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The visual codex is the language that most closely describes what we believe, because its basic elements were formed when the mind was learning to believe. The sensory data that contributed to this original process is uniquely singular, being derived from a specific bio metric mechanism; the eye-optic nerve-brain of one example of a human life. Its power is that all further understanding is constructed on the ‘forms’ established in this inchoate stage. Largely immune from social, cultural and environmental influences they create a reality built on forms which are unreplacable because they are what the individual believes. All subsequent beliefs and learned forms use this basic set of forms to learn, imagine and think.
If our ambition is to understand, to form ideas which are our own, it is imperative to accept the beliefs these will be conditioned by. More importantly we need to know that ideas can be imposed by others using common denominator ‘forms’; which are common because the eye-optic nerve-brain mechanism is shared biology. Therefore others who have learnt some of the visual codex, can utilise it, to communicate, a positive usage, as well it can subjugate, the negative, dangerous and destructive force.
Forms can be complex or simple. Testing has established that the colour red can bias toward winning, and blue losing; in sporting competition. Nothing can be a simpler element to include in a visual situation and although not inviolate, it is real. There are many equally basic ‘forms’ available to visual expression and their universality is what represents their potency.
‘Forms’ can and generally are nested in a limitless construction to achieve very complex ideas. They become less universal with each iteration but the influence of cultural and environment influences can also allow them to defy the diffusion effect and allow them to hold onto that universality.
Forms are a collection of neurons ( an unspecified number ) connected randomly. The only specificity is that they represent a remote sensor element which can be followed through the eye-optic nerve-brain to the neuron field where it can have ( invariably does have ) multiple parallel connections. The neurons themselves do not store any record but are in a dynamic state that encourages them to reinforce links that are repeatedly used. This eventually accounts for memory.
Frequently used forms may find improved paths to the goal which might be just a hypothetical node in the forms structure. The extremely large number of available neurons and the plasticity of the connections, depending on usage, makes the potential for parallel processing the sensory data effective enough to make and break memory bonds.
Critical to this process is the other phenomena that sets up the act of ‘believing’; it is the establishing of a credible existence-proof which may be established by incorporating the sensory data from other sources, perhaps tactile verification.
As a form ‘takes on a character’ it becomes more permanent because it develops efficient links and evolves into a semi permanent memory ( there is no such thing as permanent memory ). At this stage is can assume the status of a belief although a ‘belief’ is more likely to be based on a construction of several or many ‘forms’. It can become a component in many higher order ‘forms’ that are closer to what we actually recognise as ‘knowledge’.
‘Forms’ are the ‘memes’ referred to in other chapters of this series. They are the basic elements that some commentators suggest result from the study of ‘memetics’, which is an essentially metaphysical topic. With this model of the biological process it is possible to speculate what a form means to the concept of perceiving reality.
As interesting and tempting as it is to be distracted by the intricacies of A.I., this series is about the internet, and how to propitiously use it. In this sense we have come far along the A.I. discussion to see clearly why the internet is a problem for ordinary believing. As mentioned above the natural way of making an existance-proof decision is to use a complimentary source of sense data. The net can not oblige in this regard so we have identified in a deductive sense a very fundamental flaw in digital communication.
We have however the need to adopt the ‘Realist philosophers’ position in respect to digital data, if we want to go the next step and explore how forms may be moulded into beliefs, ideas and learning.
‘Form’ is the ‘abstract’ interpretation of the total ‘sense data’, which contributes to the visual experience. Every image, even the most detailed photograph, is converted to an abstract representation in the brain; invariably a complex construction of ‘forms’ that our mind accepts as reality because these memes have passed the authenticity of being a belief. But it is only a specific instance of reality.
So far we have described ‘forms’ in a very elemental format. At this stage they are not so much abstract as plastic. However the more of these plastic elements coalesce into a form, the more abstract they become.
So what is abstract. I recall a picture, I can not remember where, of a child,s drawing of God, driving Adam and Eve out of the paradise garden. The car was a box with wheels, symbolic enough to be understood, God was a stick figure, at one end with a steering wheel, also an identifiable representation. In the back seat were two small stick figures. On first viewing it was charmingly naive but subconsciously it contained a ‘form’ that was implicit in the story line. The scale of the people in the back showed the child understood what the lesson was about them. No doubt the instructor must have enforced this point, a fact that the child recognised; and was representing with small scale stick figures, not Adam and Eve, which would have been two full sized adults. This effect was the result of a ‘form’ supplied to the child by the instructor and made evident in the graphic representation.
