FREQUENCY MODULATION


Fuller writes in Synergetics 2: 1052.68:

"The physical Universe is an aggregate of frequencies. Each chemical element is uniquely identifiable in the electromagnetic spectrum by its special set of unique frequencies. These frequency sets interact to produce more complexly unique cycle frequencies, which are unheard by human ear but which resonate just as do humanly hearable musical chords or dissonances. Thus occurs a great cosmic orchestration, ranging from the microcosmic nuclear isotropicity - directly undetectable by the human senses - through the minuscule range detectable by humans, to the very complex, macrocosmic, supra-to-human-tunability symphonies of multiaggregates of isotropically interpositioned galaxies."

The question of the nature of the receiving matrix for mappings can be reciprocally related to parts of synergetics. In a highly speculative and abstract section (Synergetics 426.47), Fuller suggests that the fundamental organization of brain structure consists in isotropic vector matrix fields .

See Geometry Of Thinking.

We may now broach the question of the interaction of different matrices and of the Moire phenomenon, which is exemplified by beats in musical tuning or, visually, by the shifting patterns seen in overlapping lace.

It has been suggested, by Cyril Stanley Smith and by Bateson (1979), that this phenomenon explains aesthetic perception. A Moire pattern may be formed by the "overlay" of a newly sensed pattern and a pre-existing pattern in the brain.

Some clarification must be attempted here. Bateson invokes mapping in this case, but does not integrate this new issue with the general case of cognitive mapping:

"In terms of the definition of 'explanation' proposed... we shall say that the formal mathematics or 'logic' of moire may provide an appropriate tautology onto which... aesthetic phenomena could be mapped."

Although we may be able to see how sensory information might be mapped onto a matrix in the brain, and that abduction would involve mapping apparently unrelated data onto the same matrix, in this case we seem to be dealing with the inter-relating of matrices themselves, and not, for instance, mapping data from one matrix to another. Perhaps the way this could be construed is that different matrices could be superimposed by projecting them onto a more basic, general matrix: the isotropic vector matrix of synergetics?

Now we can approach Fuller's notion of thinking as frequency modulation, and his notion of the omni-directional halo. In the passage on Moire, Bateson writes:

"Poetry, dance, music and other rhythmic phenomena are certainly very archaic and probably more ancient than prose. It is, moreover, characteristic of the archaic behaviours and perceptions that rhythm is continually modulated; that is, the poetry or music contains materials that could be processed by superposing comparison by any receiving organism with a few seconds of memory."

See Dewey's description of aesthetic experience in terms of rhythms.



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© Paul Taylor 2001