#7 Horizontal Processing
Another key symbolic pattern
In this article, we’ll look at another symbolic pattern as we bring together more building blocks in the symbolic thinking project. While these blocks may be technical and dry at times, they will serve as an important base of reference in future articles. Let’s keep pushing.
Everything that can be named in the world has an identity. Identities are bounded with dimension, whether concrete or abstract. The vertical process (VP) discussed in the last article shows a tripartite structure: component parts, the whole, and the relationship of the whole to outside identities, or its purpose. If there is a vertical process, then it follows that a horizontal process (HP) exists as well. The cognitive function of both vertical and horizontal processing allows us to perceive both processes within identities.
Horizontal processing speaks of a lateral movement in perception, or a kind of linear span of observation. As a symbolic principle–in this case, another fractal–a simple, albeit reductive, example of the horizontal process can be seen in a ball. Cut a ball through the center and the result is two halves. The process of cutting entails a tool that hits the ball at its outer edge, runs through the middle and past the center, then out the opposite edge. The physical cut shows the makeup of the HP: core, bulk/body, edge; or, center, mass, periphery. Each of these “regions” can be broken down into more detail as well, but we’ll stick with the basic structure to highlight the pattern.
Going back to the truck example from article #6, its horizontal process follows the same pattern as the ball but there happens to be a more abstract component to the truck’s center. The core of a ball is easily identifiable due to its radial symmetry. The core of a truck is harder to identify. Where is it? It need not be the physical center as calculated by the intersection of axial planes. The core in the HP may rather be the fundamental operating mechanism behind the purpose of the truck–what makes it go–which most people would identify as the engine (rather than, say, its wheels). The center doesn’t have to be a precise subcomponent, however. The core or center of the truck is its essential aspect of functionality: what drives it or makes it fulfill its purpose. The operating mechanism (concrete) or operating principle (abstract) of purpose (seen in the VP) is the core/center. The presence of the key element of purpose in the horizontal process intersects with purpose in the vertical process.
A ball has a dimensional center (concrete) that functions as one of the key aspects of its horizontal process, but that doesn’t seem to intersect with the purpose aspect in its vertical process. However, using the logic above, it could be argued that the core of the ball on an abstract level is the operating principle that enables its use in a sport, which might be its ballness (as a properly sized, bouncy sphere). Therefore, the ball's core or center on an abstract level is its purpose-enabling quality or set of qualities. This means that the purpose (as part of the structure of the VP) of an identity on an abstract level is directly linked to the core of its HP.
The intersection between processes where purpose (in the VP) and the operating- or purpose enabling principle (in the HP) bond seems to disappear when the core of the HP is a concrete dimensional point, as with the dimensional center of the ball. Both cores exist, but only the abstract core of the operating principle behind the ball’s purpose connects directly with the VP. That difference in concrete and abstract centers points to a third axis which intersects with both processes on a similarly abstract level.
A table offers another example of this intersection of processes. A table has a clear periphery or edge. The mass of the table underneath the visible surface constitutes its interior space or body, but what about its core? Is it possible to identify a center in the wood grain or a point at exactly halfway in length, depth, and height? Both options seem unrealistic, particularly knowing that a midpoint of three dimensions would land in open air underneath the tabletop. If a table does not have a dimensional center, per se, then it must be within the table’s abstract purpose (in the VP) of sharing a meal or creating a workspace (depending on the table) that constitutes its core. In that case, the center in the HP again intersects with the purpose aspect of the table’s VP. The core here would be the table’s plane surface, or its elevating-objects-for-human-needs-at-human-height quality.
For contrast and clarification between the VP and HP, that core quality is distinct from the table’s purpose, even though they are integrally bonded. The elevating-objects-for-human-needs-at-human-height quality (the HP core) is an aspect of the VP’s purpose of elevating objects for human needs at human height. They are not the same ipso facto. That distinction is important to keep clear between core and purpose.
The intersection of purpose (VP) intertwined with the operating principle (HP) of that purpose seems to resonate intuitively as constitutive of identity. The origin point in a Cartesian plane is represented as the intersection of the x- and y-axes (x,y). That offers a helpful concept tool for understanding how vertical and horizontal processes are fundamentally intertwined and thus always constitutive of identities. In three dimensional space on the coordinate plane, a z-axis enables more functions and opens more possibilities for mathematical processing and subsequent applications. What might a z-axis be in the symbolic framework of identity we are building here?
My intuition says that movement or transformation through time constitutes a third process. An expanding process (EP), as we’ll call it, touches on what happens to an identity over time as a process of growth and transformation through the ether of spacetime. A tripartite processing structure within identity composed of vertical-, horizontal-, and expanding processes matches well with the tripartite structure of the two processes discussed thus far (e.g. center, mass, edge in the HP; components, whole, purpose in the VP). The Expanding Process as a fundamental structure of identity constitutes a pattern that is noticed by the cognitive faculty of expansion processing, in which memory plays a key role. Given the complexity of identity, we may need to make modifications to this basic tripartite model as we proceed, especially in the linkages or bonds between processes, so don’t buy stock in it quite yet.
As an aside, it stands to reason that the linkage between each process in the composition of identity, the VP-HP-EP structure, reveals a structure similar to the manner in which atoms bond to form molecules. That’s something to ponder as we flesh out the processing structure of identity and its implications for other fractal patterns. If all of this is hard to grasp, rest assured that more examples and clarification are forthcoming.
