Quantum Morality

April 10th, 2006 Fred McVittie

This from The Conference Abstracts:

There is a less than happy degree of fit between the concepts of Morality (involving individual responsibility, accountability and the operation of free will), and Causality (with its attendant assumptions of deterministic chains of cause and effect). Given that (according to the laws of causality) all effects must have causes, and that these causes are ultimately physical, then this seems to leave no place for the operation of free will and individual moral responsibility. The criminal must have some cause for his crime; a problematic childhood, a defective gene, an overactive hormone, a socially conditioned response mechanism, a politically constructed inequality etc. This implies that the individual who actually commits the crime has ultimately no responsibility for their actions, but rather are simply a link in the deterministic chain of cause and effect. The implication of this causal chain is that the incarceration or punishment of that person seems a little unfair. Nevertheless, as a society we hedge our bets and assume that there is a measure of culpability and punish accordingly. We also expect the criminal, if they have been properly reformed by the legal process, to accept their guilt, with the feelings of guilt and remorse that accompany this acceptance. But what of a situation in which no crime has been committed and yet damage has most definitely been done by one individual to others, as when the driver has a minor heart attack at the wheel and, losing control of the vehicle, mounts the pavements and kills several pedestrians, a mother and child, a pensioner, a traffic warder. This paper will argue for a sense of shared culpability; an acknowledgement that in such a situation we should feel very bad indeed about it and any remarks that we may make it is not our fault are irrelevant. Determinism and free will, guilt and fatalism are inextricably bound together, along with a less rational, but nonetheless emotionally coherent sense of karma. This human moral and emotional response, and the apparent contradictions it contains, will be reviewed within the context of quantum indeterminacy and a proposal made linking ‘karma’ with a hypothetical ‘quantum morality’.

The presenter didn’t really make the connection between karma and quantum indeterminacy, and I got the impression many people thought this was a classic piece of ‘quantum flapdoodle’ as Murray Gell-Mann put it.

Posted in Conference Abstract, Flapdoodle, Free will, Morality, Quantum Theory | No Comments »

The Creativity Continuum

April 11th, 2006 Fred McVittie

Quote:

Creativity is usually figured as a highly unusual episode in human behaviour, a rupture or breakthrough in an otherwise seamless, continuous, relatively predictable stream of thought and action. Most theoretical models of individual creativity match this intuition, containing such elements as ‘illumination’ in which hidden processes somehow intervene in our normal cognition and provide, for example, the creative answer to a problem, the idea for an artwork, the outline of a new invention or theory.

This paper will argue (after Perkins) that this image of creativity as separate from the everyday processes of living and working is incorrect and is driven more by a romantic ideal of ‘the possessed individual’ than close observation of creative acts themselves. It will be demonstrated, rather, that creativity is, in fact, simply the name we give to one part of a continuum of perception and awareness.

Perkins, D. N. (1981). The mind’s best work. Cambridge, Mass.; London, Harvard University Press.

Unquote

This is more like it. The presentation was concise and well illustrated with examples.

Posted in Conference Abstract, Consciousness, Creativity, Illumination, Perkins, David | No Comments »

Consciousness: the explanatory gap

April 11th, 2006 Fred McVittie

Some of the papers on psychology and consciousness might be interesting. This from the abstracts:

This paper will build on work done by McGinn (1989) and others since, in identifying the explanatory gap that exists not between any proposed mechanism for consciousness and an adequate method for demonstrating the factual status of this proposal, but the gap between any such claim, however well authenticated, and the extent to which this explanation is experienced as ’satisfactory’. The philosopher of science JBS Haldane, speaking of certain aspects of 20th century physics, famously remarked that ‘The universe may not only be queerer than we think, but queerer than we can think’.In making this remark, Haldane was not indicating that data could not be collected, hypotheses developed, tests carried out, and progress made in these difficult areas.Rather he was referring to the inherent difficulties in understanding the results of such processes in a way which was ’satisfactory’ or which had ‘intuitive appeal’. A significant amount of scientific knowledge that has accumulated in the last 100 years has been exactly of this nature, and it is an accepted fact of life that advanced theories in quantum science, astronomy, etc are likely to be non-visualisable, disembodied, and often counter-intuitive.Such theories and models Given this as a condition of advanced knowledge it seems extremely likely that any description of the mechanisms of consciousness are similarly disembodied.

McGinn, C. (1999). The mysterious flame: conscious minds in a material world. New York, Basic Books.

Haldane, J. B. S. (1927). Possible Worlds: And Other Essays. London, Chatto and Windus.

I was glad I made the effort to hear this one.

Posted in Conference Abstract, Consciousness, Haldane, J.B.S., Knowledge, McGinn, Colin, Philosophy, Physics | No Comments »

3-D Mind

April 11th, 2006 Fred McVittie

The experience of being human seems to be intimately connected to the physics of the space in which that being feels itself to be embedded. There is an uncanny match between the formulation of space articulated in the axioms of naive physics, roughly approximating Cartesian/Newtonian physics, and the feeling of being.This feeling of being might be described as a sense that one’s body is a single object with a clear boundary, existing at a single location in an extended 3-dimensional space, a feeling which is also extended to the mind, and the feeling that one is a singular entity, reasonably whole and separated in space from other entities, exactly here, precisely now. Studies on the early development of knowledge in babies and children (Baillergeon, 1994; Spelke, 1998) seem to indicate that the cognitive and perceptual apparatus driving these feelings is hard-wired. We know, however, that this perception of space and being is inaccurate. We learn from particle physics that these solid bodies are mostly empty space, our materiality consisting only of widely separated energetic particles blinking randomly in and out of existence. We learn that space itself is not as it appears, but is n-dimensional, curved, and worm-infested. We know that matter and energy are interchangeable. We know that consciousness and intention does not precede action but rather follows it, like a slick politician riding the wave of public opinion (Libet 2004), and we are told that subjectivity itself is an ideological effect, our most phenomenologically real feeling of self constructed by the projections and pressures of culture (Althusser 1998).

The degree of correspondence between Newtonian/Cartesian space and the intuitive understanding of being-in-space as captured in the informal axioms of naive physics requires explanation. I am suggesting that this correspondence is an inevitable feature of the embodied nature of naive experience and the largely embodied nature of scientific enquiry up until the time of Newton and Descartes. When the unaided human sensory system is the primary tool for examining the world, the model of the world is likely to reflect the experienced model of being.

Althusser, L. (1998) “Ideology and ideological state apparatuses.” Eds. J. Rivkin & M. Ryan. Literary theory: An anthology. Malden: Blackwell Publishers, 1998. pp. 294-304.

Baillargeon, R. (1994). “How Do Infants Learn About the Physical World.” Current Direction is Psychological Science 3(5).

Libet, B. (2004). Mind time: the temporal factor in consciousness. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press.

Spelke, E. S. (1998). “Nativism, empiricism, and the origins of knowledge.” Infant Behavior and Development 21(2): 181.

And now I am taking my 3-D body to the bar….

Posted in Althusser, Baillergeon, Conference Abstract, Libet, Benjamin, Phenomenology, Space, Spelke, Elizabeth, Up | No Comments »

Presence and Coherence

April 12th, 2006 Fred McVittie

From my notes:

Presence is a function of coherence. To be present is to maximally engaged in the specific activity to hand and to refrain from engaging in other, possibly conflicting activities.

Performance is an embodied activity in which the presence of the performer is articulated through the structured and organised use of the body. A corollary of this is that for a performance to appear coherent, convincing, attractive, intelligible, etc, the bodily actions of the performer must be similarly coherent. A performance in which the activity of the body is not coherent, but rather is fractured, disjointed, appearing to be engaged in multiple contradictory activities, is a performance that is itself experienced as incoherent and lacking in ‘presence’.

Non-conscious bodily activity is structured through the organisation of the proprioceptive sense, which allows for effective behaviour to be carried out holistically and appropriate to the demands of the particular environment. So, for example, the proprioceptive organisation which allows an effective swimming stroke to be executed (unconsciously and holistically) is different to that which allows for effective sprinting.

I can’t remember which panel this paper was part of, but it seems to link to the paper on Zhan Zhuang I reported on earlier.

Posted in Coherence, Conference Abstract, Performance, Presence, Proprioception | No Comments »

The Cybernetics of Mind

April 12th, 2006 Fred McVittie

Since I can’t get to all the presentations, I will be posting some of the more interesting (to me) sounding abstracts here verbatim. As follows:

Libet (2004) famously observed that the intention for carrying out an action, contrary to expectation, does not precede the initiation of that action, but actually follows slightly after it.The implication of this is that the conscious ‘willing’ of an action is an illusion and that the conscious mind is, in effect, a witness to the actions of the unconscious to which we attribute the illusion of control.This finding, if correct, has profound consequences on our notion of intention and of the concept of ‘free will’. A significant interpretation of Libet’s results is one in which it is proposed that the conscious mind, the ‘will’ if you like, whilst it may not be the originator of action, nevertheless has the right of veto. In other words, an action initiated by the unconscious, when presented to the conscious mind, may be blocked such that the action is not carried out.

It will be argued here that this identification and selection of action by the conscious mind, which may seem through this description as corresponding to a police action or a restraint, is unlikely to be experienced as such. Provided an appropriate action is initiated swiftly enough that the conscious mind can effectively say ‘yes’ to it (i.e. not exercise its right of veto) it is likely that the selection of right action and the avoidance of error is experienced as simply the flow of everyday life. This proposal will be developed through an extended visual metaphor in which consciousness is represented as the ’steersman’ of the ship of cognition, navigating an oceanic phenomenal universe of experience.