This example is a succinct example of the difference between a ‘shape’ and a ‘form’
Any of the stick figures is a ‘shape’ an abstract shape but what they represent is clear. The car ‘shape’ is clear and the steering wheel a reasonable detail. So is this graphic image an ‘abstract’ drawing?
It certainly involves several abstract ‘shapes’.
Try to forget the story line I told you about! Do these shapes tell you the story. The stick figure of God does not have a halo but the location of the figure in the front, the orientation of the figures and specially the addition of a steering wheel for the front figure begin to create a story. So it could be just another Uber job. The shapes give all the content you need but the meaning does not emerge because ‘shapes’ do not reveal the ‘form’, more information is needed. ( If the child was more sophisticated it could have given God a medieval halo, to aid interpretation.)
If you were allowed to know it was about Adam and Eve, ( by way of a title, attached to the image )it would take some working out, but you could equate the stylistic and the symbolic evidence to a child,s impression of the immaculate eviction.
So now you have got the ‘idea’. You have seen the ‘form’; the ‘meaning’ conveyed by the image, and it took some serious effort.
But did you see what the child was actually saying about the lesson. Yes Adam and Eve did a sin, and God was displeased. But did you also understand that the child was telling you that the instructor was implicating them. The instructor was imposing an adult ‘form’ on the story, which the child cleverly but obviously unconsciously, expressed in the visual codex ( in the scale of the stick figures in the back seat ).
I don’t know if you agree but I think introducing children to original sin, does not feel necessary to me. But that is of course another story.
My personal take on the ‘original sin’ scandal, is to feel sorry for Adam and for Eve. They are damned for eternity for romping around in the nude, in paradise, with no job to distract them, or television to watch. You would have to admit, what happened was inevitable. To also pass this responsibility onto children could be unsuitable or even grounds for some kind of indictment.
The role of ‘forms’ in the process of perception is much more than identifying shapes; which is an objective task, the category that machines could eventually perfect. What the ‘shape’ means in the context of the time and place it appeared, is done by a ‘form’ selected from a library of alternatives to account for subliminal sense data.
The internet has brought this phenomena conspicuously into our lives and it has tangible challenges attached to it. The public conversations are openly addressing Fake news, Alternative Facts and simple fraudulent dealings, even going to manipulation of public opinion by malicious misinformation. It was not the internet that invented these effects but its ability to access ordinary people has made the negative effects obvious.
But humanity has known the basics of how it works since cave people left their mark on the walls of their meeting places; and big names in philosophical history have had a go at describing what is going on.
At risk is the most freedom ordinary citizens have enjoyed at any time in history; something too good to forfeit. To preserve it all Netizens need to develop the skills to handle the mischievous use of this tool.
The only defence a Nitizen can make is to be aware and proactive in participating on a web that rejects the abuse; which implies learning how to think independently and knowing that only the opinions that encourage the same, are legitimate options to get involved with. Pivotal to achieving this is to know what ‘forms’ do, how to identify subversive ‘forms’.
‘Form’ has the enigmatic property of ‘existing’ internally ( within the mind, it belongs to ). It is what the mind believes it is perceiving; one individuals perception of it is ‘immaterial’, having only the ‘potential to exist’. However if there is a ‘real’ world ( something not everybody concedes ), which is the origin of the sense data, then this would represent the ‘material’ or corporeal expression of the phenomenon.
Understanding this duality is where classic philosophy has founded.
Plato used the term in its broadest context. He postulated the ‘Theory of forms’ as “distinct and immaterial substances of …. the objects and other phenomena that we perceive in the world,” [and therefore] “are nothing more than mere shadows.” The above quote is in translation and so might be contested as accurate in every respect; but it seems that Plato was giving ‘forms’ a definition in which they were not material as well as non mental.
Obviously for Plato and even Aristotle, ‘form’ was more than just the minds reception of visual stimuli; ‘Form’s’ were ‘ideal universals’, by which we are able to understand the world.
This is as true today as it was in 400 B.C..
We would do well to take note of the term ‘ideal universals’, it is something the ‘realist’ philosophers of science could have invented.
