INTRODUCTION

THE SYMBOLIC MEDIATION OF THE PHENOMENAL FIELD

by Hugh M. Lewis

Cultural cybernetics constitutes a general theoretical framework for the understanding of human processes and patterning of reality. It is a paradigm that is rooted in information theory, cognitive sciences, gestalt psychology, and an anthropological theory of the symbolic construction of reality. Within this framework, the arrangements of cultural artifacts in the ground, language, the ritual arrangement of sacred objects on an altar, all share in common an underlying cultural paradigm which determines phenomenologically that these various instances are but particular facets of a larger "gestalt" of cultural patterning.

From a scientific point of view, we may understand the informational patterning of a language, or its material expression in an environment, as manifestations of an underlying cultural codification that is homologous to the developmental expressions of human genetic information, or to the organic molecular configurations which may be expressed precisely in bio-chemical formulas, or on an even finer, subatomic level of discrimination, the information contained in the electron shells about the nucleus of an atom.

We may speak analytically of different natural levels of informational patterning with a general hierarchy of determinations. Upon each of these levels, there exists fairly precise formulaic codifications of information which control and account for the patterning of natural "cosmographical" processes that are largely complex and chaotic. Thus it is the same physics which which precisely describes the atomic weight of atoms that describes the composition of stars light years distant, that discovers black holes in other galaxies, and explores the patterning of galaxies in their waltz across the universe. But physics alone cannot explain complex chemical reactions or the crystallization of mineral compounds in precise geometric forms, nor the processes of the genetic transmission and reproduction that underlies and drives the processes we call evolution. In a similar way, it is not enough to invoke the biological theory of evolution in order to understand the patterning of language and meaning production, in the dialectal divergence of separate cultural groupings, or in the separate historical development of human civilization in diverse regions of the earth.

We must understand that explanation and description of events at one level of analysis cannot be reduced or directly translated into another level--we do not invoke theories of physics for the understanding of evolutionary processes, and we do not invoke understanding of organic photosynthesis for the understanding of cultural phenomena. To do so, especially in an exclusive sense, is a form of analytical reductionism which destroys the sense of order and implicitly the denies the patterned order at a higher level of natural systems integration.

Natural systems theory which seeks to understand in precise forms the structural principles of patterning of information at various levels of analysis that occur in nature are all rooted in a structural-functional presupposition which stipulates that patterned relations are to some extent deterministically ordered--in effect, patterns of relationship at all levels of analysis are causally dependent upon specific variables which account for the resulting pattern and which in part determines the predictable, recurrent dynamics of the functioning of the system. The order which exists between the parts of the whole are thus functionally interrelated such that they constitute a dynamic system of interactions and relations which are minimally interdependent--a change in one part of the system will result in reverberations of changes in other parts.

But this functional order of a "system" is never itself an entirely closed affair--at all levels of analysis, natural systems, as information systems, are part of a larger continuum of a universe of relationships at the same and at lower levels of analysis, relationships which may, however indirectly, affect the functional pattern of the system. It is this partial openness of natural systems which render their patterning "chaotic" and open to random variation of pattern. It is this systemic openness, or lack of complete closure of the system which guarantees that any natural system is always subject to change and modification, and will only be partially deterministic.

The concern of this work is approaching description and general theoretic explanation of the socio-cultural level of human systems in a naturalistic way in terms of a central set of systemic propositions which are partially determinative of the informational processes and patterns which occur at this level. Furthermore, it constitutes an attempt to empirically demonstrate this analysis with consistent elicited patterns of data, generally from a methodology developed around a central theoretical premises and referred to as "symbolic mediation."

Symbolic mediation can be considered to be a form of "field theory" which has as its basis the developmental symbolic specialization of the "phenomenal field" which is defined as "the entire universe, including oneself, as it is experienced by the individual at the instant of action."

The precise mechanism of this specialization is held to be the neurologically programmed apparatus of the human brain to terminologically recognize, or nominally designate, a set of external/internal relations both as: 1. a separate subset or whole part; and 2. as a part-whole of a larger nexus of relations.

The external/internal relations are composed of both cognitive and affective components. All "symbolizations" of the phenomenal field are accompanied by some relative level of both components: 1. the cognitive differentiation of the field; 2. the affective dynamics of relations within the field.

The central neural mechanism accounting for these processes is regarded as the symbolic mediation of the phenomenal field in which cognitive and affective associations of a differentiated sub-field of phenomenal experience becomes configured and mediated by the lexical naming which gives central symbolic definition and form to this configuration, and which brings this fragment of awareness into a "gestalt" as part of a whole field of possible relations.