Libet, B. (2004). Mind time: the temporal factor in consciousness. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press.

Posted in Conference Abstract, Consciousness, Free will, Libet, Benjamin, Metaphor, Time | No Comments »

Attention Shoppers: Everybody Please Rise

April 13th, 2006 Fred McVittie

A spectator has the unique power to wield attention. The ability to capture and hold the attention of spectators is a desirable skill for any performer to have, and is part of a raft of skills and tools utilised by performers which collectively result in ’stage presence’.

In discussing attention, it is inevitable that a number of metaphors are revealed. On the one hand attention is something that is caught, that can be attracted, that can be riveted, that can be held or grabbed. If we are not careful attention can wander, it can drift off, it can be all over the place, in which case you may have to call attention to yourself. On the other hand attention is like currency, it has the economy of a limited resource, you can give it, lose it, steal it. You can divide it or give it fully, compete for it, you can pay attention to somebody, maybe in return for something.

From the point of view of cognitive linguistics, when we use these metaphors we are not simply making poetic allusions in place of more symbolically structured knowledge or transcendent reason. Rather in using these and related metaphors to describe the performance event we are relating the formal structure of thinking itself. From this perspective, almost all thinking is metaphorical and these metaphors (which ultimately are sourced from bodily experience) overlap and inter-relate to form what we think of as bodies of knowledge. This paper will use the cognitive linguistic approach developed by Lakoff and Johnson and others to excavate the metaphors and image schemas associated with attention in relation to performance. Particular attention (sic) will be given to the use of metaphors used in performer training as a possible means of empowering the performer and developing stage presence.

Posted in Attention, Cognitive Linguistics, Conference Abstract, Johnson, Mark, Lakoff, George, Performance, Presence, Schema | No Comments »

How Science Lost its Body

April 13th, 2006 Fred McVittie

This paper will describe how scientific knowledge prior to the late 16th and early 17th centuries was constructed and authenticated primarily by practical experimental means, and that this practice-led knowledge gathering process led to a form of knowledge which was inherently human-centred, sensual, and embodied. In fact it could be said that up to this point in history, the project of science was the organised description of human experience. After this point it will be argued that the object of enquiry shifted away from the human being and toward a depersonalised objectivity, a shift facilitated by an increasing tendency for scientific knowledge production to become mathematised (as noted by Kline 1980). This mathematisation of science proceeding to the point where, in cases where mathematical formulation does not agree with experiment, it is considered most likely that the experimental method is at fault.

A corollary of this mathematisation process is that scientific knowledge becomes increasingly disembodied. The truths proposed by much scientific research are beyond the reach of the senses and beyond any imaginative engagement other than in the abstract language of mathematics. Again, in regarding such knowledge, when mathematics does not agree with human sensibility it is the human sensorium which is considered faulty or inadequate. This means that the subjective, embodied knowledge we gain through lived experience is increasingly at a remove from the objective disembodied knowledge described by science. This paper will discuss some of the implications of this division.

Kline, M. (1980). Mathematics: The Loss of Certainty. New York, New York University Press.

Posted in Conference Abstract, Embodiment, History, Kline, Morris, Mathematics, Science | No Comments »

On Having No Body

April 15th, 2006 Fred McVittie

In 1961 Douglas Harding published ‘On Having No Head’, an essay bringing together elements of Buddhist and Zen teaching with certain observations about the nature of seeing. A key theme within the process of enlightenment described in the essay is the realisation that, in purely experiential terms, a human being (the self) does not have a head. Whilst we may look around and see other people with heads we do not experience our own self in that way. Rather, when we try to consider the form or nature of ‘the place we are looking from’ we are confronted with a void. Our bodies also may be ‘out there in the world’ but our heads, or more specifically our minds, are empty space. In Harding’s writing this apparently whimsical observation is developed into a comprehensive holistic metaphysics in which this void, this empty space, is ‘the void in which the world appears’.

A weakness in Harding’s analogy is that it relies very heavily on our apprehension of the world through our sense of sight. Vision is paralleled with being to an extent which some readers may find too much of a stretch, particularly when the visual sense, whilst clearly very important in organising our sense of reality, is not necessarily the strongest sense we possess which provides this orientation. This paper will attempt to reinforce this weakness in Harding’s analogy by considering the unusual case of Miss L. ; a young woman who, after recovering from a severe viral infection, lost her ability to access her proprioceptive sense, the sense that gives us information about where our bodies and limbs are in space. This woman, who prior to her disease had no religious or unusual philosophical interests, on losing her proprioception, reported regular feelings of satori or ‘divine illumination’ (sic) accompanied, or possibly produced by, a sense of her body being ’simultaneously everywhere and nowhere’, or ‘empty and full’. This presentation will be illustrated with writings and images produced by Miss L in her attempt to describe her experiences.

Posted in Buddhism, Conference Abstract, Embodiment, Enlightenment, Harding, Douglas, Sense | No Comments »

Attention Grabbing States of Mind

April 18th, 2006 Fred McVittie

The central question asked by this presentation is; does the state of a person’s mind affect their ability to attract attention. Secondarily to this, is such a correlation exists, what mechanism might be posited to explain this effect.

A series of trials have been carried out which strongly indicates that a factor in the ability of a person to attract attention, is indeed the particular state of mind of that person. Certain brain states, and even certain contents of consciousness, seem to be able to generate different level of this attention grabbing quality, (sometimes referred to as presence).

A number of possible hypotheses present themselves for rejection immediately. It is unlikely that there is some as-yet undiscovered force or substrate through which states of mind might be transferred non-materially (c.f. Sheldrake’s ‘The Sense of Being Stared At, 2003′). It is also unlikely, though not physically impossible, that this effect is the result of an underused and possibly unconscious faculty of the senses, such as the sense of smell; maybe people with presence simply smell different. This idea is explored by Teresa Brennan in relation to the ‘Transmission of Affect’ (2004). A third option, which will be offered here, is the hypothesis that certain states of mind or conscious thoughts produce subtle but measurable differences in the physical presentation and behaviour of the person, particularly the co-ordination of different sub-behaviours such as gaze direction, angle of the head, visible breathing patterns, and small movements of the extremities, particularly the fingers.

Brennan, T. (2004). The transmission of affect. Ithaca; London, Cornell University Press.

Sheldrake, R. (2003). The sense of being stared at: and other aspects of the extended mind. New York, Crown Publishers.

Posted in Attention, Brennan, Teresa, Conference Abstract, Consciousness, Sense, Sheldrake, Rupert | No Comments »

Can a Brain be Creative, and would we know

April 19th, 2006 Fred McVittie

Last night’s paper (presented at midnight in a disused church for some reason!)


In ‘Can a robot be creative, and would we know’, Margeret Boden (in Ford, 1996) identifies two types of creativity, each associated with different domains. That which she calls ‘H-creativity’ (for Historical) is associated with actions and artifacts which have never been produced before anywhere (or at lease not anywhere in the culture). These artifacts are usually applauded as genuinely original; unique solutions to old problems, new scientific theories, patentable inventions, copyrightable artworks etc. What Boden refers to as ‘P-creativity’ (for Personal) is only creative in the limited domain of personal experience. Although the person carrying out the creative act may be doing it for the first time, the actions and artifacts produced already exist in the wider domain of culture. It follows from this that whilst all instances of H-creativity are also P-creative, the reverse is not true.

In this paper I propose a third level at which this process occurs, call it ‘C-creativity’, in which the ‘C’ stands for ‘Consciousness’, and which corresponds to the creative formation of new unities of phenomenal experience. Here the domain is that of working memory to which new sensory experiences are introduced with each passing moment.

Ongoing phenomenal consciousness, in this model, therefore parallels the ‘body of knowledge’ which makes up a domain within H-Creativity, and to the ‘body of personal experience’ which forms the domain within P-Creativity. Just as in these larger scales of creativity, C-creativity is a dynamic process and the body of consciousness it produces is constantly evolving, not in the sense often used by new age gurus etc. but in the routine flow of everyday awareness. To paraphrase Boden’s original question, not only would we know whether a brain can be creative, but knowing itself is a deeply creative act.

Possible neurological correlates of this process will be discussed and suggestions made concerning the implications of an evolving consciousness.

Ford, K. M., C. N. Glymour, et al. (1995). Android epistemology. Menlo Park Cambridge, Mass., AAAI Press; MIT Press.

Posted in Boden, Margaret, Conference Abstract, Consciousness, Creativity, Phenomenology, Story | No Comments »

Performing Vitalism

April 20th, 2006 Fred McVittie

The activity of theatrical performance (acting, dance, live art etc.) is theorised primarily in terms of anthropology (Schechner, 1976, 1990, 1993) and cultural studies. These approaches are valuable and robust, although they do leave a void at the centre of the practice. What is absent is a comprehensive theorisation of the subjective ontology of the performer herself.

Having said this, there is a considerable body of vernacular knowledge, what might be called ‘folk theories’ of acting and other performative acts, a kind of ‘naive science’ of performance. An analysis of this knowledge, as embedded in the writings of actors, directors, teachers, critics, etc. demonstrates that these folk theories show a high degree of consistency and coherence, comparable to, but more convincing than, the coherence hypothesised by Pat Hayes (1979) regarding ‘naive physics’.

