Pooh’s Think

(pictures above are just to be pretty and illuminate what simplified N400 results look like; they are not representative of my experimental work or Perichoresis)

Abstract:  A theory of ‘Perichoresis’ is coined in order to hypothesize the kind of mechanism necessary for a number of our highly productive semantic abilities, such as frame shifting, novel metaphor comprehension, and what is called here ‘deep cognition’.  On a first approximation, Perichoretic mechanisms provide the efficiency necessary for physically realizing the structure and dynamics cued by conventional language as modeled by Fauconnier’s Mental Space theory (1985). On one interpretation of the literature, Perichoretic mechanisms non-redundantly project structure from one Mental Space to another in terms of dynamic mappings captured by traditional principles of ‘presuppositional float.’ Projection is given more specific explanation in this article through analogy to Daniel Dennett’s (1991) discussion on ‘filling in’ and Seana Coulson’s (2006) explicit analogy between Mental Space theory and the various forms of interpolation within the human vision system. The theory of Perichoresis is further expanded through a consideration of ERP N400 component effects (Coulson, 2007) that are produced by nonconventional language, in particular:  novel linguistic metaphor and joke punch lines assumed to cue frame-shifting (Coulson, 2001). Perichoretic mechanisms are tentatively described as the opening of mapping pathways that are ‘deep’, both anatomically and semantically, and they are hypothesized to provide a multi-directional bridge between lexical integration and subsequent elaboration. Perichoresis is also developed to handle conventional language assumed to cue ‘deep cognition’, as in the case of simulation (Bergen, 2007). Perichoretic mechanisms should therefore provide the kind of productive semantic accomplishment common to metaphor, frame-shifting, and conventional deep cognition.  The efficiency of perichoretic mechanisms is explained in terms of their primitive nature, which in turn is explained by the principle of embodied experience grounding semantics. Rather than primarily indexing the ‘difficulty’ of lexical integration, the N400 component is reinterpreted as indexing – in part – primitive processes that yield greater semantic accomplishment per processing cost, in contrast to less productive ‘thin cognition’.

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Note on the etymology of ‘Perichoresis’:

Perichoresis is a theological term addressing the nature of the Trinity of historic Christian orthodoxy. The term originated in patristic literature and grew to reference the mutual interpenetration or indwelling between each person of the Godhead. In recent years, this doctrine has been reemployed to emphasize the dynamic and relational nature of the orthodox God, counterpoised to the static, impersonal definitions of scholastics, often involving what is analogous ‘feed-forward’ information processes (Coulson, 2006).  The sort of mechanism proposed through use of ‘Perichoresis’ is intended to engage with tradition within philosophy and cognitive science in a similar way.

Posted by metzler on Saturday, February 6, 2010, at 12:16 pm.
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