ABSTRACT

In R10 Muller makes some comments that I feel need correction since they seem to be based on some misconceptions possibly caused by my style of writing. Rather than 'lump' everything together I intend to respond 'bit by bit' and so enable the sorting of chaff from wheat.

This particular response deals with some comments made by Muller in his response concerning Meaning (section B in R10)

<1>
In [8] Muller feels that I have things 'upside down' in that meaning comes before templates, but as I have stressed in the previous responses to R10, there is ONE template from which we make our whole/aspects distinctions and with these comes patterns in the form of 'feelings' -- our words are labels for the patterns. For any 'meaningful' communication to take place so we require a general degree of structured meaning and this is in the form of the whole/aspects template. From this emerges both syntactic and semantic 'patterns' that are then refined and abstracted at 'higher' and more conscious levels of thinking.

<2>
The development of the template is heuristic and spread over a couple of billion years and seems to be something we share with other lifeforms but it is more refined in us.

<3>
The template 'sits' in-between the neurology and the psychology; it is the 'hidden' layer of neural nets where the many sensory data elements are processed and abstracted to elicit a 'meaningful' message to the psychology (which includes unconscious and conscious states). The hemispheres of the neocortex respond to the template with the developed bias to specifics and generals.

<4>
Since our senses are all tuned to processing text/context distinctions so their data is processed 'in the middle' in the same way and it is from this that emerges the generic and abstract concept of whole/aspects processing.

<5>
This processing is hierarchic and so there is connectedness 'all the way' such that reductionism leads us back to whole/aspects distinctions level under which we consider sense-specific data; we can imagine the template as a filter, like the thalamus, where many sensory data elements are 'sorted' into whole/aspects distinctions that are then passed-up to the higher levels.

<6>
'Meaning' is then the detection of a pattern together with a 'feel' based on the recall of a memory or else the setting-up of a 'new' memory that is 'coloured' with the reactive emotive response to the pattern. This 'colouring' gives us 'meaning' in that the 'base' response is either positive/neutral or negative and it is this function that is expressed in our tendency to emphasise 'first impressions' since it is these that can set the tne for all occurrences that happen within this initial context.

<7>
Use of terms like 'set the tone' or 'set the colour' are 'literal' in that the harmonics of tone and vision, and all of the other senses, go towards eliciting refined emotions that give us 'meaning' -- thus a 'beautiful day' consists of the concept of 'day' combined with multiple sensory harmonics that we find pleasing, and this can include fantasised harmonics where, for example, we consider future events that will result from the actions done during the day.
<8>
The above may seem 'abstract' but due to the hierarchic manner in which the neurology works so an abstraction is still linked to the 'nitty gritty' -- I can reduce a 10 minute 'rage' to a simple 'it wasnt very good - end of story'. In mathematics when I use methods to simplify calculations, so these methods do not separate us from the details -- they 'hide them' or 'encapsulate' them. For example, in Calculus, when I am differentiating, I can take a complex set of dy dx and group elements and then differentiate these groups as a whole and then 'un-group' and get back to the details which I find are now easier to process; my manipulations at a more 'general' level have made the processing of the particulars a lot easier.

<9>
In language, when I describe 'a house', so lots of other information is encoded in the word 'house', since this word links a set of patterns that include 'doors', 'windows', 'roof' etc etc. We can use wave analogies in that the term 'house' is in fact a label for a superposition of a number of waves -- e.g. the 'door' wave and the 'window' wave (multiple copies in different phases representing locations etc).


<10>
These 'waves' allow us to combine patterns into 'single' spaces -- superpositions -- but we also have hierarchy in that to maintain structure and still 'develop' so we change scales; which is how complexity works.

<11>
What this allows for is the use of a single specific term to 'reflect' a whole set of 'meanings' and at the same time a very generic term, like 'whole' can also reflect a specific. For example, I can look at a pencil and declare it as such 'a pencil' or else I can look at it and declare it as a 'general' in the form of 'a whole' or 'a part'.

<12>
The affect of hierarchy on our expression of 'meaning' is displayed by our use of analogy to generate 'meaning'. For either an individual or group, the first analogy is always to part of 'us', for example:

(1) X is like an arm.
The most common time that this occurs is in childhood.