One significant component of this body of knowledge is an apparent shared belief in a power, essence, or life-force, paralleling the Vitalist theories of living systems which dominated human sciences up until the late 19th Century. Similar energy descriptions can also be found in non-Western philosophies and practices, variously referred to as prana, chi, ki, mana, etc. This mythological energy, whilst roundly dismissed in all rational theoretical discourses, is alive and well in the folk theory of performance. This paper will demonstrate the ubiquity of this energy concept in the particular domain of performer training techniques, and will demonstrate that the usage of this concept is part of a coherent, comprehensive, and practical discourse, albeit irrational.

Hayes, P. J. (1979). The Naive Physics Manifesto. Expert Systems in the Microelectronic Age. D. Michie. Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press.

Schechner, R. (1993). The future of ritual: writings on culture and performance. London; New York, Routledge.

Schechner, R. and W. Appel (1990). By means of performance: intercultural studies of theatre and ritual. Cambridge; New York, Cambridge University Press.

Schechner, R. and M. Schuman (1976). Ritual, play, and performance: readings in the social sciences/theatre. New York, Seabury Press.

Posted in Conference Abstract, Energy, Essence, Exercises, Hayes, Pat, Naive Physics, Performance, Schechner, Richard | No Comments »

Intentionality, Agency, and Performance

April 21st, 2006 Fred McVittie

Tonight there is a Conference Banquet at a local hotel, but I really don’t like that kind of thing, so am giving it a miss. I’ll probably grab a pizza later, or maybe ring down to reception for a sandwich. Anyway, this was the paper that stood out for me today.

It is a trait of all humans, but particularly of children, to attribute agency to inanimate objects. This tendency has variously been dubbed ‘the intentional stance’ (Dennett, 1987) and the operation of a ‘hyperactive agency detector’ (Barrett, 2004). This tendency is often considered to be naive and a precursor to more sophisticated methods for explaining form and action, and such attributions tend to be dubbed anthropomorphism or ‘Disneyfication’. It will be argued here that this strategy of recognising agency in non-human entities and objects can actually be regarded as a highly effective method for gaining complex tacit knowledge and for improving performance and for learning particular skills and concepts. Human behaviour, when relating to entities which are considered to have agency, contains far more abstract content, and that content is far more integrated, than behaviour directed toward objects regarded simply as inanimate. The mobilisation of intentionality and agency, and even anthropomorphism, can therefore be shown to be a robust method for holistic learning.

Barrett, J. L. (2004). Why would anyone believe in God? Walnut Creek, CA, AltaMira Press.

Dennett (1987). The intentional stance. Cambridge, Mass. London, MIT Press.

Posted in Barrett, Justin L., Conference Abstract, Dennett, Daniel, Intentionality, Story | No Comments »

Creativity and Selective Forgetting

April 22nd, 2006 Fred McVittie

The moment of ‘illumination’ within a creative process in which a sudden insight, breakthrough, or intuitive leap is made, has been show to be decomposable into a number of discreet conscious stages. This contradicts the naive experience (and romantic mythology) of these moments, in which the creative outcome is usually reported as emerging fully-formed into consciousness, having been produced through non-conscious, non-personal means, (these means usually involving ‘the unconscious’, or occasionally a deity or muse. The feeling of ‘illumination’ furthermore, has been shown to occur after these conscious stages have been gone through and is accompanied by a kind of selective forgetting, in which, unless particular attention is paid, the intervening stages between problem and solution are forgotten, leaving only the illuminated moment. This phenomenon will be discussed in the context of the Baars Global Workspace model of consciousness.

Baars, B. (1997). In the theater of consciousness: The workspace of the mind. New York, Oxford University Press.

Posted in Baars, Bernard, Conference Abstract, Consciousness, Creativity, Illumination | No Comments »

Performing the Now

April 24th, 2006 Fred McVittie

I know I said I wouldn’t be reporting on any more ‘BBC2′ type activity for a while, but I found myself at this presentation, which on paper looks suspiciously like more flapdoodle (vanilla flavoured rather than quantum). However, the presenter was disarmingly normal and seemed quite distant from the ideas he was presenting, so I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt.

All activity has extension both in time and space but the experienced and evaluated now of that activity is its performance. Phelan (1993) seems to take the view that performance is an act of disappearance, but if we are to grant this then we have to acknowledge that it is also, necessarily, an act of continuous and ongoing appearance. But even the terms appearance and disappearance are not totally applicable to the performance moment, as this moment is best seen not as a sluice gate through which time passes, carrying the future toward the past, but rather as a still point in which time is experienced out of existence, a standing wave in space-time. Performance, then, is the moment of coming-into-being. It corresponds in creativity studies with the moment of illumination (critiqued by Perkins). In consciousness studies it corresponds with the ‘now’ of consciousness (heightened and extended in the long now of ‘the zone’, and the exactly here, precisely now of zen and other enlightenment practices). In physics this might be analogised with the process by which energy and matter are transformed by accelerating particles of that matter to a speed where everywhere is present in the continuous now.

Phelan, P. (1993). Unmarked: the politics of performance. London, Routledge.

Posted in Conference Abstract, Flapdoodle, Perkins, David, Phelan, Peggy, Physics, Story, Time | No Comments »

More on Mirror Neurons

April 26th, 2006 Fred McVittie

This abstract was given to me at dinner last night (hand written!) and the presentation is apparently some time today. I will try to get to it and report back.

It has been shown that the areas of the brain which are activated when we carry out an action, say ‘grasping’, are also activated when we imagine the activity. This is sometimes referred to as a ’simulation’. Furthermore, these same areas are activated when we read about or witness someone else carrying out the action of ‘grasping’. This simulation, or mirroring of the action seems to be a key component in understanding the action or the meaning of the word (Feldman & Narayanan 2004), and the process is occasionally referred to as the action of ‘mirror neurons’.

The significance of these findings for metaphor studies is that these same areas of the brain are also activated when we read about or hear an utterance which makes metaphorical use of the term ‘to grasp’, for example; ‘to grasp and idea’; ‘to grasp an opportunity’. This implies that the metaphorical mapping of concrete, body-based concepts onto abstract concepts is not only a function of the minds cognitive processes, but is also taking place at a neural level. The patterns of neuronal firings which occur during metaphor usage are, in effect, the neural correlates of concepts.

The implication of these findings for educators and students will be discussed, particularly in relation to the teaching and learning of abstract or metaphysical concepts.

Feldman, J. and S. Narayanan (2004). “Embodied Meaning in a Neural Theory of Language.” Brain and Language(89): 385.

Posted in Conference Abstract, Feldman, J. and Narayanan, S., Grasp, Metaphor, Mirror neurons, Neuroscience, Story | No Comments »

Liquid States of Mind

April 26th, 2006 Fred McVittie

William James (1892) famously uses the term ‘Stream of Consciousness’ to describe the unbroken succession of images which seems to characterize the flowing, river-like experience of wakeful awareness. He also writes of the ‘oceanic’ feelings associated with religious experience (1902), an entailment picked up by Freud (1973) and Clement (1994) and which also figures in first-person accounts of certain varieties of peak experience; a feeling of unbounded unity with the wider cosmos and an apparent dissolution of the boundary between self and world .

These two images, the stream and the ocean, can be seen as complementary features in an ontology, or rather a ‘hydrography’ of consciousness; at one extreme the subject is defined by the path of their individual stream; delineated, bounded, and temporal. At the other extreme the subject dissolves into a larger substrate, an all-encompassing, atemporal ocean. These two terms for particular radically different states of consciousness are entailments of an extended metaphor in which the operation of the mind is compared to the behavior of a liquid.

The metaphor does not just allow for these two entailments, but structures a range of discourses related to consciousness from the fields of psychology, technology and phenomenology. These include Csikszentmihalyi’s notion of flow (1990; 1997) immersion (Grau 2004), thought ripples (Greenfield 2001), and absorption (Gurwitsch 1979).

This deployment of a liquid metaphor in talking of consciousness has a long history and extensive current (sic.) use. Water, particularly, features significantly in many of the world’s religions and in mythological texts as a medium for describing cognitive states or processes which would otherwise be inconceivable, the most familiar of these probably being the Greek legends surrounding Lethe and Mnemosyne, the rivers of forgetting and remembering. Drawing on the Conceptual Metaphor Theory of Lakoff and Johnson (1999) and others, this metaphor can be shown not to be arbitrary and contingent, but as providing a consistent, coherent structure whereby the abstract notion of consciousness is made conceivable and articulate.

Clement, C. (1994). Syncope: The Philosophy of Rapture. Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press.

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: the psychology of optimal experience. New York, Harper & Row.

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1997). Creativity: flow and the psychology of discovery and invention. New York, HarperPerennial.

Freud, S. (1989). Formulations Regarding The Two Principles in Mental Functioning. The Freud Reader. P. Gay. New York, Norton: 301-306.

Grau, O. (2003). Virtual art: from illusion to immersion. Cambridge, Mass., MIT Press.

Greenfield, S. A. and T. F. T. Collins (2005). A Neuroscientific Approach to Consciousness. Amsterdam, Elsevier B.V.

Gurwitsch, A. (1979). Human Encounters in the Social World. Pittsburgh, PA, Duquesne University Press.

James, W. (1981). The Principles of Psychology. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press.

