tools to provoke apophenia and other creative techniques

[trochee]

In a conversation that included chr0me_kitten earlier today, she brought up apophenia*. [Edit: Also, earlier this week, imtboo and blackwingedboy have both been talking about Mercury in retrograde, which, initially, frustrated the heck out of me. But imtboo and I talked about it. Now bear with me, here, 'cause I'm coming back to that thought.]

An old professor of mine [at least, I think it was him! it was about the same time I was reading Daniel Dennett for the first time, and it mighta been him] used to rant about how the apparent inner voice of consciousness, and indeed the useful mental processing that goes on as a cognitive tool, is "merely" a short-circuit to the mouth-ear loop. He didn't go into much detail, but I've adopted the idea fairly firmly as I continue to study language, computation and communication.

The argument is like this: once you're forced to turn your thoughts into language, you make heuristic** approximations to serialize what is a complex brain configuration and turn it into a series of carefully-timed oropharyngeal articulations. Then the listener makes heuristic approximations of zir own, and (one usually expects) constructs a comparable configuration within zir mind. Of course, the listener has a wide array of safety catches, pattern detectors, and BS detectors in place to decide whether this new configuration is acceptable to zir mind.

But once you can do this from you to me, you can do this from you to you, and actually, this series of approximations can be useful to understanding: the ugly corners, the complex sides, the difficult structures can be examined again, from a new angle: "suppose these thoughts were available to me as language [i.e. someone else is saying them]: would they still be useful?" In other words, by constructing a simple short circuit and removing the actual oropharyngeal gestures, you can engage your own decoding apparatus' pattern detectors [and BS detectors] and review the packed-and-unpacked idea after the smoothing and distortion provided by serializing it into language.

My point, if it wasn't already clear [i'm getting to it, I promise!]

analysis of the world into any arbitrary system is itself a creative act. Sometimes, the truth is in the data, and sometimes the truth is in the learner. When we have mental "ruts", we often need to reorganize what we already know and look at it all from a new perspective. Have you ever packed a suitcase only to find that not everything fit, and then found that if you unpack it all and start over, it all fits without trouble? That sort of "serialize, then restore" seems to be useful.

Tarot, for example, is a system that seems to work (at least, seems to me) because it's a random jumble of powerful symbols; the insight comes from our own tendency to assume the intentional stance towards this signal and proceed (in a sort of Gricean way) to assume communicative intent and then "discover" our own pre-existing knowledge in the cards. It's a way to "apopheniacally"*** kick in your own pattern detectors -- the ones that usually point only out at the world -- and point them at your own thought patterns. It's tremendously powerful.

Likewise, one could make lists, read tea leaves, take drugs, or anything else that would provoke apophenia, the discovery of new ideas, given no useful signal. [Edit: For example, having your horoscope read, or looking out for things because Mercury's zodiacal progression seems to change direction.] I wonder if I should try cartomancy for my next program design session....

* when I Google for "apophenia", the top link is to Danah Boyd, whose work is fascinating to me, not to mention she's nerd-cute in a big way and went to my undergrad institution, just a few years after I did. Her recent blog-entry on "why people need to pay for insight" has a similar insight about how spending money can provoke apophenia instead. I dunno whether that's why she titles her blog that way.
** [a grammatical note, for those who can't live without them, i.e. me]: I've just discovered that the word heuristic literally means "technique for directing one's attention towards discovery", or at least it did before its use in computer science, which was more how I intended it (although the philosophical meaning matches my rambles above quite nicely). For those with a historical bent: heuristic is also cognate with eureka. aha!
*** yes, apopheniacally. I make up words sometimes.

Comments

[boobirdsfly.livejournal.com]

OH my God troch. That was a *lot* of information ! I really liked it, but my internet time has dramatically increased for the evening ! :)
It reminds me of when i explained to you why i thought it was fun to believe that Mercury Retrogrades messed with us . I think I have a severe case of apophenia. Thank God i am an artist I guess... or else I might be psychotic !
I love it when you talk about things like this ! Mwah!

