Reversal of Oscillation in Experience-PH4

The oscillation here seems to relate to the quality of the experience, or perhaps the boundaries of the experience. Is the experience fuzzy, diffuse or weakly located? Or is it distinct, sharp and focused? Perhaps there is an issue of triggering of the experience: is it from the outside, and activated by something external to the self? Or is the experience determined within the mind i.e. internally?

This polarization is captured here as:
fuzzy(ODD) v distinct (EVEN).

Sensation-L1

Sensations-L1 are naturally fuzzy because they are typically experienced as occurring along a continuum. Where does green end and blue begin? What exactly is loud? How much pressure is painful? Sensations are externally triggered, and that includes something like stomach ache which is not viewed as coming from the mind.

However:  It is possible for a sensation to be made distinct and focused when the stimulus serves as an intervention in the situation. The essential requirement is the capturing of attention regardless of variations in personal sensitivity.

Example:

If an advertiser wants to get consumers aware of a particular brand, it may choose to use (among other things) a particular shade of green in a logo shape. Posters for billboards will be designed with that specific green logo. Television adds will use both the green and the logo shape in a dynamic way. This repeated exposure represents an intervention in the social activities of the prospects.

Conversion: A sensation is made distinct in order to focus attention and it then becomes an intervention-L5 in a particular situation, and this lies within Action-PH1.

Image-L2

Images-L2 are naturally experienced as distinct, because visualization is about defining a specific shape or a particular object for some purpose. Images are internally created.

However:  An image may be experienced as fuzzy for various reasons. There may have been a short exposure to an unfamiliar object being visualized, or tiredness and distraction, or the effects of medication. The image then becomes just a sense of something that must be intuited to be grasped.

Example:

Dream images may be extremely precise during the dream, but sometimes they are frustratingly vague and indistinct the next morning when you try to recall them. The dream may still be reconstructed by intuiting what the image might have been and what it signified.

Sometimes advertisers use vague or blurred images to involve users more by forcing an intuitive engagement to make sense of what they are seeing.

Conversion: A fuzzy image generates intuition-L5, so it remains in the realm of Experience-PH4.

Emotion-L3

Emotion-L3 are naturally fuzzy probably because, like sensations-L1, they are physiological phenomena. Emotions act as signals and are triggered by particular situations.

However:  In order to use an emotion deliberately, it must be made distinct given a focus. and that can be achieved by focusing on specific community-related values that touch on a person's needs.

Example:

Political propaganda seeks to activate well-defined and targeted emotions, like love-for-a-leader, fear-of-illness, anger-at-terrorists, hatred-of-taxation, pride in education. This is done by evoking values like security, health, peace, liberty, the need for education.

Conversion: An emotion that expresses a social value-L5 becomes distinct and focused, and moves to the realm of Purpose-PH6.

Idea-L4

Ideas-L4 are naturally distinct because they are used to enable clear thinking and to support communication. As long as the experience is your idea, not someone else's, you want a sharp focus to know it and to hold it in mind.

However:  An idea may be kept fuzzy or even developed to be vague or indeterminate so as to avoid a clash with other ideas and valued beliefs. However, there is an immediate risk in holding such an idea because it is uncertain where it might lead you, and how others might respond. The result can be confusion and you may be exposed to criticism for woolly thinking.

Example:

If you are dissatisfied with your home country but frightened of alien cultures, then the idea of "relocating abroad" may be tolerated in consciousness by keeping it vague and fuzzy. The willingness to keep thinking about it generates the risk that it may lead you to pursue the idea.

Buzzwords, found in management jargon, are ideas that are fashionable and used to impress. Not to use them is to demonstrate being out of touch with current thinking, while using them can mean getting confused and mocked. The issue for a manager is whether to risk using a term despite the woolliness of the idea.

Conversion: Keeping an idea fuzzy generates risk-L5 which is a manifestation of Willingness-PH7.

Intuition-L5

Intuitions-L5 are naturally fuzzy because they represent a general sense of the situation that triggers them. Intuitions draw on past experience and develop via a web of associations.

However:  If the intuition is focused and sharpened so that it becomes distinct, then it lends itself to an investigation of the relationships that it specifies.

Example:

In applying for a job, you may get the intuition that it is not right for you. If you refuse to just walk away, and sharpen up that intuition, then you convert it to an account of the relationships between the various elements of the job: the high salary, the vagueness of the work priorities, the recent history of the firm, and so on. These relations may invite further investigation.

Scientific intuition is based on long experience, and it often commences as a hunch that something in the findings has more significance than expected within the experimental protocol. However, to take this further, it is necessary to turn that intuition into a relationship that can be tested.

Conversion: A sharpened intuition is a focused statement of relations-L5 as part of Inquiry-PH2.

Identification-L6

Identifications-L6 are naturally distinct, because they are serving as a model for personal development, learning or identity change. Identifying is an internal process based on selecting some object for a particular personal reason. (Identification can also occur spontaneously, but that is not a manifestation of will.)

However:  Any given identification can be made fuzzy by incorporating incompatible experiences or alien activities into that area of functioning. Inner conflicts naturally emerge and the person will need to adapt themselves to stay on course.

Example:

Academics succeed through a strong identification with a particular discipline. Challenging disciplinary assumptions and accepting theories and ideas from outside the borders of the discipline, makes this identification fuzzy. Other members of the discipline will criticize, reject or even refuse to read contributions of such a person and will perceive them as not a 'proper' member. To survive, adaptation is necessary.

A Thai or Japanese or Arab person may spend a long time in the West and, from a position of pride and superiority, start to see the benefits of certain Western values. This will render the original cultural identity fuzzy, and the form of their personality will be hard to precisely define. There will be a need to adapt family life and adapt within the home society.

Conversion: To render an identification fuzzy leads to adaptation-L5 in the realm of Change-PH3.

Imagination-L7

Imagination-L7 is naturally diffuse, and activated by events, information or situations. Imagination is not dependent on personal history and so it can generate counter-intuitive possibilities.

However:  The imagination can only be communicated if it is focused and made to be distinct by choosing and using suitably evocative terms.

Example:

An imagination of what "hell" is like is naturally vague because no-one can really know. However, by using specific terms—fire and brimstone, torments, endless punishment, anguish, gnashing teeth—hell comes alive. Dante provided far more detailed descriptions in the Inferno section of The Divine Comedy.

Conversion: Imagination when focused generates specific terms-L5 and that makes it a phenomenon of Communication-PH5.

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Summary of the Results of Forcing a Reversal

L	Name	Oscillation	Conversion on Forcible Reversal
			New Element	Primary Hierarchy
7	Imagination	Fuzzy & External	→ terms-L5	in PH5-Communication
6	Identification	Distinct & Internal	→ adaptation-L5	in PH3-Change
5	Intuition	Fuzzy & External	→ relation-L5	in PH2-Inquiry
4	Idea	Distinct & Internal	→ risking-L5	in PH7-Willingness
3	Emotion	Fuzzy & External	→ social value-L5	in PH6-Purpose
2	Image	Distinct & Internal	→ intuition-L5	in PH4-Experience
1	Sensation	Fuzzy & External	→ intervention-L5	in PH1-Action

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• Now consider Communication-PH5 in the same way.

Last Amended:  22-Jul-2013