[8.1.2]

The Hexagram of Sudden Memory. Consider the following downward series of semantic units and their usage in a sample illustration. We refer to such semantic structures by the label hexagram to indicate that it is a whole made up of two parts separated by a double line boundary and ordered in a vertical series. The rationale and structure of the hexagrammatic system are elaborated further in

the Appendix and in a number of places in this Workbook (see Index). Here, we wish to show its use or applicability in methodology.

Let us stipulate that this particular hexagram, called "The Hexagram of Sudden Memory," is a hypothesis about the structure of the units that make up sudden memory just as in the case of short-term memory, we stipulate discrete units underlying the natural flow of actions and events. Having stipulated this, we can now derive from it, a theory about what it is in the mind, since it is not in behavior. Assume therefore that sudden memory is a parameter of the mind and that it has the characteristics given by the above hexagram; these are as follows:

(i) every unit of mind (or gene of intellect) is a hexagram made up of two trigrams;

(ii) in this molecule, the upper trigrarn has three features in descending order; these are: IMPRESSIONS, INTERPRETATIONS, AWARENESS;

(iii) the upper trigram can be represented in behavior as the temporal verbal report: "First you get impressions, then you interpret them, and finally you become aware that you have them."

(iv) the lower trigram can be represented in behavior through the following assertion: "When you start, at first you kind of feel self-conscious but afterwards you sort of get used to it with practice, and then you kind of do it unselfconsciously . Eventually it becomes a routine and you're doing it fully consciously."

(v) the double line separates topical from pre-topical such that the upper sequence is pre-topical while the lower is topical; this can be represented behaviorally by the following verbal argument: "The SOCIO-cultural environment creates two zones: pre-topical and topical. Pre-topical belongs to all societies whether non-verbal, as ant colonies, or verbal, as human communities. But topical belongs only to verbal societies. As a result, impressions, interpretations, and awareness are societal features, not individual, hence ants may be, as a group manifesting the phenomena of impressions, or awareness, but not individually. However, ants are not conscious since they fail to exhibit topical phenomena."

Having assumed the above, let us now explore the consequences. First, it is provocative to say that ants are aware and make interpretations of their impressions, though given the new sociobiology (Wilson, 1976), the idea is no longer disrespectable! The oddity of the assertion disappears when "pre-topical', is seen as its frame, i. e., the awareness of the ants is not of a topical nature, as ours obviously is, given human language; thus we, are led to investigate the nature of a pre-topical element just as genes provide clues to the behavior of a species or, molecular transactions give clues to atomic structure. The hexagram we are investigating proposes that the phenomenon of consciousness is the sixth element in a descending series of which the upper three are pre-topical, i.e., characteristic of pre-literate and non-verbal societies or stages of development (ontology). This leads to the provocative assertion that awareness is pre-topical in the ontology of mind.

In behavior, ontogyny recapitulates phylogeny; in mind, synchrony recapitulates diachrony. The first assertion establishes the relationship between individual behavior and the inherited gene pool of the species; it gives the biological component to psychology. The second assertion --that synchrony recapitulates diachrony --establishes the relationship between personal experience and the socio-cultural environment; it gives the experiential component of psychology . Now we ask: Is this experiential component as real and amenable to scientific investigation as the biological component? We propose an affirmative solution though it will require a suitable methodology, suitable for the investigation of phenomena that are non-temporal, viz., synchronous. The hexagram.matic approach is the original methodology of synchronic synthesis devised by the first civilizations to invent literacy, i.e., the community practice of publishing knowledge and indexing text. This led to books, manuals, archives, official records (see Section [5. 2. 3] in Chapter 5). This method survives today in the form of the treatise called the "I Ching" and attributed to Confucius and earlier scholars of the Chinese Dynasties (circa 1100 B.C.). The I Ching is a unified theory of social settings and presents an exhaustive system of 64 situational hexagrams corresponding to the modalities of conduc t on the daily round (see Section [6.3.1] in Chapter 6).