[trochee.livejournal.com]

now that I think about it, it was that conversation (with you and I) that provoked all this thinking, and then chr0me_kitten triggered the blog-dump.

I'll update accordingly, because I think you deserve credit here.

[boobirdsfly.livejournal.com]

I hope you do get back to *that* thought...
You seemed pretty calm for someone who was very frustrated. I was furstrated too remember ? And then, I had that breakthrough about how i function. I meant to write about it and didn't . I hope *you* do !

[trochee.livejournal.com]

all done updating, at least for now.

okay, it wasn't that frustrating, but i felt like we really weren't getting each other, and that makes me uncomfortable, since we usually get each other really well and really easily.

so it was a good revelation for both of us, to find out how this makes sense.

Somehow, this entry seems like something that mythalethe would like...

[mythalethe.livejournal.com]

The brain evolved to manipulate symbols in general prior to manipulating specific language symbols. If you restrict to the "inner voice" as distinctly language heard "inside the head" it would be a shortcircuit to the mouth ear loop. However, the brain processes reams of information such as emotions and visuospatial data that are never encoded in formal spoken language yet contribute strongly to the "inner voice" if this is meant to be a representation of self reflexive consciousness. The main problem with the mouth ear theory is the extensive feedback loop organization of cerebral cortex running to thalamus/basal ganglia (the famed Thalamocortical loops) which are heavily tied into association cortex. Thus no language is possible without contextual encoding based on memory and prior learning in the neural networks which are heavily permeated with feedback loops extending throughout the brain. In general, almost all parts of the brain are interconnected with all other parts. There are of course dominate linking pathways between specific regions, but I suspect the state of reflexive consciousness depends on the extensive parallel feedback loops tying together the disparate functions of the brain, specifically memory, perception, and cognition. I think it is dangerous to lump "the mental processing that goes on as a tool" into the mouth-ear circuitry. It is also dangerous to assume that language processing accounts for any more than the thin veneer upon most observed human behavior. There are many studies in cognitive neuroscience that demonstrate that people make decisions based on limbic (emotional) inputs to anterior cingulate and dorsalateral PFC, and then invent a "rational" language based explanation that often has nothing to do with the true emotional motivators! (Of course I am probably biased to emotion and unconscious neural activity, it is true... but, emotional processing happens much faster than cortical cognition and is very effective at pattern recognition as any person with PTSD can well explain!)

I think your comment about "heuristic approximations" while encoding language is true, and agree that that is part of what explains the usefulness of divinatory pursuits. Who knows if there could be some other quantum or observer effect of such pursuits beyond the self-reflective hypothesis? Maybe divination allows one to easier access the sub-language cortical processing, thus bringing this "hidden" knowledge into the realm of easily manipulated symbols. This is basically similar to Wilfred Bion's theory of the process of psychoanalysis allowing basic units of consciousness previously "hidden" to filter into conscious awareness through the process of observation and open awareness.

ah, the expert speaks

[trochee.livejournal.com]

The brain evolved to manipulate symbols in general prior to manipulating specific language symbols.
yay! heresy in linguistics, but a welcome heresy.
I think it is dangerous to lump "the mental processing that goes on as a tool" into the mouth-ear circuitry. It is also dangerous to assume that language processing accounts for any more than the thin veneer upon most observed human behavior.
This also seems quite reasonable. I was trying (and maybe failing) to describe this inner voice as the problematic bit of the "homunculus" fallacy, the impulse and illusion that there's a little voice inside giving commands.
The inner voice, though, is often just an opportunity to put post-hoc rationalization (verbalization) on our actions.
Maybe divination allows one to easier access the sub-language cortical processing, thus bringing this "hidden" knowledge into the realm of easily manipulated symbols.
Thanks for that clearer statement of what I was trying to get at. And it's nice to know that somebody else has had this thought before.

*goes to check out a brain anatomy text to try to understand the first paragraph*

not an expert... but interested.