The human brain has evolved neural apparatus for speech production and for human language which has special design features of duality and symbolic reference of meaning--as such these developments of the brain were part of a development of the physiological apparatus for speech production and processing, and in a nonspecific sense its unique evolution can be considered to be the cerebral specialization for such speech recognition and production.

If the nominological function of the word as the symbolic mediator of human experience rests as a pivot point in understanding the foundation of human consciousness and systems of symbolization, we must look beyond the word itself as an isolated name to the question of language structure itself as the syntagmatic production of a chain of paradigmatically alternate words.

In this regard, it can be seen that each statement made or sentence, no matter how short, constitutes an implication of meaning which is always subject to question. A statement is thus an implicit inference about reality, the validity of which is always open to demonstration. Validity in this sense is bound up in the relative context of the symbolic frame of the sentence--the unstated understanding and knowledge which is required to complete the question that the statement implicitly asks us.

Sentence construction in language is therefore a form of symbolic framing that serves to link together spaces, events, or regions of the phenomenal field, across time as well as space, and that enable us to re-synthesize and reunify the whole in relation to the parts. In this regard, language construction always implicitly has at least indirect reference to the whole. That we will unconsciously tend to construct and contextualize our sentences in terms which are consistent with our other symbolic frames and pre-understandings of how the world is framed speaks for the close linkage between language and socio-cultural context, on the one hand, and language and the subjective phenomenal field of experience on the other.

Sentence construction is therefore bound to and structured by the need to make symbolic semantic inferences which can be subject to the validation of phenomenal experience in the world. In this regard, the structuring of language can be seen to follow the function of language in the construction of complex spaces or "gestalts" of differentiated phenomenal regions, and the transference of significance from one such "gestalt" to another. The job of a sentence is to link the subject as a figure to a larger frame that consists of the implicit background space of the sentence--the phenomenal field itself. This process of construction is influenced minimally by the aspectual form that the sentence construction normally takes in a language.

We can refer to a form of relational inference in which the main task of linking things designated by nomenological reference to other things or to relations or events which occur in a hypothetical space is controlled by a relatively underdetermined model of plausible multidirectional inference. Normal direction of inference will be inherent to the syntagmatic, aspectual and marking of the sentence structure.

Coherence of these semantic linkages is guided by a loose form of relational or relative inference and relative contextuality of the implicit frame of the sentence. Relative contextuality can refer to some variable pattern of differentiation of the part-whole relationship, in which the "entire" whole of the universe is always an external and implicit context to the configuration of a variable set of "parts".

Relative inference refers to inferences which are guided by posited semantic primes of relational linkages between the parts or differentiated spaces and by a relative nonrestrictive form of plausibility of inference that is constrained mostly by the principle of explicit direct non-contradiction--in other words, any direction of semantic inference is permitted in the transference of significance between parts in the construction of mental space, as long as it is not directly contradicted.

Universal semantic relational primes are given by Hamil (1991: pg. 42) as the following list:

1. X is a kind of Y. 2. X is a part of Y.

3. X is a place in Y. 4. X is oriented with respect to Y.

5. X is contingent on Y. 6. X is a reason for doing Y.

7. X is a place for doing Y. 8. X is used for Y.

9. X is a means of effecting Y. 10. X is in a sequence including Y.

11. X is a characteristic of Y. 12. X is similar to Y.

13. X is different from Y. 14. X is an example of Y.

15. X is equivalent to Y. 16. X is the opposite of Y.

17. X is the source of Y. 18. X is X.

The relative plausibility of the inference within the context of its implicit frame that is what is ultimately determinative of its truth value--there is no final, non-arbitrary truth value of any language, and this is the flexibility of language for prevarication, and for alternative interpretation.

The structure which a language takes can thus be understood directly in terms of this semantic space building function function as a central mechanism for the symbolic framing of reality and the intermediation of internal and external realities.

It is possible to describe the structural syntactic patterning of different languages in terms of this requirement of language in the construction of credible mental spaces which map to some extent and have implicit reference to the external world of relations, without making reference or inferring universal "deep structures" of language. This process of space construction in language may be stated symbolically in explicit propositional form without requiring the adoption of a rigid mathematical model of language that hasn't room for ambiguity of meaning.

Linguistic articulation thus allows for the building of complex symbolic spaces, and even of symbolic constructions within symbolic constructions that can be linked by relational inference to yet other symbolic constructions. Thus language has the effect of forging chains of complex inter-linkages which may subsume a variety of different sets of cognitive and affective associations, and from which a symbolic complex of an internally coherent system of rationalization or belief system can be created, reiterated and linguistically reinforced.

