Multisense Realism

Chalmeroff Scale Conjectures

Unity of variables: Degree of figurativeness in qualia equates to privacy of qualia.

1. Subjects necessarily have access to more qualia which applies to their autobiographical experience than qualia which refers to external, publicly accessible experience.
2. It is proposed that the more strictly personal a quale is, the greater the set of interconnected psychological associations that exists for the individual and the richer and more imaginative those associations can be.
3. Mathematically, the more personal an experience is to us, the more ways we can shift its meaning, making qualitative floridity and associative fluidity directly proportional to privacy.

Correlation of figurative phenomenology with signal intensity:

Biological experiences such as satiation of hunger, sexual release, bladder/bowel containment and nausea, are inarguably marked by a stimulation-excitement-climax-refractory period sequence. This pattern seems simple , and is commonly expressed quantitatively in graphs such as these:

In each of these cases; hunger, sex, excretion, nausea, It is proposed that the amplitude of intensity of affect corresponds with an increase of floridity, fluidity, and privacy of qualia. Feeling is not merely intensified along a one dimensional axis of signal augmentation, but it seems that feelings which build and climax tend to build narrative exaggeration along at the same time, to the point that divinity or vulgarity is stereotypically invoked.

The elevation of affect is experienced increasingly as attraction to a super-signifying apotheosis – presentations of superlative or hyper-aesthetic figures which re-present a relief of the desire in question on the literal level. Our wants and needs are mythologized as archetypal content when gratification is delayed. Our emotions are increasingly accompanied by tantalizing stories we are compelled to tell ourselves in the moment which consume our attention with expectation of satisfaction.

The idea of delaying gratification to amplify appetite for and therefore satisfaction of pleasure is culturally and psychologically ubiquitous. From Tantric yoga to strip tease, appetizers and hyper-aesthetic description writing in menus, musical preludes and introductions, building of suspense in stories, etc the role of temporal extension in all qualitative facets of consciousness is central. The centrality of time rather than space in heightening aesthetic or affect-effect (sense-motive) charge is important to understand the contrasting relation between the private nature of time and the public nature of space.

Prolonging the time for appetite to build makes sense, also in consideration after climax, desire plummets or gradually tapers off. As this happens, our awareness returns from drama filled timeless* states to one of a pedestrian sense of the world (i.e. public spaces/ literal ‘place’), dominated by ordinary literal facts rather than tantalizing images. Counterfactuals to this pattern seem hard to come by. The idea of an experience of climax itself cannot be separated from significance, as deviation from the norm is inherent in the definition of climax. Can you have a condition of climax which is also the norm?

Suggested conclusion: Imagination or plasticity of figurative association may be ontologically bound to both privacy and signal intensity. Within this simple, yet unnoticed commonality can be found the roots of myth and drama. The hero personifies the solitary superlative; a psychopomp who guides the audience through a poetic journey towards a climax, followed by a happy ever after endind that often produces a practical take-away. Call it the Wizard of Oz effect. Whether we see the point of the story as just a lot of colorful fantasy fluff to help us remember that ‘there’s no place like home’ or that the story itself is the point depends on whether we personally favor subjective meaning or objective fact as the more privileged authority

If we consider that consciousness in general can be considered an aggregate of sense-motives, it makes sense that fatigue culminates in involuntary drifting of attention, hypnagogic imagery, and delusional states if prolonged. Dreams themselves are appropriate in sleep as the maximally figurative private detachment from the place where the body literally resides and waking from sleep represents a return to public, literal sensibilities. It is difficult to think of a reason for the metaphorical nature of dreams in terms of evolutionary biology. The understanding of how sense-motive significance builds into intensified private narrative can help bridge the gap between neurological circuits and perceptual realism.

On the outermost cycle of human experience, the human lifetime is marked typically by a reversal of this pattern. ‘Growing up’ is nearly synonymous with a tapering or rapid falling off of subjective ideation to be replaced by adult senses and motives of relating to practical circumstance in the world of the body. Childhood is understood to be a time of solipsistic fantasy, high sensitivity, high kinetic activity; like dreams or desires, childhood seems to hint at paradoxical reconciliation of fleeting time and timeless eternity.  Old age in some ways mirrors this progress with retreat into the self.

*Subjective experience of time during peak stimulation seems to push toward the paradoxical: an instant that feels like eternity