Transcripts of the personal tapes
recorded by Melanie Anne Phillips while continuing to develop the Mental Relativity theory
of mind.
8/9/94
"More on Symbols"
The concept of creating different symbolic
representations to create emotional needs, emotional moods, can be looked at as supplying
different keycaps on a computer. Whereby, you would press a particular key and a whole
different set of symbols will pop up on each of the keys when you change the keycap you
are using. When we are creating these overlay templates, we might be able to supply three
or four different kinds of symbols in order to access the Dramatica engine for each of the
perspectives we are dealing with.
In other words, there would be the subjective story
perspective, and that would have maybe four different choices. They conceivably could be
mixed and matched, but probably it would be better initially to have each set be a
completely different set of symbols, trying to accomplish the same task. Our purpose in
creating these alternate symbolics would be to realize that when we are trying to get to
the heart of the matter, and be very definitive about emotional responses, non-verbal
meaning, what we need to do is tap into something that is nearly universal in it's
representation in our culture. As a result, these are floating meaning symbols. If you
only had a peripheral exposure to them, you may not know the context that they are
intended to represent. If you are highly familiar with them, you may know precisely what
they are intended to represent in terms of emotional response. The key is to be able to
provide alternative symbolic representations so that if you have not been exposed to the
one we present initially, you could then sift through two or three other choices and find
one that is more attuned to your personal experience.
Again, there are at the height of our cultural
intersection among individuals, certain symbols that mean exactly the same thing to every
person that you might ask. But, as you begin to get into the breadth and range of symbols
necessary to describe an entire superclass, we would find that there are not enough
symbols to go around that are universally accepted and understood. At least that's my
expectation. As a result, we come up with different sets of symbols to go across the
entire breadth of the superclass -- from that which is most commonly appreciated, to the
areas that are more rare, and less ventured into. We can tap a wide range of audience
participation in terms of our authors. They can jump in and pick the symbols which are
most meaningful to them.
The danger arises if we mix and match between
symbol sets. The consistency provided by Dramatica is somewhat lost. Each individual could
mix and match symbols to their hearts content, and create a completely unbiased
representation, if they understood the consistency that was necessary. But, this would
work only for them, because it would counter their own personal biases. Unfortunately,
that requires a lot of training, self-awareness, and objectivity.
So, for the time being at least, we will need to
make all of these symbols as being of all one set or all of another , with no mixing and
matching. Perhaps later on we may be able to mix and match sets or to create a completely
user definable symbol set through the use of colors and responses. Something like word
associations or ink blot tests. That way we could provide a set of colors or tonalities,
or melodies and each time you shift to another it would create a new context through
taking the original colors and have another color follow which would have a different
meaning, had the order been reversed.
If we then ask a series of choices where the author
would then pick a certain other color to be correspondent or should be next in the
sequence to make them comfortable or completely out of whack. We may be able to create
within the program, an analysis of the individual user and once we have established just a
few touch points, we would be able to understand their individual biases. Then allowing
them to choose the beginning point for a set of symbols, knowing this information about
them, Dramatica could then generate the entire symbol set that would have the proper touch
points to give the proper emotional meaning.
Obviously, this is pretty sophisticated, polling
our users to respond to how they feel about certain colors, by choosing other colors or
sounds. Developing a profile of them, essentially a mind-set in the Dramatica engine and
using it to begin with a particular color or set of sounds, and have the Dramatica engine
generate keycaps or a semantic template that would have the intuitive impact on that
individual that would be a consistent emotional understanding of the model from one side
to the other. Certainly, it's not out of the question, it's just a matter of doing a lot
of work -- the technology already exists.
However, as we begin to work with these new
symbolic, non-verbal representations, we should strive to begin with the universally
accepted symbols, and not allow mixing and matching between sets. It won't work all the
time for everybody, but that's already the case with the semantic template. This problem
can only be overcome ultimately with an interactive polling of the users to develop a
profile of each that can create a tailored symbol set. It would be consistent though, only
in terms of their individual perspective. Anyone else using that set would find it quite
warped.