This page explores the realm of meaning. The domain of meaning is much complex the quantitative sphere described in the section in on computer simulations of feedback and servo systems. The world of numbers is much more thoroughly worked out than the complex world of meaning. The biggest difference between the quantities represented by numbers an and the qualities represented by meaning is that numbers are fungible and shades of meaning are not. The notion of fungability is very important. It means, for instance, that any number 3 has exactly the same meaning as any other number 3. This is very different from saying that your feeling of love is exactly the same as mine. Our individual and distinct feelings of love are not fungible. When we assign a number to a quality in the shades of meaning of the quality are lost. It is possible to go from something qualitative to a number, but you can't go from a number to quality. The artificial intelligence efforts at simulating meaning by attempting to analyze natural languages has run into great difficulties. The major difficulty is that syntax by itself does not consistently give correct meaning. So the simulations given in this section cannot these elegant as the ones in the servo section. The best I am able to provide here are kinds of electronic worksheets.
One of the basic elements of meaning is association. Words do not have meaning by themselves. In order for the meaning to emerge the words have to be placed in a web of context. One very good way to approach constructing webs of meaning is to associate to a single word. This can be done by using the fixed association simulator in the applet given below. In the case of fixed association you keep coming coming back to the same word. You think of the word, allow something to come to mind, and then return to the word again. You keep doing this until a sense of meaning emerges.
Another good method is to free associate. In free association you follow a chain of associations. You think of something, and then allow yourself to associate to the thing that comes to mind. Each association leads to another. The process continues as long as you allow it. Note that as you associate you may get stuck. If you do get stuck become aware of what is going on internally. Associate to whatever it is that your are experiencing. By experiencing I mean paying attention to your thoughts, images, memories, feelings, and last, but by no means, least least, your bodily sensations. There is an important difference between feeling block or stuck, and having the sense of some kind of meaning emerge from your association. If you feel blocked it is likely that you come upon some kind of conflict. If meaning emerges it will be like having an "Ah Ha" experience. If you get stuck it is likely that you begin to feel uncomfortable. The difficulty is that the conflict that is producing your discomfort may be unconscious. However, it is a start to become aware that one is experiencing some kind of impudence to a free flow of associations. Indeed, this was just how Freud discovered resistance analysis when he was doing psychoanalysis. As long as the patient's associations flowed without interruption there was no resistance. When the associations stopped and the patient fell silent it was likely to the patient started to think or feel something that he or she could not express. You don't have to worrying about being honest with the computer. The responses that you give cannot go out over the Internet. They stay in your own computer and simply disappear when you leave this Web page.
Attempting to associate is very different from trying to figure something out. When you try to figure something out is a tendency to set forward and think rationally and logically. Association calls for a different mind-set and posture, namely siting back and allowing things to come to mind. One is more passive with the process of associating than with the process of trying to figure out something. So the instruction is to sit back and just allow yourself to observe what occurs to you. The idea is it to become a witness or a viewer of your own inner stream of consciousness. Relax into the experience, and as they say, "Go with the flow".
Two types of as are given in in the simulator below.You can start out by using the free association simulator. After you press on free association, sit back, turn your attention inward, and become aware of the first thing that comes to mind, click on the answer field, and type in your association. Continue by linking one association to the next until you have reached some meaning point of realization. If you feel your self getting blocked or stuck, pay even closer attention to what is going on in side. One possibility is to shift to fixed association and continue to associate to the last item before you got stock. If you prefer start with fixed association. Think of the first thing it comes to mind, or of something that's of interest to you. In fixed association to keep coming back to the same thought over and over again. Continue until you feel you have some sense of closure. You can switch back and forth between the two modes of association.
The Buddha made a very important distinction between pain in suffering. When he left his privileged existence and went out into the world, he discovered much pain in suffering. He came to realize that there was no way to escape pain in this life. However, he also saw that suffering is the meaning that one gives to pain. There is not getting around it. Pain hurts. We amplify the hurt by elaborating on it with concerns about the past and projections into the future. So then there is what happens, the pain itself, and then there is what we think about what happens. How we feel about it. Our attitude toward it. Whether we like it or not. Whether we are attracted to it, or try to avoid it.
