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SEMANTIC ANALYSIS:

THE ROLE OF MENTALITY IN THE WORLD VIEW OUTLINED

BY THE HUMANITIES AND NATURAL SCIENCES

Introduction

 

The basic problem to be solved as part of the further described technology is to present an adequate concept or description of objects (phenomena) as done by the subject, applicable for further prediction of their quantitative and qualitative transformations in the interaction process, not only in the sphere of natural sciences, but humanities as well. We have given the approach the name "Semantic Analysis", because it realizes the sense interpretation of the world.

 

The essence of sense analysis is a complete/adequate representation of any type of object with the help of the natural  (for our mentality) way of world perception and description through a certain set of properties. Language (any sign system) is a universal description tool for all sciences. Since the object itself and its sign representation are abstract notions that don't depend on its nature, there must exist methods of analysis universal to all sciences, and the difference between natural sciences and humanities is nothing but imaginary. In both cases it is not the world, as it is, that science researches, but its mental representation – our concept of it. Different branches of science employ their own sign system and conceptual system for this task. Yet, in spite of the differences linked to specific historical and development context, all languages have a common basis and source: vital requirements, methods of orientation and interaction in the world determined by our membership in the "Homo sapiens" species.

 

Statements and axioms that lie at the basis of semantic space have their biological determination as evolution-generated mechanisms of individual adaptation to the environment. First of all, it is the structure of receptors and brain that provide us with a capability to link our sensations with current "organism-environment" interface on the psychological level as well as reflect the results of this interface on the inner mental map of the subject [2]. A mental map is actually a subjective world image that we construct on the basis of signals from our detectors - sensory organs, because its direct perception by the object is impossible. Sense representation of the world is basically also a sign-representation. However, unlike language, this sign system (first signal system) is a means of subjective world representation, and not a means of communication. The adequacy of the mental world view is determined by how well we are adapted to the environment and how capable we are of satisfying our needs. At present a human has far departed from his natural environment and existence conditions where his adaptation mechanisms to the environment had been forming as part of the evolution process. This inevitably causes definite problems and paradoxes in perception and description of these new conditions.

 

We proceed from the fact that the subject receives information on environment-interface  in the shape of different  sorts of sensations that he associates with quality, while intensity is to be associated with quantity. Genetically grounded mechanisms of adaptation to the environment allow an individual to detect stable relations between different sensations and to correlate them with object properties that have no specified receptor connections. The same mechanisms allow us to select sets of properties invariant of a certain class of transformations and refer them to objects on the mental map. The mentioned reference is going subconscious for the subject. All the above is also true for defining social objects and their characteristics.

 

Reflex mechanisms of the higher nervous activity are genetically "programmed" as a selection of gestalts or categories connected through a certain type of relations, out of the stream of sensations. These gestalts or categories are to be correlated with objects on the mental map. Selection of properties, gestalts and objects works in the direction of requirements most vital for the human survival (initially - biological, since they are the ones to be genetically associated with unconditioned reflexes).

 

Similarity in classes of requirements, mechanisms of environment adaptation and existence conditions creates basic prerequisites for genetic similarity in mental maps and opportunities for inter-species communication that received maximal development in a human and precipitated the second signal system, that is, the language. The need for communication initially stimulated by the instinct of generic and specific preservation, the necessity to transmit sense information and coordinate common activities, leads to an even greater mental similarity in native speakers of the same language. Thus, unification of mental maps takes place not solely at the expense of genetic or territorial, but also linguistic and, further, cultural and economic factors. However, these factors effect in specific differences in the context of concrete communities.

 

The uniqueness of unification of socially determined components of mental maps of different communities determines mentality ("Mentalitat").

 

To get an adequate understanding and effective predictions of individual or social behavior under given conditions, it is necessary as a minimum, to construct a fragment of the mental map that would meet those conditions. Map "marking" should definitely start with pointing out the basic properties that are used by a given mentality for describing these conditions and a definition of relevant scales, for subsequent testing. This is the level of studying the object meaning of phenomena that should be differentiated from the subsequent sense-level based on the context.