It would be easy to dismiss such antique views as being out of touch with the contemporary reality, but they were superseded by a concept that was even less supported by the facts. Descartes, the so called ‘father of modern philosophy and scientific logic’, and who created ‘Cartesian Dualism’, claimed that the immaterial mind and the material body, are distinct ontological, but casually interacting entities. Descartes even produced images, diagrams to show this process, despite the reality that knowledge of how the visual apparatus worked was essentially speculative ( and wrong ). This was ‘pseudo science’ but it met the philosophical demands and lasted, in its many reincarnations, until the 20th century. Never the less up to this time, in each variant, it was agreed by most that perception, the exercise of the human senses, at least contributed largely to knowledge; and not only largely but also fundamentally.
This also is as true today it has been since the gift of ‘sight’, was available to our human precursors.
It is why we need to make ourselves aware of its impact on what we believe.
As medical technology began to give us insights into the physiological process of sight the distinction between the mind and body took on a different dimension. The brain as a material object became the obvious replacement for the mind making the ‘immaterial’ now a very tangible object.
Mental processes could be seen to be ‘conditioned reflexes’ of a malleable organ that was responding to ‘learned’ patterns embedded in a ‘plastic’ web of biological interconnections; what has come to be known in electronic engineering as well as in medicine, by the term, ‘neural pathways’.
The new ‘clear’ revelation was that the brain which exists, and is not immaterial, is the organ that constructs ‘form’ from the incoming senses ( sense data ); in a method that we can almost observe on an ‘objective’ level.
With this realisation, mind and body are apparently united in a singularity of existence.
However this is not so simple because the brain has ‘plasticity’. It is not an organ that blindly does a basic function like the heart or the kidneys, or even the pineal gland which Descartes would be disappointed to know only produces Melatonin.
The new biological evidence, that the brain is not only able to change, it is constantly in a state of ‘plastic’ mobility, is problematic. This ‘plasticity’ either destroys the ‘singularity’, that mind and body coexist as material objects, or it stretches our understanding/concept of ‘reality’. Can we restate Descartes ‘duality’ with a more rational version of ‘ideal universal’.
The nihilistic version of ‘ideal universal’ is that such concepts are inaccessible to an individual, even if they were an accurate approximation of reality. Therefore if we can not know it, it does not exist.
It is plausible to accept that every ‘individual’ develops a personal set of ‘forms’, where the quality of universality is limited to that individuals experience, and is independent of external reinforcement. This is a ‘personal ideal universal’ or ‘form’, existing in the neural network of the brain of the person that experienced it.
It is equally logical to assume that many ‘ideal universals’ come out of the common experience of many individuals. Because other individuals agree, or believe they agree, this common experience gives rise to a set of ‘ideal universals’ which innately have the imprimatur of ‘true ideal universals’. Obviously this depends on the assumption that general consensus is indicative of the ‘truth’; a highly contestable proposition, but a practical compromise. The ‘realist philosophers’ would condone this connection.
Individuals become aware of these ‘true ideal universalities’ by communicating comparative ‘forms’ with other individuals, using some type of contrived system to describe the phenomena.
Societies in their various formats have invented disciplines such as mathematics, the science’s and religion or just culturally inspired customs, to systematise the ‘process of agreement’ between individuals.
The visual codex is a natural and available conduit to this end. For creative’s, working in the ‘visual language’ this system is the pictorial format, the ‘visual language’.
Now the internet has made all users of it, visual language consumers. The memetic content is delivered in bulk, daily and copiously.
Netizens are presented with many ideal universals and if aware will be able to identify a consensus opinion which, from a statistical position, could be assumed closest to being representative of reality.
However we must acknowledge that ‘true ideal universals’ do not actually ‘exist’, they possess only ‘potentiality’ until an observer recognises their authenticity. This enigmatic state does not imply that the ‘true ideal universal’ is any more ‘real’ than its progenitor, it is just acknowledging that it does not exist in any material neural network other than that of its source.
Where this leads philosophers and other communicators, in other mediums, is not within the scope of this note, despite the temptation to indulge in such speculation. You may well ask, how can something be ‘real’ if it begins as an existing entity, becomes non-existent and in another location and in more locations it becomes an existing entity again? The answer is that creatives do it everyday, ask one how they do it.
They probably have to confess they do not know. But they know it when they see it, as do many others who are observers only.
Creatives can search for methods but generally end with experiments, that do or do not have positive results.