Later we then say:
(2) Y is like X

and further -on:
(3) Z is like Y.

The suggestion here is that when I communicate Z so I am communicating Y and X and 'arm' but at an implied level; thus if I have done the full derivation then I can recall (1), but if I pass Z on to someone, so it's context goes with it and this includes the now 'hidden' analogy of (1). This I call 'Contextual Transference' (CT) in that Z is in fact a label for a pattern, a superposition, the structure of which includes the originating analogy (1).

<13>
It is noteworthy to consider what can happen in CT in that if a pattern is analysed so the reductionism will 'reveal' the 'base' analogies. If one has accepted the pattern from someone without getting into the details, and then gone through therapy where pattern analysis takes place, so the root analogies are 'revealed' but one can have no recollection of making them. In fact, by the time we get to high levels so the 'original' analogies are 'junk' being usually 'child-like'. The problem here is that 'enthusiastic' therapists can insist that one 'knew' of these and so elicit feelings that are not relevant.

<14>
In [9] Muller raises the issue of 'meaning' in mathematics, with some comments on the derivation of mathematical methods. My emphasis is that mathematics as a whole is a methodology and it is founded on the whole/aspects template. If we go through the history of mathematical development so we find the emphasis on whole numbers (primes and composites) followed by part numbers (rationals). These are counting numbers since they are all grouped under 'whole/parts'. Further derivation takes us into relational symbolisms which are what irrational and complex 'numbers' represent -- you cannot count with these symbols since they are relational markers.

<15>
As I showed in my last response, R2 to R10, recursive dichotomisation leads to the emergence of these classifications. In numbers we have:

(level 1) Wholes -- positive and negative

(level 2) Wholes + Parts (rational numbers)

(level 3) Wholes + static relationship markers (aka irrationals) + Parts + dynamic relationship markers (aka complex).

<16>
Level 4 onwards leads to increasing complexity and so specialisations in that we MIX the basic elements into concepts like Hamiltonians. Mathematical 'meaning' is based on the use of these 'basics' and these all 'point' to the blend, bond, bound, bind 'meanings' encoded in the whole/aspects template.

<17>
Muller also writes in [9] that:
"Some meanings may actually lie outside the range of experience of one of the participants".
I would say that ALL meaning is reducible to whole/aspects mappings and only complex meanings may require some juggling before they are understood; we need to find the 'levels' of communication and the partition things and work in small chunks rather than a 'drowning' whole. This said, lack of exposure to different degrees of meanings prior to the neuron 'culling' period (age 10-12 years) could lead to 'out of bounds' problems in that the range of potential meanings has been reduced and so we can only create 'meanings with an accent'; the specifics are not understood but the pseudo-specifics and generals are.

<18>
A good example if this 'out of bounds' problem is the recent attempts to restore site to those who where blind from childhood/birth -- even though they can now 'see' so they soon fall back to 'living in the dark', unless they exercise everyday; their 'restored' sight lacks a permanent 'foundation' and this includes a sense of deriving 'meaning'.

<19>
Overall, our sense of 'meaning' is dependent on past experiences and our degrees of sensory differentiation. To aid in communicating 'meaning' so the neurology has adapted to the text/context distinctions within a 'whole' in a hierarchic format such that we maintain structure but change scale and this hierarchic format is 'fixed' at the generic level of whole/aspects distinctions and from it so we get into the psychology that unconsciously and consciously refines these abstractions and allows us to establish rapport with others and so refine our communications.

<20>
'Meaning' is therefore structured in us. At the 'top' levels where we get into cultural or personal specifics so 'meaning' is 'personal' and not fully transferable (except in instances of CT. Freud was aware of this in that he refused to read Nietzsche since he was concerned that it could unconsciously 'corrupt' his mind.). At the general levels we are dealing with the those parts of the template developed equally in all of us. The ability to generate empathy and sympathy is the ability to 'reduce' specific subjective experience to general subjective experience that is transferable in that the 'template' in you 'resonates' the template in the other and elicits a similar feeling and sense of meaning.

Chris Lofting
<clo@fmsc.com.au>