Consider, for moment, something that is troubling you. Think of a word our two that characterizes it. Enter the word or phrase in the answer field. Then press Add to list followed by Next question. Answer the new question, and then press Add to list, and Next question to repeat the cycle of question and answer. Continue to continue reach the end of the questions. You can look back over the transcript of your session and highlight any response that you like to pursue further. Press Insert. Enter your new response in the answer area and then press Add the list. Continue this process to round out and deepen your exploration.
The simulator tries to model a set of questions that someone might ask you in order to
help you explore the meanings that you give to your problem. Approach giving the
answers in much the same way you did in the exercises on association given above.
This is an opportunity to the ask yourself some meaningful questions and give you an
opportunity to see the web of meaning that you construct around your pain. Someone
has said, "Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional". Your
responses are strictly confidential. The computer is actually a dumb machine that
makes absolutely no judgments about you. Whatever feelings and thoughts emerge are
actually your own. Here is an opportunity to be utterly honest with yourself.
See if you can begin to separate the pain itself from the meanings that you given to the
pain.
One way to break our usual mind sets is to shift to another domain. The previous association exercises had to do with putting thoughts and feelings into words. A very important aspect of psychotherapy is to sit or lie back and attempt to put our experience into words. This process of verbalizing experience helps us to distance ourselves from being caught up in the experience. Reflecting on the experience enables us to put it in a new perspective. The difficulty is that we tended to get caught up in our habitual behavior patterns. One way to shift gears is to move our associations to another sensory modality. Colors are often associated with feelings. We see red. We are green with envy, and are in a blue mood. Computers with color video terminals provide an opportunity to to make associations through the use of color. In the associators given above the task was to connect one word with another. The computer makes it possible to associate words with colors.
A digression into color synthesis may be helpful. The colors on a video terminal are synthesized by blending the three primary colors together to form the combination that you actually see on the screen. A specific color can be made by adjusting the intensities of the three primarily colors. It is interesting to experiment with color blending to prove that you can make just about any color you want. The color sliders can be adjusted in range from 0 to 255. There are 256 intensities of red, of green, and of blue. So theoretically it is possible to display 256 x 256 x 256 (16,777,216) possible colors. Actually you will not be able to see all of them, but a great number can be synthesized. Just as the dimensions of height, width, and length form three-dimensional space, the dimensions of red, green, and blue form color space. To visualize this start by thinking of a box which has the dimensions of length, width, and height. Think of the same box, only this time imagine the dimensions as being red, blue, and green. A point in color space can be found exactly the same way that a point can be found inside a box or a room. For example, suppose the dimensions are red = 100, green = 150, and blue = 200, the point in color space when be at exactly the same place as it would be in a room that was 256 by 256 by 256.
The fact that the adjustments are based on numerical values makes it possible to construct color association test. The three color values ( red, green, blue) can be used to form the three axes of color space. The distance between colors can be found in exactly the same way they can be found for points in a room. These facts make it possible to rank the distances between colors. The closer the distance between colors, the more closely they resemble each other. If we associate emotions with colors, then we can have a measure of how closely emotions resemble each other. At least that is the idea employed in the color association test given in the applet below.
Approach the color association test the same way you approached the fixed association exercise given above. Think of the word that it is given. Then sit back and allow yourself to visualize a color that somehow matches it. Adjust each of the three sliders until you find the color that seems to most closely represents the word. This exercise requires a little sense of play. Clearly, most of the words on the list have no intrinsic color. However, you will find that some colors fit and others just don't. So don't be literal. Let your association range freely in order to see what emerges spontaneously. When you get to the bottom of the list your responses will be sorted. The numbers next to each pair tell how far apart they are from each other in color space. Check the items on the list to see how much psychological sense they make to you. See if there are any surprises.
I would be very interested in your reactions to the color association test. Please send your comments and suggestions.