Posted in Clement, Catherine, Conference Abstract, Consciousness, Csikszentmihalyi, Mihalyi, Flow, Freud, Sigmund, Greenfield, Susan, Gurswitch, Aron, James, William, Liquid, Metaphor, Phenomenology, Psychology, Religion | No Comments »

The Details of Excellence (workshop)

April 27th, 2006 Fred McVittie

Well I intended to go the the ‘Mind at Play’ workshop but ended up at this one by mistake. I’ll write up what happened later.

The difference between an exemplary performance by a person at the top of their field, and that of a person who, for want of a better word is simply ‘accomplished’ or ‘competent’ is extremely small. For example, the world record for the 100 metre sprint is currently held by Tim Montgomery at 9.78 seconds, while schoolboy Gareth Lamb of the Stockport Harriers won the Inter Boys’ championship final in 11.4 seconds over the same distance. A difference of just 1.62 seconds. The words spoken by Ian McKellen playing King Lear are exactly the same as those spoken by an amateur actor in a village hall production of the same play, and the differences in intonation, eye gaze direction, speed of gesture, length of pause, are again apparently minor. Two cars may have the same size engine and the same basic body shape, but small differences in ignition timing and fuel mixture can dramatically alter the accelleration rate and top speed. This workshop introduce participants to a series of strategies for accessing the fine grain of performance and thereby gain control over this vital percentage. It is available for performers at all levels and aims to improve focus and presence.

Posted in Conference Abstract, Performance, Sport, Story | 1 Comment »

Be. Here. Now.

April 28th, 2006 Fred McVittie

For the purposes of this paper, presence will be regarded as primarily a spatial concept. That is, the degree of presence demonstrated by an entity is found to be proportional to the degree to which that entity may be said to have a single distinct location in space. Following the logic of Egginton in ‘How the world became a stage’ (2003), this presence functions as a replacement for subjectivity as the authenticator of being. Therefore to have presence is ‘to be, there’. To occupy a point is space (not to be partially there, not to be elsewhere, to be in that place only.)

There are a number of (metaphorical) properties associated with this located being-in-space, some of which have a particular relevance for theatrical or other type of performance. If a person has presence then they demonstrate attraction, magnetism, they are compelling, motivating, they catch your attention (attention is something to be caught), they ‘have what it takes’, they are likely to be the ‘centre of attention’ and to ‘knock em dead’. It will be noted that there is a telling correlation between the concept of spatially authenticated presence and the abstract concept of a force or energy. The structure of this correlation of metaphors will be described and some revealing entailments introduced.

Egginton, W. (2003). How the world became a stage: presence, theatricality, and the question of modernity. Albany, NY, State University of New York Press.

Posted in Conference Abstract, Performance, Presence, Space, Theatre | No Comments »

Egocentricity and Performance

April 29th, 2006 Fred McVittie

It is a cliche that many, if not all successful actors, dancers, and performers of all stripes, are deeply self-centred. And whilst, like all cliches this is probably a sweeping generalisation it may have a germ of truth and necessary accuracy to it.

To be self-centred is to believe that one is standing at the centre of the universe, that the universe revolves around you, and that you are the most important thing, the focal point and raison d’etre, for the universe’s existence.

We all know that this isn’t literally true (except of course that it is literally true), but it may be that this positioning of the actor at the centre of the known universe is a contributing factor to their effectiveness as a performer. It may be that actors perform best when they harbour such beliefs about themselves and their position in the world. This paper will argue however, that there is a significant difference between the concepts of being ‘centred’, being ’self-centred’, and being ‘egocentric’.

Posted in Centre, Conference Abstract, Performance | No Comments »

Folk Physics and Performer Training

April 30th, 2006 Fred McVittie

The first part of this paper will look at a range of training regimes associated with theatrical and public performance forms, paying particular attention to techniques which appear to enhance ‘presence’. Particular attention will be paid to body-based training practices. From this initial research key ideas and terms will be extracted that use metaphors which are drawn from and have accurate meaning in the physical sciences; terms such as energy and focus, and ideas such as ‘being centered’ and ‘extension’.

We will then go on to suggest that these ideas and terms can be seen as defining and articulating the physical laws and properties of a ‘universe’ in which the performance potential of individuals lodged within that universe is optimised. Put another way, the ‘folk physics’ which is routinely used to explain training exercises to students and performers will be examined in detail and general principles extracted.

If time permits we will then outline some practical devising and testing of techniques we have developed which use these coherent general principles as a basis for performer training.

Keywords: Folk Physics, Naive Physics, Performance, Metaphor, Embodiment.

(Time did not actually permit any practical demonstration of these ideas, but I could see some relationship between these ideas and the content of the ‘Details of Excellence’ workshop I went to.)

Posted in Conference Abstract, Metaphor, Naive Physics, Presence, Story, Training | No Comments »

Categorical Essences

May 3rd, 2006 Fred McVittie

The concept of the essence, whilst rightly dismissed from empirical science, is nevertheless a staple of several other systems of thought including folk or naive sciences, theology, and metaphysics.

The concept of the essence is closely related to that of the category. An essence can be seen as the metaphorical physicalisation of the ‘necessary and sufficient conditions’ which must be met for inclusion of any entity within a specific category. It could be argued that such conditions are routinely met without recourse to essentialism, as for example where the conditions for inclusion in the category of ‘birds’ is the possession of functioning wings. This argument for classical categories has been dismissed however by writers from Wittgenstein to Rosch in favour of a view of categorisation based on the prototype or on ‘family resemblance’ rather than necessary conditions. Despite this critique, the organisation of experience according to the necessary and sufficient conditions required by classical categorisation still obtains, to the extent that it may be an innate human tendency.

A product of this innate tendency to assume that such conditions exist is the formulation of an imaginary set of such conditions which, whilst they may have no literal existence, nevertheless are assumed to exist in some transcendent form. So it becomes possible to identify a bird, with or without functioning wings, as nevertheless belonging to the category birds, because of an essential birdness which is possesses, and which are its defining feature qua bird. This transcendent feature is the categorical essence of the bird, and is shared by all members of the category of birds.

This paper will consider the ontological status of these categorical essences, suggesting that such essences are best read as metaphorical or metanymic.

Posted in Category, Conference Abstract, Essence, Rosch, Eleanor, Wittgenstein, Ludwig | No Comments »

Matter and Metaphor

May 4th, 2006 Fred McVittie

It has been observed that up to 90% of verbal communication is metaphorical rather than literal. Furthermore, these metaphors are not arbitrary and contingent, but rather articulate a coherent and structured body of concepts. It is valid to say then, that in addition to the physical objective world of lived experience, we also operate on a symbolic level which is contructed not of matter but of metaphor.

A significant property of this symbolic level of operation is the effect of its structure on behaviour and attitude in the physical world. It has been suggested, for example, that phenomena which are completely unrelated in the material world but which share the same metaphor on the symbolic level tend to produce related real world responses. Lakoff, for example, identified such overlap in attitudes towards anger and sex, which he claims share the same metaphor of heat on the symbolic level. This overlap, it is claimed, accounts for some aspects of (particularly male) sexual behaviour and attitudes toward women.

This paper will describe some of the properties of this symbolic level of operation, and suggest some of the ‘laws’ which appear to consistently organise cognition at that level.

Posted in Conference Abstract | No Comments »

Art and the Meaning Response

May 5th, 2006 Fred McVittie

Most non-conscious physical responses have a relatively simple relationship to stimulus in which the stimulus produces predictable responses under most, if not all circumstances. The term ‘meaning response’, on the other hand, refers to a class of psychophysiological actions (responses) which vary according to the semiotic context in which a stimulus is applied. This class of actions are found most commonly in the area of health and well-being, and include; the placebo effect, the Hawthorne effect, experimenter effects etc. In all cases where meaning responses operate, a stimulus, e.g. an inert substance in tablet form, has a variable response, e.g. reported feelings of improved health, according to the circumstances of its delivery and the meaning attached to that stimulus by the recipient. It is often argued that these effects are ‘merely’ psychosomatic, but this does not deny the reality of the effects but simply relocates them within the brain chemistry of meaning and the interaction between this chemistry and the wider physiology of the body.

A parallel shift in response can be found in relation to the aesthetic appreciation of an artefact or event. The simple re-labelling of an entity as ‘art’ can be sufficient to trigger measurable changes in the neurochemistry of the brain, an effect which is particularly marked when the attribution is associated with the name of a prestigious artist.

This presentation will report on preliminary trials using fMRI to track changes in brain functioning at the moments when artefacts acquire the label ‘art’. Suggestions will also be made about the possible existence of an ‘art module’ in the brain located by this process.

Keywords: consciousness, art, aesthetics, neuroscience, brain chemistry, placebo.

Posted in Art, Conference Abstract, Placebo | No Comments »

Naive Theatre and Consciousness Research

May 7th, 2006 Fred McVittie

A number of significant explanations and criticisms of mind and consciousness use the metaphor of performance and theatre. Concepts such as ’scripts’ and ‘roles’ populate consciousness theory and psychology more widely, and of course the origin of the word ‘persona’ lies with the Greek word for theatrical mask. Bernard Baars particularly uses many of the entailments of this metaphor in his Global Workspace theory, including the ’spotlight’ of attention, the darkness in which the audience sits, and the unconscious mental systems that take place ‘behind the scenes’. The model of a theatrical consciousness is also deeply embedded in the popular imagination and in the principles of naive psychology. Even the elimination of the audience from this model, as argued effectively by Daniel Dennett, does not collapse the rest of the edifice.