[mythalethe.livejournal.com]

I think the little voice inside is in fact a seething chaotic emergent property. But don't accuse anyone of this without significant a-priori setup of context!!! (People don't like to be thought of as seething, chaotic, or an emergent property...)

Re: not an expert... but interested.

[trochee.livejournal.com]

I for one am not fond of seething, but chaotic wouldn't be so bad -- of course, no one's ever called me chaotic in my life.

Emergent properties, on the other hand, are where I think the real mysteries in the world reside. No prime creators, no invisible hands, nothing immaterial -- and yet, many many things that cannot be explained without rising to the appropriate level.

Although chemical elements can be explained in terms of physics, the interactions among them really require rising to the level of the atom; although molecule structure can be described in terms of chemistry, molecular and cellular biology require higher levels of generalization, heuristic description, and phenomenological description. These are the emergent properties you mean, right?

Likewise all the way up. Our minds may be made up of brain goo, which may be made up of a mass of neurons, but the appropriate level of abstraction to interact with a human is not as a mass of cells -- it is as a separate, intentional organism. Which is an emergent property of the brain goo.

okay, maybe I am seething. Raving, anyway.

*hums the bridge to the Beatles' anthem to emergence:*

shake it shake it baby now [shake it up baby]
oh you got me going now [got me going]
just like I knew you would [knew you would]

Re: not an expert... but interested.

[mythalethe.livejournal.com]

Exactly,

Emergent properties, such as the fact that Life is inherent in the structure and combination of subatomic particles that make up this physical universe. And consciousness is inherent in the material chains encoding information and informational flows that make up Life.

I am not sure emergent properties get you off the hook about the "No prime creators, no invisible hands, nothing immaterial" stuff. The question of eternal simultaneity vs perceived time (even Einstein felt time could run multiple directions) with all of its corresponding philosophical conundrums and the problem of existence as opposed to non-existential void both seem to hint at additional dimensions or "hidden structure" that we can't yet understand. I guess if you want to deify anything, Life and Consciousness are as nice a focus as any. It sure beats killing in the name of this or that fundamentalist brain-warp...

[bwb-archive.livejournal.com]

I am going to ramble now... I have lots to say :)

All good words, troch. Thanks for em. You surprise me quite regularly.

For so many people who do divination, and I know many more of them than people I know who don't, it often does come down to just that - reaching knowledge you have within you through whatever means you pick, and usually those means are globally accepted methods. But they don't have to be. The number of tarot and card sets out in the world number in the hundreds probably. The number of other techniques dwarf that number. But I believe it all comes down to exactly the same thing, whether focusing on a jumble of powerful symbols or symbols that are powerful to the invidivual. The people I know who work professionally as psychics only use tarot and other methods as a nice coating to what they are receiving and saying, and I know one (a very close friend) who says that nobody takes her seriously unless she has a card spread, which she does for show and ignores in reading.

Secondly, I am certain that there are many, many things I believe and follow every day that I now choose not to discuss with many people if any people, simply because not many people can approach the space like you do here. The sad part of that is that for people who do have uncommon beliefs, sometimes the people closest to them never hear about them due to a very long culture of silence. I have very few friends who know the biggest part of my life for instance.

The normal reaction is much more along the lines of persecution, and can come many, many times, sometimes in very severe and physical ways, hate and violence, disrespect for beliefs and the honor of the individual faith/religion, mocking, condescending, cruel, and very much un-compassionate and closed in nature. I've had all of them. My friends have too. Thankfully, I've grown both a steel hide and an open heart, but I still remain largely secretive and unfortunately here in the city away from my circle, can be very lonely. The point of that is that it is nice to see you approach some of those things here from your inclusive perspective - one of a desire to understand and to grow and discover. Thanks for that because it means more than you might think. I think I'll be sharing this with some other people if that's okay with you.