 

Emergence of the language exerted a global influence on our method of reflecting environment and adapting to it. The left brain hemisphere became dominant, and it realizes the consequent, analytical approach to the world description. This largely determined the type and history of our civilization. Brain (the left hemisphere, normally connected with language) apparatus of information-processing are such as to allow our mind to consequently represent perception acts [4]. This results in the fact that an object can be described on a subject's mental map in mutually exclusive terms of "additional properties". The controversy is eased by the fact that they can not be observed at the same time, because they are included in the description of different states realized under mutually exclusive conditions. In fact, properties are specific markers, with the help of which the subject "marks" his mental map and describes the world.

 

Thus, Semantic Analysis studies the following problems: the way the subject describes the world and models it on the mental level as a structured and regulated unit; the essence of  subject's cognition units, and the way these semantic components define the subject himself and his interaction with the world.

 

Semantic Analysis makes it possible to trace the genesis of our world's conceptual development, naturally connecting it with the evolutionary process.

 

First of all, we should answer the question of why the subject would want to create this psychocosmos at all? Perhaps, the impetus here is a need for compensation of essential types of resources, which is to be understood in terms of relevant requirements. There can be more or less detailed classifications of requirements that always relate to the resource needed. The very notion of "need" contains two independent sense components: necessity of something and experiencing a deficit in the negative emotions, while reaching a resource is experienced in positive emotions. The first component reflects only the logical relationship and indicates the resource; the second one induces the subject to the search and attainment. It is important that the subject is induced from the outside and not from the inside. There are definite genetic subprograms "tested" by evolution, which stimulate generation of a drug in an organism - those drugs being endogenic morphines (endorphines). They encourage the subject to a certain type of behavior. A distinction should also be made between the notions of "subject" and "organism": organism is only one of conditions necessary for the subject's existence. Thus, in spite of the relative freedom granted to the man by nature, compared to the animal world, the basic part of his activity is predetermined by the evolution, its direction, to be precise. That means that one should not look for the true sense of requirement in the subject, but in the content of the evolutionary process that created him.

 

Requirement for essential resources presupposes availability of tools in the subject, essential for their attainment. So, the greatest role in Semantic Analysis is played by the means of orientation in the world, their absence resulting in failure to realize a requirement. On the level of organs, they are correlated with the sensory organs, while on the subjective level - with sensations. Sensations are divided into modalities or classes. Every type of modality can fall into separate components to be associated with the world characteristics. A sensation is a "marker" or an identifier of a certain quality of the world that is behind the irritation process and correlated to a stimulus. Besides that, the quantitative side of quality is also reflected in sensations - its intensity or expressivity.

 

We proceed from the fact that the subject has nothing but sensations, and there is no way to find out what lies beyond the sensations. From the point of view of Semantic Analysis, it is worthless to argue on the point of what is beyond sensations, when the main thing is to be able to orient oneself properly in the world in search of necessary resources. Thus, reality is given to us in subjective sensations reflecting some properties of the outside world. Objectivity of reality is manifested in the efficiency, with which we can satisfy our requirements according to the model (semantic map) of the world that we have managed to construct on the basis of our sensations in the adaptation process. Complications in living conditions and development of requirements inevitably results in selecting new secondary properties more complex in terms of semantics and essential for world description and orientation therein.

 

We interpret stable combinations of properties obtained from interaction with reality as objects. From the semantic point of view, objects are no more than a convenient way of describing steadily repeating "sensory complexes" in a semantic space under certain conditions. From the formal perspective, an object is a factor that links properties in a certain manner, and an object would "disappear" (alter), the determining conditions having disappeared. Thus any object can be represented as a point (area) of semantic space where each measurement reflects an independent property.

 

Basic requirements (instincts) are satisfied by the subject with the use of both the internal and external means (objects). Objects in the language are designated by words, which are, on the one hand, labels of stable sensation complexes - "prey to the sensory organs", and on the other hand, they are sense units of the mental map as the result of the subject's adaptation to the world. The fact that objects are "immersed into semantic space" can be easily proved for only a single reason that we correlated them according to the degree of sense "proximity- distance".

 

The use of label-words for signifying objects by all means facilitates communication process, if they possess a status of universally accepted concepts and have correlates among the definite "lexical coordinates". If they are still missing in our world model, they have to be defined through a set of properties or correlated with others. In this case we have to explicitly point at significant properties of an object and their relative expression.

