Sunday, May 6, 2012

Synaethesia in the Dialectics of Metaphor and Simile


Synaethesia in the Dialectics of Metaphor and Simile

L. Edgar Otto   06 May, 2012

Two articles in the sci mags, one on synethesia and the other on the role of metaphor and simile in brain connections (the first links to others, one mentions Feynman) seem to me part of the general themes here lately on the blogs.  To me this is not clearly a hard enough science to make conclusions but is interesting and instructive as speculations involving our mechanisms of perception and consciousness that can tend to compare abstract connections and parallels of physics and philosophical foundational models.  I do not conclude therefore these results of these experiments are anymore reliable than the various subjective or physical explanations for something like say, the light reported in near death experiences.  Yet we come closer by our parallels, as computation, as geometry as truth in analogical reasoning, as the distinguishing of other forms of quasic similarity systems aimed to suggest some form of intelligence such as Hillis Connectivity... all which I foresaw in the hyperchess game.

Of course it can be more than just a bicameral result or dialectic.  It can be like suggested by the various maths a four way formulation or beyond that the patterns of binary numbers and patterns in general- these can be emphasized or privileged in views as if either side of such mirrors results in a simile or metaphor, these at least have the beginnings of a neuroscience reason why we make such distinctions as well as why we find unification in the dance, spins, and music of whatever the generals state of our minds.

In particular, in view of my recent themes of posting and the objective weighing on issues like healing (beyond the rather unclear idea of placebo effects) I could say that the methods of some theories can be distinguished from others as if one is a simile and the other a metaphor.  But we should expect the perception of these as ground in an individual endemically and species specific as a given time when the code is expressed or attention or genes lit up from outside stimuli or perhaps internal intention that these may be confused. Both theories can miss the others point and in more than a unified complimentary manner in the general continuum of powers of two, finite or continuous.

In particular my first thought is that I have set up the interpretation of Pikanen's system as one of metaphor and My quasic system as the compliment as simile- but I say to myself, I am more of a poet and would desire to be closer to metaphors and even the unlikely but workable mixing of them on many levels- hence the more general idea here asserted.  This core difference explains a lot as to the conflict as to the wholesomeness of ideas between those of the various schools of the physics in practice and competition.  A poet, moreover has more license to be be informal or even maintain an aura or mood that goes beyond and below words in contexts or from deeper origins- so as to relish the free artistic level of it all that theories sometimes have for the emotional states and feelings of most ordinary people (well, of course I see them all logical as extraordinary people as it is hard to accept what seems to be a contradiction even if quantum theory and GR manage to live together on that level in physics of simile and metaphor.

The poet in me holds open the case that what the synthetes are seeing may indeed be the actual aura (compare the direct or remote influence as if meditation and water memory or better the pot of watched not boiling helium) but the scientist in me is rather leery of the neuroscientists and their smug faith in it as a science although in the chat rooms with the management power I did not continue the rule to exclude them from the conversation-  I also permitted the woman's touch in our operators by encouraging them.  Again, we have a dialectic apparently of gender issues to consider also.

There is no guarantee that all such things will eventually prove explainable by neurosciences.  However in the still mysterious realm of things like quantum computation as a vague goal- if we have higher new physics at the interface of metaphor and simile and in these places there are hidden connections between the distinct manifold spaces as a matter of some form of life or mind motion and communication, these ideas that look into how we see things in this rather at first glance new age philosophy, we may benefit for the hardware design and some programming of such new machines- the vague hope in the conclusions of such articles to continue the papers or the funding or to hold out a carrot or stick for popularization of science in general is that perhaps we can cure some illness, even those of a mental nature.  It is not a given to me that people cannot heal by some sort of what now appears in these days as magical.  So you see it is still the same general paradoxes of thought and existing that our enquiry continually addresses.

Of coruse where I have assigned color to music it is an intellectual reason to do so and not a perfect pitch- but in doing it I do tend to merge the art and physics of Goethe and Newton as if these exceptional thinkers were to each other as Metaphor and Simile...who knows, maybe there is a tunnel, and maybe it can go to some higher level, we know not what if we are honest and that an ideal for science and philosophy.  Matter and consciousness seems to me not to vanish as an issue after its equal description in the quantum formulation but is raised to much higher realms of reality and complexity.

* * * * *

No comments:

Post a Comment