In reference to the relative contextuality and relative plausibility of the inference structure of language, it is important to emphasize the relative contextual dependency of different language constructions and the relative degrees context-boundness of alternative implicit semantics, and even the relative levels of contextuality exhibited by different languages and reflective of the degree of differentiation and symbolic specialization achieved within the culturally defined language system.

The foundation of symbolic human awareness can be seen to be the hardwiring of the brain for the function of naming and terminological definition attached to an articulated and differentiated nexus of cognitive and affective relations and associations--such that the evocation of the name can lead to an evocation of the pattern of relations thus designated.

This naming function of the human mind is fairly specific, such that discrete regions of the mind are neurologically wired to fairly specific names. But these named regions of phenomenal life-space are not exclusive in the sense that they stand separate or unconnected to other names--both names and the associations they index are interconnected within a context of other names and patterns of association, and these patterns of interconnection are organized along several overlapping principles of organization--analogically, homologically, and functionally.

Thus for instance, perception of color and production of the term for color become learned separately, until a certain region of the brain links up the color with the term such that its recognition can lead to its automatic naming. This does not normally become "learned" until 3 or 4 years of age, at an age when the neuronal linkages are being made in a fairly specific location of the brain between those designating areas of color names and color perception--before this time the child knows the word "red" and can perceive red as a color, but cannot clearly recognize and name red as a color at the same time.

It is also very certain that the order of the acquisition of terminological recognition and probably the perceptual differentiation of the color continuum is almost universally predictable and ordered in a fairly definite sequence of acquisition. Furthermore this developmental sequence is parallel for both the ontological development of the individual and the phylogenetic development of the culture--such that cultural orientations may be more or less differentiated in terms of color terminology is concerned. Individuals of those cultural backgrounds will, like children, be able to recognize by naming only those colors which are culturally available, though they may be capable of perceiving a much more highly differentiated spectrum of color differences.

What has been demonstrated to be the case with color terms can be demonstrated also in many other "natural domains" of basic terms--for instance basic forms of flora and fauna, basic shapes or objects, parts of the body, categories of food, categories of natural things, etc. Furthermore, as will be demonstrated later in this work, the analysis of the symbolic framing of color does not end with the demonstration of the acquisition of color terminology, but involves the analytical elucidation of a plethora of cognitive-affective associations to colors, patterns of color preference and rank, underlying ethno-semantic dimensions by which colors are ordered and differentiated--this becomes the case with many other "natural" symbolic dimensions.

In general, the following set of propositions are made. It can be said that in general there is a tendency that:

1. more basic terms underlie and come sequentially before more elaborated, derivative terms.

2. more basic terms designate a region of differentiated field, or part-whole relation, which is somehow more naturally "prototypical" and more deeply embedded than more elaborated terms.

3. more basic terms show greater agreement and consensus of sharing within a culture.

4. more elaborated terms have less agreement, and more ambiguity associated with the designated meanings.

5. more basic terms tend to be simply and more efficiently encoded--more elaborated terms tend to be more expressive and less efficient in code.

6. more basic terms are less likely to have been borrowed from outside, and are less subject to be "loaned" outside than more elaborated terms.

7. more basic terms are less likely to change morpho-phonologically than more elaborate terms.

8. within any "category" that is constitutive of a natural continuum--for instance colors, animals, insects, plants, shapes, etc.:

a. there will be a sequence of acquisition in which more basic terms will come before more elaborated forms.

b. the number of available terms will determine the range and level of differentiation of the resulting "spectrum"

9. basic terms will tend to be more unmarked than elaborated terms.

10. basic terms will be less symbolically specialized than elaborated terms.

11. basic terms will be taxonomically higher and more general than elaborated terms.

This points up a critical factor of human acquisition and symbolic functioning--that it is tied to an effective cultural environment within which symbolic acquisition becomes reinforced and structured. Language is inherently a social phenomena--it is situated and takes its shape in a community of speakers and cannot occur or be realistically considered in isolation from this socio-cultural context. We cannot therefore fully account for language in terms the language apparatus for speech production ontologically centered in the individual organism.

The locus of socio-cultural phenomena as a natural system of information is therefore objectively situated in the external environment and is evolutionarily and inextricably situated within a socio-cultural context. As such it is out there and takes its shape largely independent of its subjective character in the mind of the individual culture-bearer.

