what is common sense? and what if we see the, as two separate words

Words are very important as their meanings have implications in terms of our actions.

So having a common ground to understand ideas could be both good and bad, but it depends as to how much room is given to question the already established commonalities that inform our senses. This could lead to how an individual interacts with ideas objectified as a photograph, film, sound, sketch, sculpture, spaces, or a dialogue amongst a group of people.

common sense aiding memory and vice versa

as we experience life through situations, interacting with mediums as surfaces that effects us in terms of our responses, so what if all the notions of common sense were negated or zapped from our memory?

What would happen next? Or if it is a little extreme to think about zapping the already established knowledge base, then why common sense is important except knowing the basic mannerisms?

Imagine a person in front of a gigantic structure able to record images, where one has to actually really look around to understand the functions or even register it as a camera and finally finds out that he/she has to climb a ladder to reach to the button in order to take a snap but what about the conflict between seeing/focusing/capturing, because the structure (of the camera) now is not helping to perform all these three functions at the same time?

memory as re-presentation

If mnemonics are aids to help remember ideas/information, then they could be referred to as representation of the message that needs to be not just archived but recalled.

In the context of cultural mnemonics, they are created for a purpose, and can be viewed from the points of view of closed/open texts, depending on the interpretation of the user and whether they are just seen from the common sensical perspective where the the user is just supposed to retrace the given thoughts.

It could be exemplified by a conversation: The question was that if there is a mosque in the university, then why not other places of worship like a church, synagogue, temple etc. depending upon the presence of students who believe in different faiths/religions/ideas.  He answered: As muslims are in majority hence the mosque and it is also convenient to have a mosque in the university premises because it allows them to attend classes etc. And was a little confused as to whether there should be other places of worship built or not.

He probably could not come up with a decisive answer because the rhetorical dictionary of common sense ran out of answers.

His answers are synonymous to the act of stamping information, where surfaces are engraved with built-in action to recreate the given reflections, so then it can also be said that memory for the most part is to recall the created and contextualized representations.

what is memory all about?

well everything starts from recognition, interlinking of ideas, and whether we "agree or disagree."

so is memory all about opposing forces and contrasts?

like the contrast of ink with the medium of inscription. the gap between alphabets, words, and lines, and the geometric arrangement of all these elements in a book form. or a switch that allows to turn the electricity "on/off."

going a few steps back

How is reality perceived or interpreted by the human beings? This question takes us back in time when people started representing situations of daily life, the mediums of inscriptions being rocks and walls of the cave.  And that was the origin of the visual language, where humans started identifying the relationship with their environment, depicting their experiences in the form of narratives.

But why was it important for the cavemen to represent their experiences? The answer to this question is multifaceted, but probably boils down to the innate urge of making sense of our environment and find the underlying meaning of our existence.

As language developed over the millennia, the written and the spoken word/image divided language in the domains of the visual and the verbal, the seen and the said, interlinking speech and thought. The invention of language also created conventions of perception and cognition, which leads us to the saussurean notion of the sign (signified/signifier). The created environment of any society is a huge construct of signs and symbols and our behavior or action is the result of interpreting the signs we confront in our daily lives.

The hierarchical construction of any society rely on the profound use of language, experienced in the continuum of space and time, creating a pattern of cognition that informs us about our place and role in the system we inhabit.

Overtime the constructs of the seen and said have created false realities that we end up believing in as truth and nothing but the truth.  Initially the belief in religion was the only truth. But when reason took over with the aid of science it also gave us ideas like eugenics, put forth by Francis Galton in the Edwardian era, where high quality human breeding was considered as a solution to save societies from moral decline.   And this idea was then taken up by different regimes overtime, leading to genocides, proving the supremacy of one race over the other.

Representation of such an idea would not have been possible without the use of words and images, repeated over and over again to be considered as a reality. The use of language to further such ideologies is very calculated, where basic human emotions of fear, pain, guilt, happiness, etc are played upon, and our visceral senses help aid the coded instinctual responses to such messages.

Over here it should be clarified that false realities are not inherent in language, but how it is used as a tool of rhetoric, providing information as fragmented and isolated facts. Language also furthers the ideas of logic and rationale, where conventional assemblage of signs as popular beliefs can be read as a pattern, but in order to conduct such an inquiry, an individual must question the underlying or intended meaning of any created message. What action would that message trigger and how would it affect an individual and society as a whole?

meaning: concrete or always in transition?

Michel Focault in his article "What is an Author" states: Today's writing has freed itself from the theme of expression." But expression of any sort is a pattern that needs to be read/viewed/heard/observed to be understood as to what it stands for or what is it signifying in terms of its context and structure, and how thoughts are interlinked and relayed in time and space in any culture.

And if I apply this statement to John Cage's experiment again, then music definitely is a means of expression. But he intervened in the process of experience in a specific space and created an opportunity to observe the self evolving expression.  But we still call it "John Cage's" experiment hence he is the author, standing just on the peripheries of his created environment and did not relay any experience through his music per se, but let the environment (people and all the attributes of the space) unfold in the continuum of time and space.

So the meaning of expression in my point of view now becomes the experience or meaning that the user creates for his/herself based on his/her cultural background. And meanings (culturally speaking) are always in transition, because we neither live in isolation, nor understand things out of their context and here memory comes into play, allowing us to navigate/retrieve the data to make connections, hence leading towards a thought.

medium, user, and the message

so when john cage conducted his experiment of not playing the symphony but recording conversations in space and time, so was he actually contrasting the pattern as to how a space with users could be turned into an instrument (medium), creating their own rhythms and patterns in terms of sound and body language, glances etc., a performance in its own right? 

 

so here we go!!

A few days back I was watching an interview of a mathematician, who also folds paper (origami) to solve different equations, and he said: "When you put in a crease in a piece of paper, you are essentially changing the memory of that piece." So that one fold (in any direction) becomes the unit pattern combined with all the creases to give any form to the paper.  And it also becomes synonymous to how memory works.  In the broader context of living in any society it can be said that behaviors are the result of conditions provided, programming the memory to act or react according to the norms.

And if memory is the seat of the conventions we are taught to make meaning through different mediums, then probably we are following a loop.                                  

There is always a possibility of breaking the above mentioned cycle in the form of self interpretation or self reflection that people have been doing over centuries, but I think realization becomes the first step in terms of how we act and what are the leading consequences of that action, as Plato said: "An unexamined life is not worth living."

http://vimeo.com/34182381confronting patterns