Ethnosemantic methodology (ESM, for short) requires a special register just as statistics and experimental methodology involve specialized registers, i.e., vocabulary, syntax, mathematical operations abstract conceptions, formalized argument procedures, explicitness, routine replicability, and so forth. These are essential characteristics of any valid methodology. ESM employs a traditional and well established system of mathematics called hexagrammatic topology. This is a term we are proposing for what appears to have been around since the beginnings of literate civilizations, i.e. , circa 1100 B. C. (e.g., the Chou Dynasty in China which gave us the I CHING; the Mycennaen civilization that led to the Illiad of the Greeks; the Egyptian Book of the Dead; the Babylonian Code of Hammurabi). The beginnings of literacy were understandably functional evolutionary developments: verbal but preliterate human societies (i.e., 3, 000 years ago and beyond) were dependent on oral rituals of transmission of knowledge, tradition, practice, and ideals. There was thus maintained by necessity a caste system in society in which a few had the contact and conscious relationship with the past and therefore, with the continuity in conception and in awareness of the mechanisms of culture (For a personal view, see Yogananda, 1975; Roberts, 1974; 1976; Rampa., 1963; Jones, 1972. For a scientific view, see Hoggart, 1957; McLuhan, 1964; Jaynes, 1976).

With the evolution of literacy as an ordinary daily round phenomenon, i.e., when education became available to many in a community, there evolved a class of immortals called the classicists whose ideas, words, arguments, and attitudes are perpetrated in print and in translation and in reference, thus enduring in presence long after their author's natural life span. The "Books of Authority" as we might call them, thus constitute the archaeology of the objectified descriptions of the ideas of the past. They are the data needed for the histories of ideas, nations, and people (see Lovejoy, 1955 and Cassirer, 1950).

The methodology that transforms ideas into objective data needs to be presented. ESM is such a methodology. To illustrate its application, we present the following ennead of basic principles about ESM.

1. CONCEPTS are trigrammatic;
2. DISPLAYS are hexagrammatic;
3. ARGUMENTS are double hexagrams;
4. THEMES are electric couples;
5. DUALITY Is the double line;
6. DIALECTICS is to cross the double line;
7. EVENTS are dialectic movements;
8. DRAMA and TALK are media for consciousness;
9. ETHNICITY titles variations in the dynamic properties of a literate consciousness (individual and local ethnographies).

The capitalized terms are technical objects, to be defined presently, and the other terms are operational definitions. The latter may be represented through a geometric notation system or analogy, as follows:

trigram = a composite form made up of three distinct elements, e.g., triangles; triplets; the minimal family unit; any scale made in such a way as to have three positions; etc.

hexagram = a composite of two distinct trigrams ordered linearly such that one trigram assumes a lower order relative to the other trigram;

double hexagrams = a composite of two distinct hexagrams arranged in a 90 degree angle such that one hexagram assumes the horizontal position while the other assumes the vertical position; the double hexagram, forms a Cartesian coordinate system or hexagrammatic matrix In which 36 dyadic intersections are specified;

electric couple = a unit of cycle consisting of a pair of two double hexagrams; electric couples are phasal units with a value of 48 (one double =2 hexagram s = 4 trigrams = 4 x 3 = 12; hence 2 double hexagrams = 24 and a pair of doubles = 48);

double line = two parallel lines separating the lower from the upper trigram in any hexagram; the gap between the double lines represents the natural break between pre-topical and topical (roughly: matter and psyche, or reactivity and consciousness)

crossing the double line = a natural phenomenon characterizing the laws of phasal motion such that a transformation or metamorphosis is noted when crossing the double line, i.e., the phase between the adjacent constituent parts of the upper and lower trigrams in any hexagram; crossing from the upper to the lower is in the direction of dissolution of topic (topical to pre-topical); from lower to upper, it is in the direction of crystallizing topic;

dialectic movements = units of phasal values charted or plotted by reference to the hexagrammatic positions available; e.g., crossing the double line is a dialectic movement from phase III to IV or vice versa; similarly, going from phase I at one end of the lower trigram, to phase III, the other end, is a dialectic movement;

media for consciousness = distinct channels or manifolds having the property of retaining form or shape, and changes in these; the coding of these changes is possible in terms of topic, topic units, and topic domains or zones;

titles = the referential labeling that identifies a category of event, process, relationship, or experience; titles may be conventional or neologistic; e.g. "bread' and "eating bread with meals" are conventional topic nominals recognizable through the cataloguing practices of a community; "eating bread and thinking that I shouldn't bell is a neologistic topic nominal constructed according to standardized register principles or norms;

Thus far we have specified the operational definitions of the main components of ESM. Now let us introduce some basic technical terms. These are the conceptual elements that enter into the mathematics or geometry of the notation system of ESM.