An attractive aspect of this metaphor which may help to explain its resilience is that it seems to bring with it an explanation of consciousness which captures something of phenomenal experience. The ‘theatre of consciousness’ feels intuitively satisfying as an explanation for what it is like to be alive and awake, where other, perhaps more purely physical descriptions do not. This intuitive satisfaction however, comes at the cost of simplifying theatre to an extent which makes it unrecognizable to anyone with more than a passing familiarity with theatre itself. Modern performance theory demonstrates that the combination of components used within the metaphor; darkness and light, spotlights and scenery, active actors and passive (or unnecessary) audience is not how theatre works at all. As a source metaphor, it is as naive as some of the models of consciousness to which it is applied.
This paper will unpack the theatre metaphor in terms of contemporary performance studies, outlining the ways in which it departs significantly from actual theatre practice and theory, whilst acknowledging that the metaphor does correspond to a folk understanding of theatre.
Finally, consideration will be given to what significance there may be in the fact that both a naive understanding of theatre and an understanding of consciousness share a common conceptual structure.

Posted in Conference Abstract, Consciousness, Theatre | No Comments »

Frames, Presence, and the Now. (10.26)

May 9th, 2006 Fred McVittie

I keep meaning to write commentaries on these abstracts, or at least let readers of this blog know a bit more about The Conference and what goes on here, but for some reason I just can’t seem to remember to do it. Whenever I sit down at the laptop all I can remember is the abstracts that I’ve heard. This was last night’s:

A frame by frame analysis of performances by experienced actors in cinema reveals that there is a significant difference in the composition of these frames compared to those extracted from footage of less experience actors. Experienced film actors seem to be able to produce performances in which almost all filmed frames are coherent and present the actor in a fully ‘posed’ way. This contrasts significantly with the frames of inexperienced actors, many of which catch the actor in a ‘transition’ moment, often with protruding tongue, half-closed eyes, etc. It is proposed that these fine-grained differences in frame content constitute the difference between a filmed performance which has ‘presence’ and one which does not.

Also, I lost my watch today. I took it off when I was washing my hands in the bathroom and walked off without it. I went back to see if it was still there, but couldn’t even find the bathroom never mind the watch. I have the time on the computer of course (10.26 right now).

Posted in Conference Abstract, Story | No Comments »

The Intuitive Poetry of Trade

May 12th, 2006 Fred McVittie

This paper will argue that the faculty we refer to as ‘intuition’, the spontaneous feeling of knowing experienced in the absence of concrete or sufficient data, is (partly) a product of the non-conscious mobilisation of metaphor.

It has been shown conclusively that the human mind is only capable of processing a limited number of variables, this number roughly corresponding to the amount of data held in working (short term) memory; for most people between 5 and 8 items (Miller: 1956). This means that when making decisions or judgements which involve many and complex variables the conscious mind is not well equipped for the task and the job is best handed over to non-conscious processes (Dijksterhuis: 2004).

This paper will consider the mechanism by which the unconscious mind arrives at these decisions. We will introduce a model in which problems involving multiple variables are ‘intuited’ by the aggregation of sets of variables into conceptual unities, these unities being based on simple embodied metaphors. The various entailments of these metaphors, operating at an unconscious level provide holistic shortcuts to knowledge not directly drawn from the consciously available data. For example, it will be claimed that the intuition shown by stock market traders in juggling multiple, highly variable data sets when making rapid decisions, is enabled through their non-conscious metaphorical conceptualisation of the trading process. Successful traders use this unconscious understanding to inform their decision making, even though they have no conscious awareness of the deeply metaphorical, even poetic nature of the cognition they are employing.

Specific examples of the metaphors used by successful traders will be examined to demonstrate this process.

Posted in Conference Abstract, Dijksterhuis, Ap, Miller, George | No Comments »

Shared Metaphors and Conceptual Overlap

May 16th, 2006 Fred McVittie

Abstract concepts which share a common metaphor tend to be perceived as related, and may be linked behaviourally, even when there is no actual and necessary concrete link between the concepts. An example of this phenomenon is outlined by George Lakoff when he demonstrates that the concepts anger and sexuality are linked through the common metaphor of heat. Through an analysis of texts and utterances relating to these two abstract concepts he shows not only that both are extensively understood through the entailments of this metaphor, but also that there is considerable ‘contamination’ of each concept by the contents of the other. So there is a tendency, through the workings of this structural overlap, for us to sexualise the expression of anger, and conversely (and much more problematically) to normalise the expression of violence and aggression within sexual practice.

This paper will cite a number of other key examples of such metaphorical imbrication and the impact that such overlap has in producing mixed or ‘contaminated’ concepts.

Posted in Abstract, Conference Abstract, Lakoff, George, Metaphor | No Comments »

Shared Metaphors in Art and Science

May 17th, 2006 Fred McVittie

All domains of knowledge and practice have large areas of that knowledge which is abstract in nature, i.e. not directly apprehensible by embodied experience. Conceptual Metaphor Theory maintains that such areas of knowledge are conceptualized through the mapping of the form and structure of concrete embodied concepts onto these abstract concepts.

The metaphors which are used to conceptualise abstract concepts in a specific domain of praxis are revealed in the discourse associated with that praxis; gesture, material artifacts, and especially linguistic outcomes.

Whilst the domains of science and art may appear separate, even oppositional, the discourse associated with these domains shows significant metaphorical overlap, suggesting similar overlap in conceptual structuring. Certain performer training regimes, for example, make extensive use of such concepts such as energy, extension, atmosphere etc. which are also fundamental within the domain of physics. It could be argued that performance is simply borrowing these terms from the more precise and apparently concrete domain of science because it lacks an accurate vocabulary of its own, or because it wishes to give its practice the patina of rigour and rationality, however, it will be demonstrated that this is not always the case. Performance and arts practices, rather than simply appropriating some of the terminology of science, will be shown to share a common grounding of embodied metaphorical cognition with key science ideas, and that both domains of practice depend upon this common sense of being.

Posted in Conference Abstract | No Comments »

The Performance of Transformative Practice

May 19th, 2006 Fred McVittie

Abstract ideas are understood in terms of more concrete ideas. That is, we understand and structure our thinking about intangible concepts (love, time, justice etc) based on experiences that give us direct sensory experiences. For the most part, the types of concrete experience we have and that we use to structure abstract ideas, are routine; standing up, walking a path, sensing a containment etc. The efficacy of what might be referred to as transformational actions; firewalking, sweatlodge, initiation rituals etc, lies in their power to create new ground from which new conceptual metaphors might be sourced. After an experience such as firewalking (or bungee jumping, sundance suspension rituals etc), in addition to conceptual or abstract structures relying on day to day experiences we also have non routine experiences to draw upon.

In other words, a firewalking ritual is not effective simply because it allows us to face our fear of fire or for some other obvious physical reason, but also because it provides a novel, organised, totally embodied concept which might then be used to structure a range of other, more abstract concepts.

This gives a rational basis for understanding certain physical practices associated with particular performer training regimes, and their relationship to particular uses of metaphor within those regimes. The aim is to allow the trainee to have concrete experience of a concept such that this concrete concept might then be mapped onto more abstract concepts present in the metaphorical language of the practice.

Posted in Conference Abstract, Transformation | No Comments »

Polycentric Prototypical Performance

May 23rd, 2006 Fred McVittie

This paper will report on a study recently carried out in which subjects were assessed on their strategies for identifing prototypical members of the category performance (see Rosch, 1983). Subjects were presented with a range of descriptions of both actions and inanimate objects and were asked to give each example a mark out of 10 according to how well they felt it fitted the description of performance. It was found that, from a wide range of possible candidate activities and entities, those which rated highest as performance were either highly stereotypical, matrixed activities (conventional plays etc), and natural inanimate objects (a rock being the most highly rated of this set of examples).

The first of these selection is easily explainable according to familiar conceptions of theatricality and it relationship to performing as an artform. The other chosen example, the rock which exhibits prototypical performativity, clearly requires a different order of explanation, an explanation which emerges from analysis of the discussion among the respondents on completion of the survey and comparison of results. It is revealed that the interpretation which some respondents were placing on performance with regard to this example was significantly different to the more theatrical prototypes indicated, (although it will be shown that there is a salient relationship). The rock, by doing nothing other than simply ‘being itself’ is regarded as exhibiting one of the key elements informing an ontology of performance, which is being fully and entirely present.

Eleanor Rosch, “Prototype Classification and Logical Classification: The Two Systems,” New Trends in Conceptual Representation: Challenges to Piaget’s Theory?, ed. Ellin Kofsky Scholnick (Hillsdale: Erlbaum, 1983) 79.

Posted in Category, Conference Abstract, Rock, Rosch, Eleanor | No Comments »

‘Live Art’ - the secrets in the blend

May 24th, 2006 Fred McVittie


Conceptual blending takes place when contents from two or more source domains are merged to allow a novel concept to be developed. As identified by Fauconnier and Turner (2002), this process underpins not only novel creative thought, but also much routine cognition and comprehension.

It will be shown here that such a conceptual blend is in (somewhat problematic) place within the concept Live Art, a term used largely in the UK for a range of interdisciplinary art strategies and events or objects. The blend allows elements from a number of metaphors for liveness to be combined with elements from a number of metaphors for art. Both these sets of metaphors (for life and art) are well established, to the point of cliche in some cases, however the blend allows for a concept to be constructed which is both unfamiliar and has descriptive power.

Fauconnier, Gilles and Turner, Mark. 2002.
The Way We Think: Conceptual Blending and the Mind’s Hidden Complexities. Basic Books.

