIVE-CRITICAL (dichotomies of emotion. These
distinctions are already one level passed the base dichotomy of
positive/negative emotion. I will cover this later.)
I suggest that these are 'collapsable' into the dichotomy of
OBJECT : RELATIONSHIPS
and the locational dichotomy of
WITHIN/BEHIND : BETWEEN
Other sources (not needed but useful) verify the general form of these
dichotomies with the neurology showing a general bias to the WHAT/WHERE
dichotomy, with the WHAT having within it the WHO and the WHICH
(categorical) and the WHERE having within it the HOW and the WHEN
(coordinal).
At first you may think that these dichotomisations seem intuitively 'weak',
too 'EITHER/OR', however in the next part I will show you the results of
applying dichotomies recursively such that the A/~A becomes a continuum and
that becomes the basis for determining meaning to a degree where all
disciplines seem to serve as metaphors for the particular describing of
object/relationships data in a particular context. Those metaphors that are
close to the 'real' have a more associative emphasis (1:1) but are in fact
metaphors in that the lexicons involved contain words that link to the
summing of sensory data and as such, these words 'transfer' or 'carry' the
meanings.
best,
Chris.
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