Joseph, Bradford,
Thank you for your replies to my letter.
I'm curious, what is geometry?
And what are the origins of geometry?
I think that the origins of geometry may lie in the boundary between
self and world. I have submitted the following abstract for the
conference "Phenomenology of Emotion":
http://www.pheno.ulg.ac.be/colloques/201704-emotion/en/
I already gave a talk in Lithuanian
http://www.ms.lt/sodas/Mintys/20161029Nuotaik%C5%B3Aplinkyb%C4%97s
and a related talk in English
http://www.ms.lt/sodas/Book/TaxonomyOfMoods
and a post at Math Overflow:
http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/1953312/is-this-set-of-6-transformations-fundamental-to-geometry
and a talk at the Klaipeda Science and Art Festival
http://www.vda.lt/lt/klaipedos-fakultetas/naujienos/festivalis-restart-ir-susitikimas-su-matematikos-mokslu-daktaru-andriumi-kulikausku
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Geometry for the Poetry of Moods
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The physical sciences leverage our ability to distinguish between
thousands of colors, sounds, smells, tastes and other sense perceptions.
Let us likewise consider the thousands of moods which we experience and
how we might evoke, reproduce, compare, identify and name them, and in
general, make sense of their variety. We start with a model of basic
emotional responses which arise from our expectations. This model
suggests a profound boundary between self and world. We further note the
negative moral tones which arise when we expect what we do not wish.
Positive moral ambiences resound when these negative moral tones are
rendered impossible. We then study how the mood evoked by a poem can be
accounted for by a specification of the boundary between self and world.
We proceed by imagining various circumstances and perceiving the
emotional responses they evoke within us. A variant of Paul Ekman's
basic set of innate emotional responses can be derived from outcomes of
our expectations. In matters that are distant, that we locate outside
ourselves, if our expectations prove wrong, then we are surprised,
whereas if our expectations are met, then we are excited. If we try but
fail to form expectations, then we are frightened. Analogously, in
matters that are personal, and that we invest in ourselves, if our
expectations prove wrong, then we are sad, whereas if they prove right,
then we are content. If we try but fail to form expectations, then we
are disgusted. Aside from these six outwardly observable outcomes by
which we learn and know, we can also intuit two internal states by which
we do not know but wait. Namely, we are in suspense when we are waiting
if our expectations will be met, and we are at peace inasmuch as we do
not try to form expectations.
Should we seek peace or happiness? We may avoid sadness by manipulating
our expectations. However, negative moral tones arise when we expect
what we do not wish, and thus experience not suspense but anxiety, not
surprise but anger, not sadness but hatred, not excitement but relief
and not happiness but depression. If we refuse to expect what we do not
wish, then hate is impossible and we feel love. If we do not acknowledge
any world outside of us, then fright is impossible and we feel intimacy.
If we lose awareness of our selves, then disgust is impossible and we
feel beauty. We do not feel love, intimacy or beauty directly, but as
the lack of hate, fright and disgust, thus as afterglows.
Let us analyze the moods evoked by 37 Chinese wu-jue poems from the Tang
dynasty. In each poem, the mood is defined by the boundary between self
and world, for example, the bed that a traveler lies in. Beyond the bed
is the beauty of the moon and the surprising illusion of frost, but also
the traveler's happy home, which evokes a conditional sadness. Here we
imagine ourselves reflected across the boundary. Mathematically, a
geometry of paths-forward is enriched by reflection to become a geometry
of lines-back-and-forth. We can have even richer geometries of
angles-around and areas-encircled. The 37 poems each apply one of six
specifications (reflection, shear, rotation, dilation, squeeze,
translation) to enrich our geometry (affine paths-forward, projective
lines-back-and-forth, conformal angles-around, symplectic areas-encircled).
We thus read poems constructed to evoke moods such as:
* Conditional sadness, as by reflection, when we affect our own mood
with lines-back-and-forth.
* Inadequate empathy, as by shear, when our mood is affected by
another's perpendicular mood, in that we do not know and feel all that
they do.
* Comprehension, as by rotation, when our mood is directed by another's
mood.
* Suspense on resolving to grow, as by dilation, when our mood is
expanded by the overall atmosphere.
* Respectfully declining to laugh, as by squeeze, when the overall
atmosphere constrains our mood to choose.
* A growing fear of feeling like a stranger among one's own, as by
translation, when our mood transports us within an atmosphere.
We may thus apply geometry and poetry to explore moods and share a
regard for the boundary of self and world.
Andrius
Andrius Kulikauskas
VGTU Lecturer
m...@ms.lt
+370 607 27 665