Lastly, one of those never talked about things is Mercury Retrograde, which I usually either keep close to my vest, discuss with members of my spiritual community and circle, or post in a journal because that's where I write my life. For me, it's a gnostic type question in a way, ala, I have no idea what's going on, but something is. I don't care to know actually exactly what (and I honestly don't believe it is caused by a planet, but some do), only that it's pretty common and widespread and easily characterized even through people who have no idea what it is or that it is happening. I've chalked it up to collective conscious, shared belief rippling the fabric... but again that's me. The point of that point :) is that I try hard not to bring it up directly around cringe-potential people just as I try not to bring up any numbe of other topics. So, my apologies if that frustrated you at all or added to frustration. (you'll tell me it didn't, but I want to apologize anyway :))

Ramble over. Now I don't nee to post tonight!

[trochee.livejournal.com]

wow.

what a great response, mr. black wings.

I'd love to respond in more detail but I'm s'posed to be working today and it's 6 and I haven't done anything.

wanna go bowling some time?

[bwb-archive.livejournal.com]

Thanks. It was something I obviously needed to say for some reason, because it sure made me feel better about some things in my life. It's sometimes very hard to walk this path and remain true to yourself and your beliefs/faith, especially when so much of it exists solely in belief and faith. But in terms of long posts and comments, I've been accused of writing to hear myself think :)

Bowling. You are on. I'm not the best bowler, or maybe I'm rusty, and I am in no way competitive, but I sure enjoy the heck out of it. An Ohio boy in many ways. :)

aieeeee!

[writeanya.livejournal.com]

my brain has officially imploded upon reading this thread to completion and it ending with ... bowling? very douglas adams, that.

um, one thing about getting to your deeper Truth through tools, which is basically what i pulled from this, is that whatever tool(s) work for you, work.

some people pray, some consult tarot, psychics, the stars, runes, tea leaves, God, gods n' goddess, therapists, ministers, trees, some journal for hours *g* -- and it is all about sloughing off the overthinking and process and the layers and years of crap to get what is in our heart of hearts. oftentimes, the big ol' forebrain is the last one to know the Truth, because the brain is operating on such a *logical* superego level, which is most rewarded in our society.

i am all for the logical and pragmatic, indeedy, and also for the vacation from such, so one can be in the body and know on a gut level, what is right for you in your life. it's getting back to who we are as prime humans in this body, before we had all the layers added. nice, eh?

i loved this post and all the facets of it.

and on a tangent about planets affecting us humans -- we don't question the fact that tides and menstruation and our seasons being affected by two other, close planets -- sun and moon. that is scientific and, well, accepted as Real.

yet, it is inconceivable to some that the rest of the planets would affect us -- that's Crazy Talk. i think that's purty funny, really, because they are all planets/moving bodies in space, just as earth is. what is the difference?

ponder ponder.... :D

Re: aieeeee!

[writeanya.livejournal.com]

yoicks...pardon the horrible grammar and sentence glitches. it's what happens when you post without rereading first.

bleh.

Re: aieeeee!

[trochee.livejournal.com]

very douglas adams, that.

*bows* thank you very much.

regarding the planets, I remain skeptical that they have an effect in other than the apopheniagenical [I made up that one too] sense: the Sun is distant but enormous; the Moon is the size of the Pacific and relatively close; these I can buy. Mercury is less than 5% of the size of the Earth (only slightly larger than the moon) and much farther away.

So I suppose there might be an effect for these bodies, but what bothers me is the suggestion that their apparent position against the astronomical background is what might be the difference. It's just so geocentric, darn it.

But I have no argument if astrology is useful in the same way that runes/Tarot/tea leaves are: providing a jumbled signal in which to discover the truths that we already know but can't sort out.

I guess I'm much happier placing the complex effects in the human minds and communities that perceive these patterns in arbitrary data. Of course, I don't know what the answer is, but to maim the old quote: "Never attribute to interplanetary forces what can be adequately explained by apophenia."

More Atoms, More adams.