 

 

Any object can be characterized in the language through a certain set of qualitative markers that possess quantitative characteristics of their intensity: . The object can be represented as a vector in a certain - dimensional space of characteristics. The estimation scale for each property can be assigned by a segment of a straight line with the marked ends and a neutral point marker.

 

Thus, an object can be formally described as a certain vector or direction, onto which a number of property vectors are projected. We consider the presence of limit points or "ideals" on this scale the matter of great importance, because that makes it finite, and, as we will further demonstrate – non-linear at a closer approach. A different scale setting makes a mental map infinite ("boundless", "immense") and practically inapplicable for integral world description. The presence of finite concepts in our language that correspond to the ideals, is a proof to that. Moreover, any concept must directly or indirectly be associated with ideals and is practically being formed as a certain idealization of reality, from the very start. Such an idea has its genetic prerequisites: to realize his activity in a focused and efficient way, an individual must coordinate it as to reach a certain goal - an ideal that possesses a mental representation.

 

Ideals are limited, because we are living in the limited world, limited time, and all our sensory organs are limited in terms of irritation intensity. The notions of "infinity" "boundlessness" are outlaws in our language, and they are inherently controversial, because any term is limited. "Termin" is the name of the ancient god of boundaries, whose idol was placed at land borders. A term is a sign of something, while an essential trait of a sign system is selection and division (i.e., drawing a boundary, demarcation line). The presence of boundaries is one of the basic conditions for the subject's existence, in difference to the object and such a notion as "interaction".

 

Thus a model is a finite perfection of a given property, unlike boundlessness, which is a quantitative infinity of its intensity or unbounded accuracy of the quantitative definition..

 

A zero or middle mark on the scale defines the most probable or "conventional" intensity value for a given characteristic in a given population, whereas a conventional monotonous irritator stops causing the orientation reaction in an organism, and it can not be perceived on the conscious level.

 

The property space defined above needs sufficient improvement to become semantic, since it does not provide an adequate/complete object descriptions for the study of their interaction. It does not contain a very important characteristic of any property in terms of "dynamism-inertness" or "flexibility-rigidity".

 

Thus, a necessary component of any property is its characteristic in terms of dynamism, which means, a degree of inertness (rigidity) to influences aimed at changing an object. Without them it is impossible to give a complete description of interacting objects. A similar case can be discovered in physics, where the description of physical interaction is impossible without an inertness (mass) index of such a characteristic as "speed".

 

The technology described was initially elaborated for the application in mentality research in the field of psychosemantics, and it was employed in the selection of independent sense components that determine the process of a subject  (or group) perception with the further modeling of psychological estimation mechanisms for social environment. In the application process we discovered that a number of correlations obtained with Semantic Analysis totally repeat some laws of physics. Since all the sciences use a universal categorial method of description and mental representation of the world, any science should possess common laws related to the ways the subject perceives and mentally processes reality, besides specific laws related to concrete phenomena studied by a specific science. We are interested in the problem of how our mentality as a way of portraying the world, affects our knowledge of it. Are there any common non-specific rules of any science related to the "topology" of our mental map, that only spring out of specifics of world-conceptualization?

 

Before all, we are interested in the semantic analysis of social phenomena, but, unfortunately, there is no complete semantic description in sociological theories, and it is impossible to theoretically test further elaboration of sociological data. Nevertheless, since a formal object description in the further described semantic space does not depend on its nature, we can apply it to simple physical objects as a testing procedure. This is by no means "physical reductionism". It is just that a method of mapping outside reality onto the mental map is universal, and it does not  change, depending on the nature of object and properties used for its description. This is no more than a sign abstraction. For us physical correlations are, primarily, a suitable opportunity for theoretical testing of the adequacy of the method, because only in physics could we find the most extended and complete property, gestalt, and object description. Unless a semantic description of a physical object leads to controversies on the level of physical laws, this can serve a theoretical proof to the adequacy of such a description, applicable to any types of objects. That is the only reason why some theoretical conclusions of this part will be accompanied with physical illustrations, but this in no way is connected to any restrictions in applying the method to other scientific fields, whether natural sciences or the humanities.

 

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