Posted in Conference Abstract | No Comments »

Liveness as a Metaphor

May 25th, 2006 Fred McVittie

As Auslander has demonstrated, the ontology of liveness is not produced simply by the presence of a performer. Some performances which contain live presence are highly ‘mediatized’ (to use Auslander’s term) and therefore do not have an ontological live quality (and may not be experienced as ‘live’ in some other understandings of the term), and some works which are entirely technical in their production, and should therefore have none of the conventional descriptors of the live, nevertheless do have the ontology and effect of liveness.

One way of interpreting this anomaly is to consider liveness not as a property inherent in certain events and phenomena, definable by reference only to the objective properties of that event, but rather that liveness is a conceptual metaphor (after Lakoff) which we use to understand a range of different phenomena. The concept liveness clearly does not have a concrete structure of easily apprehensible form, and is therefore only capable of being understood via metaphor, in terms of more concrete concepts, ideally concepts which have a kinaesthetic and embodied experience to provide structure and scope for elaboration. The most obvious metaphor which can be applied to liveness in performance is the metaphor PERFORMANCE IS A LIVING BEING.

Peggy Phelan claims: “Performance’s only life is in the present. Performance cannot be saved, recorded, documented, or otherwise participate in the circulation of representations of representations: once it does so, it becomes something other than performance” (Phelan 1993, 146). Here Phelan comes very close to stating the metaphor outright. The fact that she does not, and, at least to an informed readership, does not need to, indicates how intuitive the idea that PERFORMANCE IS A LIVING BEING has become.

PERFORMANCE IS A LIVING BEING brings with it a wide range of possible elaborations and entailments; blood, breath, heart, sweat, death, etc. any or all of which might be metaphorically mapped onto the concept of a performance. We may say that a performance has heart, or teeth, or balls, or that it is a bit long in the tooth, or that it is dying on its feet. Also, since the term performance (and, after Austin and Butler, performativity) can be applied to any activity, not only theatrical performances, this allows for any activity so labelled to be understood in terms of the LIVING BEING metaphor.

The concept of liveness, then, is only historically and metaphorically related to the literal presence of a live human being at the heart of the art. The ontological distinction between ‘live’ art and ‘mediatized’ (or any other kind of) art, ultimately rests on the choice of metaphor used to structure the concept.

Posted in Auslander, Philip, Conference Abstract, Phelan, Peggy | No Comments »

The Explanatory Gap and the Mathematization of Science

May 27th, 2006 Fred McVittie

This paper will build on work done by McGinn (1989) in identifying the causes of the ‘explanatory gap’ within consciousness studies. This gap is not the one which might exist between any proposed mechanism for consciousness and an adequate method for demonstrating the factual status of this proposal, but the gap between any such claim, however well authenticated, and the extent to which this explanation is experienced as ’satisfactory’.

In 1934 the philosopher of science JBS Haldane, speaking of certain aspects of 20th century physics, famously remarked that ‘The universe may not only be queerer than we think, but queerer than we can think’. In making this remark, Haldane was not indicating that data could not be collected, hypotheses developed, tests carried out, and progress made in these difficult areas. Rather he was referring to the inherent difficulties in understanding the results of such processes in a way which was ’satisfactory’ or which had ‘intuitive appeal’. A significant amount of scientific knowledge that has accumulated in the last 100 years has been exactly of this nature, and it is an accepted fact of life that advanced theories in quantum science, astronomy, etc are likely to be non-visualisable, disembodied, and often counter-intuitive. These advances in scientific knowledge, it will be noted, are largely an inheritance of the mathematization of science that accelerated after Galileo and Newton, and is now the sin qua non, if not the ne plus ultra of rational knowledge creation and validation, replacing the previously satisfactoy mechanical and ‘embodiable’ forms of proof . Given this as a condition of advanced knowledge it seems extremely likely that any description of the mechanisms of consciousness, drawing as they undoubtedly must on highly abstract, ultimately mathematized science, will be similarly disembodied and ‘unsatisfactory’.

Posted in Conference Abstract | No Comments »

Hypnosis and Performer Training

June 2nd, 2006 Fred McVittie

This paper will consider the use of Ericksonian Hypnosis techniques and NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) in the training of performers. Performer training is partly a process in which specific overt and transparent physical skills are exchanged; voice projection, the use of the body in particular stage environments, etc. To a greater or lesser extent there may also be training is specific psychophysical techniques; emotional memory, magic if, circles of attention etc. Again these last techniques are transparent and the student is fully aware of what is being taught and the purposes such teaching serves.

In addition to these techniques however, I will argue here that there is a level of ‘tuition’ which is inevitably engaged in which is covert, and which the student (and possibly the trainer) has no knowledge of whilst it is taking place. This training constitutes a form of mental ‘reprogramming’ in which the mind set of the student is reorganized. The techniques used in this reprogramming correspond to Ericksonian Hypnosis or NLP, and the purpose of such reprogramming is a change in the belief patterns of the student with a corresponding change in the behaviour of that student.

Posted in Conference Abstract | No Comments »

The Metaphorical Body

June 5th, 2006 Fred McVittie

Many healing, performance, and training practices use the concept of an ‘imaginary body’ as part of their belief or explanatory systems. This paper will argue that the concept of the imaginary body can be seen as a construct of the application of embodied metaphor.

When we use a phrase like ‘grasping an idea’, ‘weighing up the options’, ‘putting it behind me’ etc. we are using embodied metaphor to structure what would otherwise be incomprehensibly abstract ideas. These metaphors are mapped from routing sensory and kinaesthetic experience onto the abstract idea and used to organise and structure that concept such that it becomes imaginable. Overlooked, but nevertheless implicit in the use of all these metaphors (and it has been estimated that up to 90% of everyday speech is metaphorical in this way), is the presence of a body carrying out the various actions or experiencing the various perceptions which the metaphor entails. The concept of ‘grasping an idea’ implies the presence of a body which does the grasping etc. The cumulative effect of the multitude of metaphors that pepper our speech, and more importantly our thought, is that a virtual or metaphorical body is constructed in our minds, and whilst we may not overtly recognise its existence, it is nevertheless this other body which walks through our conceptual landscape and makes our way in the world of abstract thought.

Posted in Conference Abstract | No Comments »

Divide and Compress

August 2nd, 2006 Fred McVittie

Two competing or complementary operations are at work in the formation of memory, awareness, and identity. These forces are expressed by the action of Dividing and the action of Compressing.

Dividing is the making of distinctions, as described mathematically by Spencer Brown in ‘The Laws of Form’, and artistically/anarchically by KLF in the philosophy of ‘Divide and Kreate’. It is also the impetus that is behind the success of reductionist approaches to science and technology, the strategy of taking things apart, reducing events, materials, etc to their compositional element/organs/moments. The strategy relies on a sensitivity to difference and to boundaries, to the break points in phenomena and the transitional stages in processes. To divide is to focus on the individual links in chains of causality, to see the trees and not just the wood.

Compression is the opposing tendency in which we look for ways to generalise experience and reduce difference. To compress is to seek out and eliminate redundancy, to step back and try to see the big picture, to find shortcuts and commonality, to strive for singularity and holism. We see this in our search for unifying theories of science, in the use of symbols and metaphor and synecdoche in poetry and the arts, and in the psychology of archetypes, stereotypes, and narrativisation.

This paper will argue that these competing/complementing tendencies are key elements in the construction of human awareness and the construction of human cultures. In the spirit of Bateson, these two forces form one of the ‘pattern that connects’.

Posted in Bateson, Gregory, Conference Abstract, Spencer-Brown, George, Synectics | No Comments »

Hypnosis and Performer Training

August 18th, 2006 Fred McVittie

This paper will consider the use of Ericksonian Hypnosis techniques and NLP in the training of performers. Performer training is partly a process in which specific overt and transparent physical skills are exchanged; voice projection, the use of the body in particular stage environments, etc. To a greater or lesser extent there may also be training is specific psychophysical techniques; emotional memory, magic if, circles of attention etc. Again these last techniques are transparent and the student is fully aware of what is being taught and the purposes such teaching serves. In addition to these techniques however, I will argue here that there is a level of ‘tuition’ which is inevitably engaged in which is covert, and which the student (and possibly the trainer) has no knowledge of whilst it is taking place. This training constitutes a form of mental ‘reprogramming’ in which the mind set of the student is reorganized. The techniques used in this reprogramming correspond to Ericksonian Hypnosis or NLP, and the purpose of such reprogramming is a change in the belief patterns of the student with a corresponding change in the behaviour of that student.

Posted in Conference Abstract, Language, Performance, Training | No Comments »

Sharing space through 3D consciousness

September 15th, 2006 Fred McVittie

The conscious experience of being human seems to be partly constructed by the physics of the space in which that being feels itself to be embedded. There is an uncanny match between the formulation of space articulated in the axioms of naïve physics, roughly approximating Cartesian/Newtonian physics, and the feeling of being. This feeling of being might be described as a sense that one’s body is a single object with a clear boundary, existing at a single location in an extended 3 dimensional space, a feeling which is also extended to the mind, and the feeling that one is a singular entity, reasonably whole and separated in space from other entities, exactly here, precisely now. This physical environment, however problematised by post-newtonian physics is nevertheless the one in which human action and interaction takes place.

It seems likely that this match is in part produced through an internalisation of the physics of this space by the operation of the human sensorium, including the visual apparatus. Which begs the question; what would being be like to if space were different? The relationship between a space constructed with the aid of alternative visual systems and the experience of ‘being’ in those spaces is discussed with reference to experiments carried out by the author in simulating these alternative visual systems.