There is an isomorphism of patterning between ontogenetic, developmental acquisition and socio-cultural acquisition, just as there is a parallel isomorphism between the objective patterning of information in the external socio-cultural context and the subjective patterning of information in the internalized phenomenal field of the individual. This isomorphism is due primarily to :1. the evolutionary dependency of human development and linguistic apparatus upon a socio-cultural context; 2. the developmental ontogeny of the brain, the hardwiring of symbolic framing of the world being dependent upon the socio-cultural context.

In general, the ontogeny and cultural phylogeny of developmental acquisition is in the direction of greater symbolic framing and dynamism of this phenomenal field along different, successively embedded principles of organization. It is important to recognize the developmental aspects of the emergence of the symbolically mediated phenomenal field in the life-world of the individual and the socio-cultural group.

This emergence of the phenomenal field begins with the embryo, and in early stages consists of a "multitude of transient mental experiences that are not linked together and vanish past all recall in a few second. Perhaps such mental experience are all animals and very young children have, all their learning processes being subconscious and strictly speaking unremembered." (Eccles, 1953.). It has been postulated that "The emergence of a part of the phenomenal field is a cognitive event always accompanied by some degree of affect." (Turney, 1955: 5)

We speak of the emergence of an increasingly differentiated field from a cognitive standpoint and of an increasingly dynamic field from the affective standpoint, and an increasingly specialized field from a symbolic standpoint. This refers to the analytical separation of a whole and previously undifferentiated phenomenal field into a mosaic of subspaces which are then composed into a configuration in relation to the whole. This reconfiguration is part of symbolic framing of the phenomenal field. In all symbolic frames, there is always an implicit part-whole relationship. It has been hypothesized that 1:"The whole field determines the nature of each of its parts." (Turney, 1955: 9) and 2: "Any part determines in part the nature of the field and affects its dynamics at any moment of action." (Turney, 1955: 11)

The organization and "structure" of the patterning of mediation of the phenomenal field is held to be variable and dynamic, though become more stable with maturity. Because of the complexity, the polythetic constitution and the inheritance of both lexical, cognitive and affective associations, realistically mapping regions of this field for any particular person was held to be extremely difficult if not impossible, at least before the advent of the computer revolution.

It has been hypothesized that "The potential of parts in the dynamics of the field is a function of the affect, but is not a constant." (Turney, 1955: 12) and that "The differentiation of the field (or any part) is a cognitive function, its associated affect changing in direction and intensity with each stage of differentiation." (Turney, 1955: 15)

The affective component of the symbolic articulation of the field may lead to the cathectic fixation of feeling within an ossified and undynamic structure of symbolic relations which to some degree locks up the potency of the field for adaptive acquisition. It entails that all events are filled with relative embodied meaning and that we respond to them as "lived" or vital experience, and all symbolic structures of meaning are inherently "loaded" from the standpoint of affective associations which engender some level and kind of dynamic organismic response or reaction.

The affective component of meaning should not be understated, as it determines that the core structure of a cultural paradigm cannot be merely comprehended as a cognitive, abstract model, but entails a nexus of values, feelings and states of subjective being which are integral to the core.

Affective universals of meaning have been empirically documented by Charles Osgood et.al. Osgood located a universal set of primary dimensions of semantic meaning which differed cross-culturally. These basic dimensions of affective meaning are Evaluation, Potency and Activity.

We may refer to relative levels of symbolic mediation of experience, both externally in the socio-cultural context and internally in the subjective mapping of the phenomenal field--relative levels which will be reflected in terms of terminological categories and distinctions, language, and symbolic specialization of function.

These relative levels of symbolic framing allow us to refer to an acquisitive/developmental scale which holds isomorphically for both ontogenetic subjective development as well as for wider cultural development, along which both individuals and different cultures may be relatively ranked in order of their achieved degree of symbolic articulation of reality. Higher achieved articulation of reality makes available greater degrees of cognitive differentiation--higher levels of achieved differentiation allows for a greater more specialized symbolic articulation of reality.

Two related postulates posit a connection with this proposition to general neurological activity and functioning: 1. There is some degree of awareness of each and every differentiation of the field, awareness that may be linked to the reticular system of the brain stem in both ego-trophic functions of excitability and tropho-tropic functions of activity inhibition as well as to involvement of the cerebral cortex in the selection of the content of experience and to the control of the direction of thought--ie attention and set. These are linked to corresponding levels of consciousness, and to the general proposition that:

The precision and clearness of the cognitive event and the intensity of the affect associated with it are both determiners of the degree of awareness.