[boobirdsfly.livejournal.com]

It seems to me that we all agree that it's whatever illusions we like to believe in and whatever truth we create for ourselves to keep us going.
Bowling is indeed as good a choice as any...
But I am now going Dada on everyone because any excuse i can get , I'll take. Anywho, it's all a big social construct. Even science...
I , also am a firm believer of the brain and the rational things balanced with the heart, soul and mystical.

Re: aieeeee!

[boobirdsfly.livejournal.com]

Troch. Notice that writeanya used the exact same argument as me in your kitchen ( well i was in your kitchen, she was here online) ... about mentruation and the planets and how we find that acceptable. :)

Re: aieeeee!

[trochee.livejournal.com]

yup, and I buy the argument for the Moon and the Sun.

But I remain skeptical about Mercury. It's very small, and it's very far away compared to the Moon (which is a similar size but much farther away: ~384 000 km for the moon, but roughly 57 000 000 km for Mercury, if I did the math right). 150 times farther away.

Then again, if someone came up with a mechanism, I'm willing to consider it. But "never attribute to astrology what can be accounted for by apophenia". [I'll refine that down to a quip sooner or later...]

Re: aieeeee!

[exterra.livejournal.com]

hee, I love that quote.

"never attribute to astrology what can be accounted for by apophenia"

waxing philosophical

[exterra.livejournal.com]

and on a tangent about planets affecting us humans -- we don't question the fact that tides and menstruation and our seasons being affected by two other, close planets -- sun and moon. that is scientific and, well, accepted as Real.

Okay, I think I am missing out on something... it is scientific & well-accepted as real that menstruation is affected by 2 close astronomical bodies (sun & moon)? I wasn't aware of that. I mean the average woman's cycle is supposedly similar in length as a moon cycle, but I'm not convinced that this is not coincidental (especially as a woman with incredibly irregular cycles). I'm curious to hear/read more about theories that accept this as "scientific" fact.

Re: waxing philosophical

[trochee.livejournal.com]

I dunno about menstruation, but tides are very well-understood and are all about the Moon and the Sun.

Re: waxing philosophical

[exterra.livejournal.com]

Well yeah... I'm not about to dispute tides & the moon :).

[exterra.livejournal.com]

Wow, what a link-rich post! And full of lots of new vocabulary words, for me. Without the help of wikipedia & dictionary.com, I'd be lost in this entry.

Also, I'm so pleased to have discovered this word: apophenia. When I did a quick google on it, I discovered this little article (http://skepdic.com/apophenia.html) which I had to link to only because of our inexplicable love for cartoonish elements of low nuclear weight. And it has the nice little analagy speaking to imtboo's comment about creativity & psychosis being 2 sides of the coin of apophenia.

What you describe here is, in part, how I generally understand most religion, ritual & spiritual practices... as tools or triggers to assist humans in turning the gaze inward or breaking out of the blinders that habits/routines/ruts of thinking/acting/being can create or to make sense of & come to some kind of peace with things out of one's control or things that one can't fully comprehend.

[trochee.livejournal.com]

our inexplicable love for cartoonish elements of low nuclear weight.
Don't be coy: it's Strindberg and Helium!

Yay! and the same S&H episode that the Skepdic guy talks about (the Sulfur and Iron episode) is the cupcake sketch!!

[exterra.livejournal.com]

I know, how educational (as well as entertaining) that cupcake sketch is!

[boymaenad.livejournal.com]

this is a huge topic, and it is sparking other huger topics for me.

but basically, that's all we have, is our perceptions - is our internal representation of our universe. and everything we experience - from tarot to putting my fingertips on these keys - is only a limited set of stimuli which we are associating (for better or worse, in terms of accuracy) on a jillion levels in order to conjure a complete picture.

I mean, we all know this, right?

so basically, all kinds of projection are the same. to quote hobohemian quoting dan501, "I guess I'm just projecting. but EVERYBODY does that!"

I mean, of course!: the faith that there is a god is only slightly weaker than the faith that the sun will come up tomorrow, to many humans.