Posted in Conference Abstract | No Comments »

Ecology and Adaptation

October 2nd, 2006 Fred McVittie

It is noted by Roszak that we will only care about ecology and the environment when we feel it personally, that is, when we feel an attack on the environment as an attack upon ourselves; environmental harm as actual bodily harm. For most of us this is clearly beyond our abilities. The reason for this difficulty in addressing what is clearly a major global problem can probably be explained with reference to evolutionary psychology. The tenets of evopsych suggest that our ability to have emotional responses to threats, to feel danger and be prompted to act to reduce that danger, is an adaptive response. Our feelings of pain, anger, etc when our body is threatened serve the need to remove ourselves from the source of those feelings, or remove the threat. This emotional survival mechanism is clearly an extension of the instinctual physical responses we have to noxious stimuli; when we put a hand on a hotplate, the pain makes us remove our hand before serious damage is done. These feelings evolved in order to help us survive (long enough to reproduce). An organism that had no instinct to remove itself from a threat or source of harm would not survive long. Also, it is worth noting that this response is pre-conscious, we start to move our hand from a hotplate before we are consciously aware of the pain; an organism that had to rely on conscious rational thought to assess a threat before taking action would also die young. This logic of an emotional pre-conscious response to threat providing incentive to swift action also extends to hazards which affect us directly, but do not impinge on the body itself. So a threat to loved ones, or to our homes and even possessions can feel like an assault or violation of the self. This extended sense of self protection through emotional response also has adaptive advantage. These emotional responses were designed by evolution to enable the survival of the gene. When we feel that we must protect our homes we are responding to the adaptive logic of providing a secure environment for our genetic material. When we feel protective of our family we are protecting the bodies which house those genes most like our own.

The limitations of this system are obvious. Evolution is a process which is glacially slow and cannot respond to quickly changing circumstances. It also works by providing contingent solutions to local problems. This was completely appropriate when the only threat to our genetic material, whether contained within our own body or those of our relations, was also local. Today, however, the major threat to those genes may not be local, but may be global. Climate change and large scale political and social organisation probably pose more significant threats to the survival of our genetic material than all the hotplates on Earth, and for these kind of threats we are not emotionally equipped. Our evolutionary history had no reason to provide us with pre-conscious felt responses to threats on a global scale, any more than it gave us pain receptors that fired when someone on the other side of the world put their hand on a hotplace.

Our ability to respond at all to global threats is because we are able to consciously assess those threats, and (possibly) to develop through metaphor and analogy a set of emotional responses where not existed before. To see the Earth as a Mother, or as an anthropomorphic God is patently superstitious nonsense, but it may also be a strategy for the cultivation of a much needed emotional response far more effective than treaties and emission regulations.

Posted in Conference Abstract | No Comments »

Performance Creativity Consciousness

October 12th, 2006 Fred McVittie

The metaphor of performance, including the various entailments of that metaphor concerning the production and evaluation of performance, provides a structure for understanding a wide range of individual and social processes. This metaphor, whilst not overt, seems to underpin (or at least revealingly correspond to) proposed structures for the workings of;

  • individual creativity
  • social creative processes
  • the scientific experimental method
  • the functioning of human consciousness

Each of these processes is imagined as consisting of a series of phases which show marked similarity overall, as well as in their all having a ‘performance’ moment, or moment of ‘liveness’, and the structure of each one can be mapped onto the others. To take one example, the Wallas model of individual creativity consists of four stages; preparation, incubation, illumination, and verification (sometimes referred to as ‘elaboration’).

The third stage of this process, the ‘Illumination’ stage, is when, after a period of quiet and forgetting, (the ‘preparation’ stage), the creative solution to the problem we are working on emerges suddenly into consciousness. This is the ‘Aha’ moment in which cartoon lightbulbs appear above our heads. We awake from the incubating sleep to the dawn of realisation. At its most dramatic, this is the moment spoken about by Kekule, Poincare, Einstein, and Coleridge; great architectures of thought springing up suddenly and unannounced. On a more modest scale, this is also the moment when we suddenly ‘get it’; when the solution to a much more modest problem presents itself fully dressed onto the stage of our consciousness.

As noted above, this stage is also represented in models of social creative processes; in the dynamic systems model of Czikszentmihalyi it is the moment in which a creative product enters the ‘domain’. In Robert Crease’s analysis of the scientific method it is the moment of the experiment (which, when carried out well, he refers to interestingly as ‘artistic’), and in the functioning of human consciousness it is the ongoing binding of sensory data that produces the constant performance of experiential awareness.

This understanding of performance presents it as a prototypical phase not only in the production of theatrical events, but also in cycles of creative production which include the individual psychology of creativity, the public processes of creative evaluation and legitimisation, the scientific method, and the emergence of consciousness.

Posted in Conference Abstract, Consciousness, Creativity, Cycle, Performance, Science | No Comments »

Sight, Touch, Object, Subject

October 17th, 2006 Fred McVittie

We tend to use different forms of speech to articulate different types of knowledge, and an observable regularity in these differences is the sensory mode that is referred to within this articulation. As has been noted, objective knowledge (or facts that we wish to express as if they were objective) tend to expressed using the language of vision; we say ‘I see’ to indicate this kind of interpersonal objective understanding. Knowledge or facts that we wish to express as more personal to us tend to be articulated by referring to other sensory modes, particularly the sense of touch. When we want to describe our experience ’subjectively’, without making any claims to shared experience, we say ‘I feel’, or we refer more generally to our ‘feelings’. If some experience has an emotional impact upon us we may say that we have been ‘touched’. This distinction between an objectification of knowledge using visual metaphors and a ’subjectification’ of knowledge using tactile metaphors suggests that three cognitive strategies are at work in the organisation of experience.

  1. Firstly, that we are structuring our knowledge, or turning experience into knowledge, using the logic of the body. Knowledge about the world is not represented abstractly but is achieved by drawing on body-based metaphors. (See Lakoff & Johnson 1989 etc,)
  2. Secondly, that part of this metaphor involves the use of the different sensory modes; sight, hearing, taste, smell, touch. Each sensory mode indicates a different inflection placed on experience which in turn becomes a slightly different form of knowledge, (’seeing’ a fact is different to ‘feeling’ a fact).
  3. Thirdly, there is a set of correspondences, which may or may not be significant, between the sensory mode, the form of knowledge this sensory mode produces, and the the metaphorical proximity of the experience producing that knowledge to the person having that experience. Vision is a distinctly distancing sense; its objects are inevitably ‘over there’, separate and and some remove from ourselves. Touch, on the other hand, implies a complete collapse of spatial separation. To be touched we have to be in intimate contact with the thing touched, to the extent that it may not make sense to think of that thing as an ‘object’ in quite the same way. A touched thing is pressed against our skin and is (can be) felt almost as part of ourselves.

Posted in Conference Abstract, Johnson, Mark, Lakoff, George, Object | No Comments »

Newtonian Physics includes Folk Physics

October 20th, 2006 Fred McVittie

The process through which one paradigm is substituted for another is not one of replacement, as Thomas Kuhn suggested, but rather of extension such that an existing paradigm is reclassified as a limited subset of a larger paradigm. For example, the development of the paradigm of physics described by Quantum Mechanics did not replace the Newtonian paradigm but instead created a wider and more comprehensive description of the physical world than was possible under Newton. The Newtonian Paradigm, within the context of Quantum Mechanics, is not therefore wrong and necessarily replaced, but is recognised as a special limited explanatory model referring specifically to medium-sized objects moving at medium speed. Quantum Mechanics could be used to describe the action of billiard balls for example, but that would be inefficient. The explanatory potential does not work the other way however; the principles of Newtonian Physics cannot be used to describe the functioning of subatomic particles for example, which can only be effectively described using Quantum Mechanics. The Quantum Mechanical paradigm is therefore inclusive of Newtonian Physics, and describes aspects of the physical world which are beyond the capacities of the Newtonian model.

A parallel relationship to that between the Newtonian and Quantum Mechanical paradigms can be drawn between the paradigm of Newton and that of Folk Physics. Folk Physics is a limited and particular set of explanations about the (psycho)physical world and within the specific boundaries of its own functioning it provides an efficient, ordered, and intuitive description of the world to which it refers, (which seems to seems to be one of medium-sized agents moving at medium speed rather than simply objects). Newtonian Physics is inclusive of Folk Physics in the same way that Quantum Mechanics is inclusive of Newtonian Physics. The principles of Newtonian, or indeed Quantum physics could be used to describe the physical world of human action, and indeed often is, but it is more efficient to use the principles of Folk Physics. Conversely, the principles of Folk Physics fail when they are applied outside of their limited area of application, as when we try to attribute agency to non-intentional actions and events.