Awareness with the implications of waking consciousness or some alternate or relative or dependent state of consciousness does not take into account the unconscious influence of "parts previously differentiated" that are completely out of awareness.

It is a central hypothesis of this theory that such unconscious background processes have a critical influence upon the symbolic articulation, dynamics and differentiation of the phenomenal field and is constraining, unavoidable, and empirically available to validation through indirect, circumstantial evidence. We may state that in every symbolic articulation there is some degree of unconscious unawareness which influences the event, and which in part influences the relative level differentiation and dynamics of the event.

It is this extraneous factor, of the influence of the ground on the perception of the figure, which is the source of noise and ambiguity of identity of relations within our awareness--and is tied to both the external context of background associations and relations, as well as to an internal unconscious process which is largely constituted by potential memory associations--or trace residual patternings which remain embedded in the neural connections of the brain.

Thus the symbolic mechanism underlying the articulation of reality is not entirely deterministic of the patterning of the phenomenal field, but must be accounted for in terms of a wider, less deterministic and more open role of the processes of symbolization which allow the symbolic construct to tolerate some ambiguity, to carry more than one meaning, to be designated by alternate terms, or to stand for different, even mutually contradictory things at the same time. Thus, the part-whole relationship stands in some measure of funny irrelation.

Symbol systems allow for a relative degree of achieved "unity of the whole" over and above the parts, or for the "part" to stand in place of the whole or the whole to stand in place of the part. Thus a symbolic reunification of a differentiated phenomenal field can be achieved symbolically, but never completely.

We may account for and define the role of symbolization neurologically on two levels: 1. in the analytical articulation of the phenomenal field from a previously undifferentiated whole into part-whole relations, principally by means of terminological associations of cognitive and affective components and; 2. a synthetic reunification of the part-whole relationships into a previously differentiated whole, principally by means of terminological abstraction, concretization, reification and rationalization--such that the term comes to designate and stand in place of the region of the phenomenal field which it articulates.

It is the secondary symbolic function that we find the proclivity of the human mind to strive to reconfigure an analytically differentiated world to achieve some form of synthetic "gestalt" of sense of overall pattern of part-whole relationship--a drive to find order among parts that may be neurotically tied to the reduction of ambiguity inherent to its analytical differentiation, as well as to a normal need for "order" among the parts. It is the capacity of symbolizations to achieve effectively this second function that we speak of the integration of phenomenological reality as a symbolic achievement which is correlated to some extent with adaptation to a dynamic, changing world. The ability to achieve "conscious" awareness in this second form of a "gestalt" is determined in part by both conscious and unconscious processes involving both affective and cognitive dimensions of association.

Psycho-cultural gestalt is the term I have adopted to refer to the second achievement of a sense of reunification of the part-whole relation, and its frequency and clarity are relative measures of the adaptive integrity of both the individual culture-bearer and the socio-cultural context in which the member of culture is situated.

It points up the dynamic, cybernetic relationship between internal process of symbolic articulation and external patterns of the socio-cultural contexts--it suggests that the interdependency between the internal and external orders for a 'dual processing' system in which feedback can be both resonance amplifying and resonance dampening and in which long term patterns may lead to destructive or constructive patterns of interference. Thus cultural gestalt is a relative measure of the state of patterned interference of relations between external context and internalized subjective constructs.

This theory can lead to the precise articulation of 1. a systematic conceptioning of the socio-cultural contexts which define the objectve, external foundation, with the aim of explaining the central, underlying implicit structure and functioning of this system. 2. a systematic conceptioning of the internal processes of symbolization and recognition which parallels and to some extent subjective maps the external order, especially accounting for the unconscious dynamics of the process. 3. the implementation of a body of methods which will allow for the empirical and experimental exploration of these processes, their analysis and graphic representation in a realistic manner.

Socio-cultural contexts depend upon the establishment and reinforcement of a minimal level of coherence and order which tends to follow certain principles: it is simple and focally oriented, based upon the relationship between a few core variables or values: it tends to appropriate basic forms or categories, such that it becomes embedded in a level that is largely unmarked and indirect in its constraining function: it becomes focally elaborated and symbolically represented in highly stylized codifications which define and positively sanction the focal orientation; its focal and basic elaborations are relative conservative and resist change or alteration; a secondary system of direct negative sanctions may arise which define alternate or relativizing orientations as antithetical and which may contain symbolic apparatus for managing marginal events or relativizing orientations when they arise.

