Life and Mind

Sanity? No gift - but an achievement of common sense and simplicity. Paying attention to everyday experience feeds common sense. But simplicity is a more demanding challenge. Everywhere we look and reach we are tempted by intrigues of complexity. Everything radiates its own different look, speaks its own different language, and seduces us to deranged confusions of infinite possibilities.

But that's no good for science, for business, or for sanity. For us to put them to useful work, all those seemingly different things must submit to simplicities - a finite number of conditions, considerations, and themes which are not only distinct and potent but exhaustive and final. The small finite number must be enough, complete.

Three is my perfect number and that is what my picture of "Life and Mind" sets out. Why three? Well, we must admit it has been popular. Where would the Father and Son be without their Holy Ghost? And having that, no further need is ever proposed. Billie Holiday agrees when she informs us that "Me, Myself and I are all in love with you." Not to mention "Just Molly and Me and Baby Makes Three." Just silly rhymes, you say? But reconsider what you see in my picture. Are there more times than past, present, and future? More primary shapes than circle, triangle, and square? More body types than Sheldon's fat, thin, and strong? Not to mention reason's abduction, deduction, and induction? My own Team, Pack, and Chain? Or Peirce's icon, index, and symbol?

I can even find my own true three in my open hand. To get an idea we must be able to grasp it and then keep it in short-term memory's eye while we consider its prospects and put it to work. Well, I see in my hand an index finger with which to point and an opposing thumb with which to pluck and then three fingers left to represent my pluckings. No more than three.

My picture also builds the composition of 3 x 3 = 9 when time and sign are played against one another. You may choose to work it differently. But I feel sure that however you maneuver, you will always be able to do it by threes, and when you work by threes you will find your mind free to think productively about achieving and keeping sanity in spite of the affluence of profusion.

Benjamin D. Wright

LIFE and MIND
Primary Shapes1 Primary Compositions2 Knowledge
Icon
Figure
Basis
Index
Motion
Progress
Symbol
Creation
Evolution
Connectivity
Additivity
Penetration
Integration
Coordination
Divisibility
Disposition
Personality
Bush
Learning
Rationality
Tree
Logic
Science
Ruler
Circle
Embrace
Circle
yellow
Wave
Develop
Wave
brown
Spiral
Evolve
Spiral
green
circle clump
Separate Circles
concentric circles
Concentric Circles
circular colony
Circular Colony
Visceral
Gut
comfort
smell/taste
 
Id
Baby
Victim
Experience
 
Present
Now
 
Continuity
induction
Team
growth
 
Biology
Triangle
form
Triangle
orange
Tooth
attack
Teeth
red
Star
lead
Star
gold
triangle pile
Triangular Pile
concentric triangles
Concentric Trinagles
triangular combination
Triangular Combination
Neural
Mind
ambition
see/touch
 
Ego Ideal
Hero
Villain
Hope
 
Future
Coming
 
Progress
abduction
Pack
discovery
 
Physics
Square
control
Square
blue
Battlement
defend
Square wave
grey
Cross
complete
Latin Cross
black
square stack
Stack of squares
concentric squares
Concentric Squares
rectangular construction
Rectangula Construction
Skeletal
Body
conscience
hear/beat
 
Super Ego
Tyrant
Saint
Objectivity
 
Past
Gone
 
Order
deduction
Chain
habit
 
Government
Benjamin D. Wright
1 "The UIs: Universal Images in the Visual Arts" by A.B. Vimercati & N. Bezruczko.
2 "Composition Analysis" by B.D. Wright. In Objective Measurement, Vol. III, Norwood NJ: Ablex 1996, 241-264.

Life and Mind Wright, B.D. … Rasch Measurement Transactions, 1999, 13:3 p. 713




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