Multisense Realism

Syzygy Integral

Syzygy Integral with labels

When applying the syzygy integral to a sense modality such as vision, the Δæ would refer to the difference in the microphenomenal qualities, such as pixel hue, saturation, value, or contrast/edge detection, etc.. the entire palette of what I would call entopic or generic visual encounters. As shown in optical illusions, these elemental graphic features depend on their surrounding context, and two pixels or shaded regions which are measured to be optically identical can be perceived quite differently.

For this reason and others, I suggest that the fundamental nature of all phenomena is only definable in terms of specific properties, but of a pseudo-specific quorum of detectable differences. It looks like a lighter grey on the bottom because of the adjacent contrasts, and it is my conjecture that this kind of pseudo-specificity is at the heart of all measurements, particularly those which we have used to define subatomic particles.

On the top of the integral, the ∇Æ would refer to an entirely different, top-down mode of visual perception. Instead of a delta (Δ) to stand for a the difference of generic micro-phenomenal qualia, the nabla symbol (∇) is used to stand for a divergence from a larger perceptual context. This relates to the binding problem, i.e., when we see two dogs walk behind the same fence, we do not perceive them as becoming the same dog – the narrative continuity does for our overall understanding what the ‘illusory’ plasticity does on a microphenomenal level. To see the ) as a smile in the emoticon  : – )  requires both a low level fudging of pixels into a curve, as well as the ability for our expectation of a face to be projected from the top down. The emoticon is a minimalist example, but a better example would be something like this:

Terms like pareidolia, apophenia, simulacra, and eidetic hallucination all have in common this potential to misread a more proprietary, macrophenomenal text on top of a relatively generic, microphenomenal context.

What the syzygy integral is supposed to model is that any given sense modality is a special kind of integration between top-down or holotrophic orientation and bottom up, entropic orientation. In the case of visual sense, the top-down images are encountered like those in an Rorschach inkblot, as endless wells of imaginative psychosexual association. The personal range of the psyche is here encountering influences from the super-personal range of the overall presence of this moment in relation to their lives, and their lives in relation to eternity.

The bottom-up ‘entopic’ confabulation (entopic hallucinations are those which are geometric designs, etc as opposed to eidetic hallucinations which are images such as specific faces) is where the personal psyche encounters the sub-personal influence of neurological, biological, and chemical events as it impinges on them visually. An entopic hallucination presumably maps much more directly to neurochemical patterns in the visual cortex, whereas the eidetic, storytelling hallucinations would be much more obscure and proprietary. A hallucination of Darth Vader or Dick Cheney might be hard to tell apart from looking at an fMRI, but it should not be so difficult to get a fix on zig zag patterns vs concentric circles, etc.

The syzygy integral of vision then would be this continuum between the sub-phenomenal adhesive that holds the graphic canvas together and the cohesive that renders the meta-phenomenal meanings and figures phenomenally visible. It’s not an ordinary integral, since it has an encircled triple bar in the center, which denotes a participatory intent (motive effect), and an aesthetic contour (sense affect). The term syzygy, an old favorite of mine (its a real word), refers to a union of opposites, either figuratively as in yin-yang, or literally as in an solar eclipse where the Moon is opposite to the Sun behind the Earth.

In the syzygy integral for vision, the vast sweep of possible interpretations from the meta to the micro level is interrupted by the inflection point of the moment as it is localized from eternity (the absolute). That which is seen had been both filtered from above and built up from below, but the visual encounter is defined even in opposition to that. The seeing is not the seen. All visual forms are opposed to an equally rich continuum of possible ways to appreciate those forms and images. The syzygy integral is not just a map of what there is ‘there and then’ but the entire domain of what each and every there and then still means ‘here and now’.

As the syzygy integral can be used to describe vision (vision  = the participatory integration of graphic differences and imaginative likeness) or sound (sound = the participatory integration of phonic differences and psychoacoustic likeness), so too should it be able to describe the character of all phenomena. The underlying formula (Grand syzygy ingegral) uses the * asterisk and # pound to denote the limit of infinite figurative unity and the limit of literal, finite granularity respectively. In this case, the encircled triple bar refers to the Primoridal Identity Pansensitivity, from which all other syzygies are diffracted.

Grand Syzygy Integral

The syzygy integral without the contour circle I am calling the information integral.

Information Integral

Unlike the syzygy integral, which defines every piece of information as an aesthetic encounter or re-acquaintance, the information integral refers only to the skeletal functionality of sense. Locally we may experience novel encounters or acquaintances, but some would argue that all experiences can only be re-acquaintances from the absolute perspective. I think that it may make the most sense to think of even that either-or condition as just another superimposed quality of the absolute. Awareness is infinitely novel, infinitely repeating, and paradoxically non-paradoxical. It is only the disorientation of locality which provides orientation.

The information integral strips away all of the mystical trappings – the supertext and subtext contours, and refers instead to the conventional concepts of information theory. Here, the triple bar is still a participant and intentional arbiter of interpretation between signal and noise, but without the aesthetic complication. This is the standard view of information processing as a functional exercise, only with the additional acknowledgement of a core superposition of telic intention and ontic unintention, absolute improbability and immaculate reliability.