This central orientation of a culture will be more or less highly differentiated, and constitutes the basis of an implicit cultural model of a focal cultural orientation. Every cultural system, in order to be coherent, maintains implicitly some core or central "paradigm" which defines and orients the world in a focal and coherent model. The capacity for individuals within a cultural orientation to achieve and maintain an effective sense of cultural gestalt rests upon their ability to realize and positively reinforce in their everyday lives and social relations the implicit paradigm which underlies its patterning and which becomes largely ossified and ritually elaborated in a conservative sense in the form of core traditional practices, beliefs, teachings, and texts.

The paradigm of a cultural orientation is meant in a generic sense of "a basic set of beliefs that guides actions". This paradigm is usually implicit as a guide, and its integration is largely invisible on the surface of everyday behavior. A paradigm is rooted in a socio-cultural context of interaction--it is this context which largely, conventionally defines it as received and "normal" and which reinforces it in everyday life.

So basic and transparent is it in our everyday judgment and decisions and actions that it informs our understanding of the world as pragmatic common sense. Its function of sanctioning and constraining behavior are largely indirect. Paradigms are, in a structural, and largely ideal sense, rule-bound and this deeper sense of order can be propositionally represented in a rule-based system.

The central thesis of this work is that for any cultural orientation to be minimally coherent, like any language to which it is largely attached and expressed, a cultural orientation must exhibit in terms of patterning of behavior and social relations a centrally oriented paradigm against which the entire world becomes ordered and understood. It is this paradigm by which we come to recognize and understand culture and cultural differences, and by which we come to understand that cultural differences are largely relative to the orientation in which they are situated.

To say that this paradigm is largely symbolic and behavioral should go without saying--as such it provides unity not only within the culture, but to the entire universe which becomes oriented around it. It functions symbolically in our lives, and is constituted symbolically in our own being, even at an organic level of our perceptions, feelings and bodily reactions to our world.

This paradigm is from a culture historical standpoint not unlike the Hegelian Geist--but it does not stand as the hub around which all action depends. People may or may not act in relation to it--people may choose and often do so act independently of it or in its contradiction--but it remains there, embedded in the background of the action, to give it social significance and symbolic form, and whether we go with the grain or against it, we all at least implicitly know what it is.

The paradigm itself is not a changeless or static structure--it changes as well, and its changing often entails major disruptions on the surface flow of events in our shared lives the origin or reasons for which we may not clearly understand. When our paradigm changes, our world changes with it.

When we refer to a paradigm shift, we refer to a socio-cultural revolution in which conversion from one symbolic orientation to another is at the heart of the process, and in which the symbolic orientation of the paradigm becomes subjectively embodied in not only the way we do things, act and think about the world, but even in the way we talk about it and perceive it. Thus, a conversion experience that accompanies a paradigm switch, something referred to as "alternation" of subjective identity, is in a sense total, leading to a new way of seeing, talking about and behaving in relation to the world, as well as a new way in which the world itself becomes related to us.

The effectiveness of the cultural paradigm is measureable in terms of its consequences for symbolic framing, and in terms of its effectiveness in the achievement of cultural gestalt in the relations and lives of its culture-bearers. It is the contention of this paper and this work that the implicit structural patterning and function of the underlying cultural paradigm which is based upon focal cultural models as indirect sanctions for belief and behavior, can be expressed in terms of which are propositionally explicit and lend themselves to naturalistic, scientific codification which are independent of the cultural expressions or codifications found within the context.

It is an outcome of this line of thought that this theory of human socio-cultural realities as natural systems theory of informational patterning is scientific because it is by definition and demonstration effectively independent of any particular socio-cultural context of interpretation, and hence can be considered non-ethnocentric and objectively unbiased, though it is equally amenable to virtually any different cultural orientation.

Symbolic framing is a term coined for a very basic perceptual and cognitive process of "filling in" the ambiguous gaps of a figure-ground relationship such that a "gestalt" configuration is achieved in the comprehension of an external stimuli. It is referred to as symbolic because it is held to be the fundamental neural mechanism underlying our capacity for symbolization and the construction of symbolic meaning in reality. A series of "symbolic frame tasks" were devised and administered in the course of an extensive ethnographic study with the intention of analyzing in greater detail the hypothetical process of symbolic framing and its variations in a number of different tasks.

It may be said at the outset that symbolic framing is a form of pattern recognition in which the achievement of a "gestalt" or comprehension of a unified configuration is tied to our capacity for processing and organizing the figure-frame or figure-ground or figure-field relationships both perceptually and conceptually. Reference to a phenomenal field as the ground of both perception and cognition refers to a basic neural unity of mental activations which are rooted in the base nervous sensory perception of the world, and works its way "up" to the level of abstract conceptualization and conscious rationalization.

