Memory and Paths of Association
A path of association can be one-dimensional, based on a single property or characteristic, e.g., color, size, sound, or a single sense. Or it can involve switches, where language opens opportunities by way of homonyms, synonyms, antonyms, etc., for one word or thought to lead to another not connected by meaning, but rather other characteristics. In poetry, as in punning, a single word or phrase can have multiple meanings at the same time, opening multiple paths of association, connecting many previously disparate thoughts and feelings.
We need well-worn paths, like well-known physical buildings, to aid in reliable and fast recall, but we also have the need for regular shuffling, through verbal interaction with others, directly and through reading, that open and reveal other patterns of association, other possible paths. Dreams and language itself and human interaction refresh and enrich the possible paths of recall, shortening associative distances and making it so you can get from here to there, which before was impossible to reach.
One could study the geometry of recall — all the ways that words and phrases and images and thoughts and meanings can relate to one another.
Language itself is a massive map of familiar associations that we learn from one another, which involves sound and sense and has visual components as well, related to spelling in written language as well as the visual images associated with its sense or meaning. And visual patterns can connect directly to one another for fast and powerful association. And metaphor is a switching mechanism.
Learning multiple languages gives you multiple massive associative maps.
Disciplines of study also serve as preformed associative maps (like languages, involving jargons where the same words used in the context of different disciplines have different meanings and different paths of association).
Conversation and reading and story are ways of recognizing, learning, and adopting new and complex associative paths. Allusions are links between large chunks of story.
Genres of fiction are indicators of familiar paths of association, triggering pre-set expectations.
Intimacy and partnering involve sharing patterns of association from common experiences, as well as the initial attraction of common patterns of association. You “get” one another; you understand one another at a level not possible with anyone else. The one serves as an extension of the memory and mind of the other. You literally can finish one another’s sentences. And you lose part of yourself in final parting or death.
In social media, like Twitter, random comments from masses of people on topics of common concern trigger fresh associations, build new paths of common thinking, lead to new loyalties and commonalities of thought.