Posted in Conference Abstract | No Comments »

Use of Metaphor in Poetry and Science

November 29th, 2006 Fred McVittie

A survey of the literature published in the field of the hard sciences, and the literature produced by poets reveals that the extent to which metaphor is used is equal in both textual forms. When technical, non-natural language is removed, e.g. mathematical equations etc, it is shown that, on average, between 60 and 66 percentage of the expression in both areas is non-literal. (When non-natural languages are factored in to the calculation the percentage of metaphor in scientific writing is, of course, much higher). Some distinctions which emerges from a closer analysis of the texts is that the consistency and coherence of metaphor usage in scientific language is much higher, and also that most scientifically applied metaphor is ‘traditional’, with the same basic metaphors appearing repeatedly. Also, scientific metaphors tend to be favoured for their intuitive appeal, often barely being noticable as metaphors at all, (as in the concept of the electric current for example). These features contrast starkly with poetry in which there is a tendency for metaphors to be applied inconsistently, with frequent, sometimes startling changes of metaphor in the same piece of writing. Poetry also exhibits an apparent avoidance of ‘traditional’ metaphors (which presumably would be read as cliche of the love/rose variety), in favour of original metaphors, and it is often the case that these metaphors are not immediately intuitive, and may even be counter-intuitive.

Posted in Conference Abstract | No Comments »

Top Down Approaches to Actor Training

January 2nd, 2007 Fred McVittie

The training of actors, and indeed most other types of performer, can be characterised as favouring one of two possible approaches. Borrowing terminology from Artificial Intelligence research, these approaches might be termed Bottom Up and Top Down.

The Bottom Up approach introduces the actor to a wide range, and a large number, of learning experiences, including skills training, workshops, examples, improvisations, rehearsals, etc. Through frequent exposure to these experiences, and the selective reinforcement of appropriate behaviour in response to these experiences (applause, praise etc), the actor gradually builds up the abstract competencies that are required to perform at a high level. (These abstact competencies are variously referred to as scripts, frames, scores, fuzzy traces, gists, schema etc).

The Top Down approach has the same goal, the creation of the abstract competencies noted above, but instead of relying on the emergence of these competencies out of the (quasi-Darwinian) processes indicated, these schema are created through the application of higher order abstract concepts. These higher order concepts might take the form of beliefs or intentions which organise the behaviour of the actor such that the necessary competencies are realised.

An obvious informal example of the Top Down approach might be found in the effect of praise upon an actor’s performance. If an actor, or other type of performer, receives appropriate praise at the right time and in the right context this praise contributes to their sense of self-worth, and their confidence in their performance. This belief in their own value as a performer is a high order abstract concept not directly related to the performance of specific skills. However, such a belief is realised in the person of the actor as a set of abstract competencies to do with their right to be on stage, their attractiveness as an actor, etc and these competences in turn inflect their behaviour.

Posted in Conference Abstract | No Comments »

Sacred and Profane

May 13th, 2007 Fred McVittie

The percentage of the material world that we can access directly with our senses is extremely small. Our eyes detect only those wavelengths of light which correspond to the visual spectrum, our ears only hear a narrow range of sounds, our hands can only discriminate the shape, size, and texture of objects within our reach, and then only within strict limits. In addition to these physical limitations of the senses, we are also out of direct contact with most of the things we think about and talk about. Not only can we not touch or taste atoms and galaxies, but we will also never have direct experience of such concepts as politics, God, justice, evil, and tomorrow. These familiar ideas have no sensory representatives and make no impact on our experiences, even love and the other emotions are outside the reach of our senses, (although their effects may not be.)

We are in the strange position therefore of having a constant waking awareness that most of what we think about, most of what we would regard as important to us, is not directly accessible and can only be spoken about using metaphors and analogies. So for example, as Samuel Beckett noted, we can only talk about God by talking about him as if he were a man (or a woman, or a light, or a force, etc.) In a sense we are still the prisoners shackled in Plato’s cave watching the dancing shadows on the wall, and whilst we may have full knowledge that these are merely shadows, we do not have the faculties to see the origins of these shadows, and in fact can only even think about our predicament by using terms such as ’seeing’, ‘in a sense’, and ‘full knowledge’. To paraphrase Beckett, we can only talk about knowing as if it was seeing, we can only think about knowledge by understanding it as a space which can be full.

There is, therefore, a vast netherworld of ideas and concepts which are beyond the horizon of our experience, and which we can never access literally. This is not to say that the land beyond this horizon does not exist, or that it is not real; we can be reasonably sure that there are such things as atoms even though no-one has ever seen one (the jury is still out on the existence of God). The reality of those phenomena which are outside sensory range may be confirmed by other means; through social processes of reality construction for example, or the formulation of theories, ideologies, religious beliefs, and cosmologies.

Our attitude toward these concepts varies enormously. To many people, scientific theories which posit the existence of entities outside of experience, whether this be superstrings, black holes, or dark energy, are approached with an attitude we might call ‘profane’ in the sense that, whilst these theories may be difficult or counter-intuitive, they are part of an approach to knowledge which is apparently materialistic and ‘of this world’. When extra-experiential concepts are referred to which are not framed scientifically, particularly religious or ’spiritual’ ideas, the attitude taken toward these concepts is not profane but is ’sacred’. These is a sense of reverence or even supplication toward the ideas. A distinction is felt between these two approaches, the sacred and the profane, in which the sacred attitude is reserved for certain concepts which lie outside of experience but not others. This is inconsistent, and in my opinion emerges from a false distinction between those aspects of the world we can access and those we cannot. If there was a clear correspondence between the profane and the accessible, and between the extrasensory and the spiritual this would at least be consistent, but no such correspondence exists. The sacred and profane do not map onto the literal and the metaphorical. In my opinion, both the literal and the metaphorical, the accessible and the inaccessible, are equally worthy of both sacred and profane regard.

Posted in Conference Abstract, Embodiment, Metaphor, Science, Sense, Spirituality | No Comments »

Creative Cycles and the Illuminated Moment

October 6th, 2007 Fred McVittie

A dominant image within most formulations of the creative process is that of the cycle. Typically, artistic production, for example, is seen as structured with a number of sequential phases, each representing a particular part of the overall process and each requiring a different set of behaviours and sensibilities on the part of the artist. These various phases, which are named differently according to the various schemata invoked, include such activities as; research, play, analysis, data collection, improvisation, experiment, hypothesis generation, measurement of efficacy, review, etc. Many (although not all) models for the creative process involve a phase, (sometimes conceptualised as an atemporal ‘moment’) at which a breakthrough occurs. This is the moment of illumination, enlightenment, and realisation. It is the stereotypical moment when the lightbulb appears above the inventor’s head and the solution dawns on the mind of the scientist. It is a moment which has entered the mythology of creativity via Archimedes bath and Kekule’s serpent. Widely criticised as a product of the romantic imagination, and often considered relatively irrelevant in the greater scheme of things, the illuminated moment of inspiration has been consigned by many to the 5% status of whimsy, drowning in the 95% flood of the Real Work of creative perspiration. This paper will attempt to recover this washed out loser from it ignominious fate and relight the lantern that has shone over most of the greatest events in human history.

Posted in Conference Abstract, Creativity, Cycle, Illumination, Re-entry | No Comments »

Ego vs. Gene - An Evolutionary Account of the Divided Self

November 22nd, 2007 Fred McVittie

The struggle between the ego and the ‘authentic self’ is equivalent to the competing demands of the gene and the (social) organism. The gene has an existence which is extended over the lifetime of many generations of organisms and its survival is tied to this multi-generational existence. It is therefore concerned with its replication in the next generation of organisms, and exerts its influence through desires and repulsions experienced by those organisms. The organism itself, existing within not only an environmental but also a social context, has a lifetime only of its own biological embodiment. Its concern is therefore tied to this life and this body, and the preservation of life and body in the face of threats and opportunities. Face must be preserved, identity must be maintained, consciousness must be applauded.

Posted in Conference Abstract, Embodiment, Evolution, Self | No Comments »

Artworks as the result of Epistemic Actions

January 24th, 2008 Fred McVittie

I propose here a novel way of considering a range of artworks that constitutes an analysis of their function which does not rely on art history, aesthetics, or market value. For this I will draw on the distinction between Pragmatic and Epistemic Actions, as identified by Kirsh and Maglio (1994)

David Kirsh and Paul Maglio distinguish between two types of action; what they refer to as ‘pragmatic actions’ which are goal-oriented and fulfil an immediate practical function, and ‘epistemic actions’ which, as they put it, ‘use the world to improve cognition’. In other words, these epistemic actions are those which represent a kind of ‘outsourcing’ of cognitive behaviour to the actions of the body. Simple examples of these include the use of the fingers in carrying out mental arithmetic such that numbers are remembered by the use of the fingers, relieving the resource use of the brain, or the physical rotation of a puzzle piece prior to its placement, which is the main example used by Kirsh and Maglio (the video game ‘Tetris’ is extensively covered). This use of action to assist thought can also be observed in chess players who, when considering possible moves, often temporarily move a piece to a number of different positions first as this seems to facilitate an easier imagining of what the consequences of each move might be. There is no obvious way to explain why this physically moving of the piece is more effective than simply going through it in one’s mind, but nevertheless this action does seem to serve the epistemic function of optimising the particular cognitive task of making a good move in chess.

All artworks are characterised by the fact that they serve no immediately useful purpose (at least to the extent that they are artworks; they may have an additional function beyond their status as art but this status is not dependent upon it and may indeed by compromised by it). To this extent therefore, artworks are not the result of pragmatic action and are not, one might say, ‘pragmatic objects’. Kirsh and Maglio provide an additional option for how these actions and objects might be considered, which is that they might result from ‘ epistemic actions’ and constitute ‘epistemic objects’. This paper will consider this way of interpreting the function of some art objects and the actions which lead to their creation.

Kirsh, D., & Maglio, P. (1994). On distinguishing epistemic from pragmatic action. Cognitive Science, 18, 513-549.

Posted in Art, Cognition, Conference Abstract, Embodiment | No Comments »