In this regard, we cannot consider the abstract thought of some ideal notion to be fundamentally, in essence, any different or separate from the perception of, say an apple or the feeling of a slimy fish in our hands. We may speak then of a presupposed psychic-phenomenal unity of experience which states not that all of us sees things necessarily in the same way, but that the things we see tend to see also to be the things that we think. A mental disorder like schizophrenia may be the rudimentary dysunification of this relatively continuous field of psychic integration--such that perceptions and conceptions no longer stand in any necessary one-to-one correspondence or in homologous or even analogous relationship.

Behind this psychic-phenomenal unity of experience exists an innate predisposition of the mind to superimpose a sense of order, or, to put it another way, to prefer and select for a sense of "field coherence" such that there is continuity and consistency of experience. Perceptual constancy is but one fairly well studied aspect of this general mental tendency. This is a very basic proclivity of the mind, and occurs on a level which is automatic and usually, normally, well out of our conscious awareness. It may be argued that this predisposition is so fundamental to human mentation that it actually frees our conscious mind the problematics of attending to details to attend to more focal and adaptively significant tasks.

To a large extent, symbolic framing shares a very similar and, it is argued, derivative function of both smoothing the ripples of the phenomenal and psychic field, and of maintaining the coherence and unity of experience.

As it often happens, disruptions and disunities of experience frequently occur at many levels of our experience. These threaten and tend to undermine our sense of unity of experience--they result in confusion, disorientation, cognitive errors of mistaken identity, "tricks of the mind," and "cognitive dissonance" are the result of such states of "disrepair". Thus it largely becomes the psychological function of the mind in our recognition and relation to the field of experience to be able to "repair" in a sufficient manner these disruptions of our field in order that they do not pose a threat to our sense of order any longer, and a sense of unity and "gestalt" experience can be restored.

Cognitive repair occurs continuously on very unconscious and even in very fundamental perceptual ways. The famous blank spot in the corner of our field of vision at which the optic nerve connects to the inner surface of the eye, is almost always filled in by information from surrounding rod and cone cells such that a spot never comes to our awareness. The mind has a tremendous facility in filling in the gaps of the perceptual field such that we perceive as continuous what may in fact be discontinuous signals. The net effect is the generation of an illusion of "animated consciousness" or of a continuous stream of experience. The point by point focal awareness of our focal awareness or consciousness is another case in point--that fact that awareness is rarely if ever steadily focused, but continuously networks a configuration of focal points in our field of awareness, demonstrates that even at a higher level of consciousness our experience is rarely if ever a "steady state" though it appears so.

It is this proclivity and inherent organizational facility of the human mind that, it is the claim of this paper, constitutes the foundation of symbolic awareness as a distinctively human form of "mentation" and which underlies the constructive and productive processes of allow our systems of symbolic representation of reality. To dismiss this process as merely "pattern-recognition" misses the point of the complexity of the process as an innate patterning of both the brain and human mentation. It is a form of pattern-recognition which may be like the frog's visual recognition of a fly in motion or of a shadow--but it is a form of recognition with a difference as the frog instinctively responds to the fly's motion or the presence of a shadow, but the human must "think" about it, symbolize it, even name it, and then "decide" on a course of action, whether this is reflexive or not. In fact, human's cannot but help "think" about it even in the basic sense that much of the filling in of gaps of lower-order sensory fields may actually be accomplished at a "higher" level or from a higher level source. Thus, human brains are "thinking machines" in a very basic and fundamental ways, and have probably evolved as such--we are "thinking" all of the time--even when we are asleep or when we are dreaming, our brains our thinking. And the basic way that we think is by definition and function "symbolic."

In the process of elicitation of symbolic frame tasks, several patterns of response became quite evident:

1. Memory material stored deeply in the mind is frequently used for filling in the gaps of the phenomenal field in order to achieve a "gestalt."

2. Such memory material, itself symbolic, is often times "incorrect" or erroneous in that it does not "fit" the field.

3. Memory material seems to come from different, and probably "stratified" levels and these levels reflect the working of thoughts from perceptual substance to full blown abstract rationalizations. Memory material that comes deeply from the mind tends to be more abstractly symbolic than "surface" content. Thus the filling in of perceptual gaps may require only the material available from short-term memory--the color of the surrounding background of the object, for instance. If unavailable, or if the gaps are of a more complex sequential or arrangement pattern in a figure field relations, then the memory information may be drawn from a deeper source of a "working" or a medium term memory. Finally, if the gaps represent a basic figure-frame ambiguity or inherent thematic ambiguity of the figure itself, then memory information relied upon to disambiguate the figure-frame relation or to make thematic sense of the figure may be drawn more deeply from within the memory, drawing upon psychic content or material which may be more "symbolic" as well as rationalistic in the conventional sense.

