Next…
is the
Quest
Hypothesis
But first - let’s recap…
First came
The Sentic Hypothesis
We saw how basic
underlying shapes communicate emotion,
how they get us in an
appropriate frame of mind
to deal with a new
situation.
Rounded shapes said ‘touch
me, I’m friendly and loving’…
Fang shapes said
‘watch out, be afraid, I’m dangerous’
Slender attenuated
shapes said ‘show me reverence – I’m graceful, take your time’
Dumpy, boxy shapes
said ‘I’m strong and reliable’
Upward curving things
said ‘I’m happy, let’s celebrate!’
And downward curving
things said ‘I’m sad – console me’
Oval, rounded shapes
said ‘I’m voluptuous’
Then things that came
together at a point
aroused us to expect…
a Climax, a focal
point
And things which
exploded in a Surge from a point
also aroused us, to
expect…
Fireworks.
And so it was, because
after the fireworks came…
The Explorer Hypothesis
and we learnt how the
brain makes sense of landscapes
(and bodyscapes)…
We saw how Obstacles
combined with Portals
to create Realms
We saw how Pathways
suggested to us how to get to a Portal
And how these Portals
were far more Alluring and Fascinating
if allied with a
Secret
And we learned many ways
of creating and preserving Secrets:
We learned about
Refuge Portals
and how being
surrounded could make you cosy:
or not:
And we found lots of
ways of directing attention:
and of course:
and we saw how Frames and Titles and
indeed
all Parergons
were also forms of Focus.
Then we looked again at Pathways,
and saw they were
the parts of a Realm that
were known, and the Pathway in Focus
is the part of the Realm in our
attention. The Focus is the part of
the
Realm which demands
action.
The Meaning of the Realm is the
Title. And the
Meaning of the Pathway?
Well, if the Title on the gravestone
reads ‘Edgar Allan Poe’, then
the Realm consists of what lies
within, and all he
did in his life. The Raven, his
drinking,
and every association his name
has in our world today.
So the Meaning of the Pathway is a
subcomponent of the Title or Realm.
The Realm and Title are superordinates,
and the Pathways
are its subordinates, or hyponyms.
After that we looked at repetition
and rhyme
and saw how it gave a Realm its meaning.
And how one Realm could seize
another. Assimilation.
And then came
“Two fish in a tank…”
And we saw that in order to create
Surprise, we needed
Ambiguity… a hyponym which belongs
to at least
two Titles – a Pathway which belongs
to
two Realms.
and then we lead people up the
usual, habitual Pathway…
“One says to the other…”
and let them discover it is the
wrong one…
“Do you know how to drive
this thing?”
Because we have travelled the
less travelled path…
(and yes, I did realise that ‘tank’ was not the only ambiguity,
that there were also two meanings for the word ‘fish’.
It took me two weeks, because I am
not
a devotee of pejorative labels,
but I did find it.)
And then we looked at Hidden Portals, and the
difference between Conceptual and Episodic Memory,
and how a good way to hide a Portal is by
getting your audience in Conceptual Memory mode,
where they expect the stereotypical, and
avoid Focus which could turn on
Episodic Memory and
consciousness.
And introduced the concept of Grip,
vital in any process of Assimilation or
communication. How the audience has to be held
while the process develops.
. . .
What’s more,
at every stage we saw
that the neural nuclei that
responded to these
signals
- the centres in our brains which developed to make sense
of landscapes and
bodyscapes -
could also be used to
communicate in language,
jokes, soap operas,
symphonies, and
any other art form
imaginable.
They are the
Universals of Communication
between us and our
environment,
and are used as the
building blocks
of every
cultural form.
But most of all,
we began to take note
of how
these things
