An example blend
How do we really understand ideas? How do we make sense of things beyond the purely concrete? Like time, or jokes, or freedom, or software? That’s my question.
And I think at least part of the answer is as conceptual blends. Not my idea – it comes largely from Gilles Fauconnier. Let me outline one of his examples.
The idea of a ‘computer virus’. An irritating idea, but also creative and imaginative.
Blends have (usually) 2 input spaces. In this case, one is a computer program. This space has several ’slots’
Made by a human (programmer)
Useful
Needs computer hardware to run on
The other input space is a biological virus
Made by evolution
Harmful
Needs host living cell
Reproduces
Then we do a selective projection of these slots. In other words, we pick some from one input and some from the other. This is very precise – its not a blend as in food blender – we don’t get mush. In the output space we have
Made by a programmer
Harmful
Needs host hardware
Reproduces
And there you have a new idea.
But this is not at a conscious explicit level – the first people to write viruses did not work it out like this, in the sense that they were aware of what they were doing in this way. The hypothesis is that the human central nervous system holds, uses and transforms concepts in a way somehow related to the process described here.
Hi Walter,
I like the new layout, much easier to read. Have you ever read Jakob Nielsen’s article “Top Ten Mistakes in Web Design” http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9605.html I particularly like no. 8.
The example you give on mixing and matching ideas to create new idea reminds me a great deal of the I-Ching (Wilhelm and Baynes translation, foreword by Carl Jung, is my preferred translation). Early on it says something along the lines of “all new states and ideas are created by the combination of existing ideas” (represented by trigrams). Obviously I’m paraphrasing here, but I like the analogy.
Hope your well, perhaps we can catch up soon.
Wayne