4. It is evident that these processes of "psychic repair" of the phenomenal field are largely unconscious and, furthermore, compulsive. We cannot but help but do these things, because we are driving in a fundamental, perhaps "squamous" way to configure pattern and structure in our world.

5. The process of disruption and repair are fairly continuous background processes, and normally this can be considered a subconscious form of basic learning--it can be expected that the mind will come to habitually rely upon similar or the same memory materials that it successfully applied to previous similar contexts.

6. But there results a certain potential for negative or degenerative feedback such that greater disruption generates greater repair which generates a greater likelihood of "disrepair" or mistakes, which leads to greater disruption or the process of disrupted information as if it were normal. Uncorrected problems of vision or hearing, or problems of visual or auditory integration, may lead to deeper seated problems of cognitive disrepair--or the creation and filling in of gaps deeper within the processes of consciousness. I refer to this as basically psychically pathological processes of secondary disrepair.

7.It appears that there are within the mind basic forms which are good to "think" and which the mind uses to fill in and on which to construct more elaborated forms albeit in a stereotypical, analogous or simplified manner--there is a marked tendency to rely upon such basic forms at very early stages of the process of symbolic disambiguation.

8. Furthermore, it appears that with the deeper, more expressive, processes of symbolic repair, there are certain basic, "paradigmatically" alternate directions of stylization, as well as mixed, inbetween, hybrids, which such reconstructive repair can take, and these basic symbolic directions appear to be affectively and symbolically tied to the psycho-social identity of the self in relation to the other, as well as to the juxtapositioning of the "ideal" in relation to the "base" or "vulgar".

9. These tendencies appear to take on a pattern similar to that elucidated by Claude Levi-Strauss in the dialectical interplay and synthesis of opposites, and elicited forms of thematic rationalization can be referred to as forms of ego-defense mechanisms in the conceptual definition of the boundary and symbolic mediation between these dialectically contraposed symbolic forms. These structural patterns appear to be deeply rooted in the psyche and in a sense "pre-structure" our symbolic recognition and interpretation of the world. They are mostly unconscious processes which shape our conscious awareness.

10. At all levels, these forms of consciousness tend to take two or three basic modalities--a normal mode, a neurotic mode, and a psychically or organically disturbed mode which can be distinguished on the ability to achieve a clear gestalt or relative level of psychic integration of the figure-ground relationship, and by the noticeable absence or presence of latent processes of secondary psychic disrepair.

11. Furthermore, these forms of conscious process can also be said to be distinguished on the basis of their relative level organic articulation between internal and external realities and relative level of achieved symbolic differentiation and sophistication of elaborated forms. In this regard, there appears to be an "acquired" form of disordered characteriological "dependency" in gross relation to the environment which can be thought to be a kind of passive responsiveness to the environment versus an active participation with it. This form of phenomenal dependency upon the whole to frame the part can be considered as an overall and nearly exclusive over reliance on the external cues of the context of psychic perception, to the ignorance or inability to effectively separate or disambiguate as definitively distinct the object of focus from the framework

Symbolic framing procedures offer a productive new methodology. Not only are a wide variety of symbolic frame devices able to be designed and administered in a controlled and reliable manner, but different procedures allow for multiple or similar forms of analysis and representation of the response patterns which enable a systematic mapping of these patterns and an exploration of the symbolic spaces which they open up for us. Furthermore, symbolic framing methodology readily lends itself to the construction of alternative computer systems which allow for the complex modeling of socio-cultural patterning.

We may refer to the ability of the same symbolic framing devices to approach the analysis of symbolic framing in its several respects simultaneously:

First, it allows elicitation of knowledge, domains, terms and their relations which are indicative indirectly of the external patterning of information in the socio-cultural contexts, especially as such knowledge is a shared pattern.

Secondly, it allows the detailed analytical means of indirectly demonstrating the internal processes and patterning of the cognitive differentiation and affective dynamics of the phenomenal field, as well as the basic symbolic processes which allow the intermediation between internal and external worlds.

Third, they allow us a form of control over the process which enable us to situate the administration and pattern of response within the socio-cultural milieu which is a naturalistic context of their normal occurrence. We can then speak of experimentally manipulating the cultural context or of observationally analyzing it in order to more fully investigate the patterning of influence this may have upon symbolic framing.