Frames

Every “thing” is a frame. It is precisely the perspectival frame which gives it a “thingness.” One thing is separated into isolation from all of reality by inscribing borders around it. This is the basic primary function of human cognition. In our oldest story, the Biblical account of creation, Adam is to care for creation and the primary action of which we are told he is capable is naming the animals. To name is to create a frame by separating the ‘thing’ from the rest of the world around it. It is by means of these frames that all thought takes place and models of reality are constructed in our minds. These models of reality afford us the opportunity to interact with our world. Thus, frames are neither subjective or objective but trans-jective. They allow us both to perceive and change our arena, but they are not the “I.” In short, these frames are the means by which you perceive your life and everything about “you.” The aggregation of all frames together is the construct of reality, everything you think you know. A model of how to relate to our frames is presented below. 

At this point I am able to roughly articulate two dimensions of frames, though there are many more which I may address in later posts. The first dimension is that of resolution or clarity and  the second is power. A frame is something like a digital image. The frame is created by taking data into the mind through the body and integrating it into a coherent model of the data pattern. Data intake is a nearly constant feature of our bodies. Even while asleep, data is constantly being made available through our sensory system, but this data is only integrated into a specific frame by means of attention. In our never ending quest to find meaning in the world, it is paramount that our attention is optimally integrating reality into frames in a dynamic fashion. However, our system has no interest in waste, data which is not paid attention to and thereby integrated hangs around outside our construct. It manifests in our experience as enhanced anxiety of the unknown, the lurking sense of disconnectedness from reality; it is the chasm beneath you. While there is likely always to be some anxiety in the human experience, intolerable anxiety is due to dis-integration of frames. Either of remainder data, or poorly integrated frames. The key player in both of these issues is attention. This is the fundamental action of the human being: to pay attention. It is the only currency you have. It is time. It is you. And you need to be able to not only see through your frames, you need to look at the frames themselves. Picture eyeglasses, sometimes you need to take them off and clean them. 

Resolution:

A frame becomes higher resolution as more data is integrated into it, providing a more fleshed out model of the “thing.” This is analogous to the difference between watching a video at 144p vs 1080p, you want clarity. This provides for highly reliable affordance of reality. The tool of science provides a method for massively improving frame resolution by increasing data points and gauging data reliability across contexts. Setting up experiments to test models allows me to understand how trustworthy the data points are in a frame. High resolution frames may be an aspect of what Jesus was admonishing on healthy or clear eyesight in Matthew 6:22-23. A healthy eye enables clear and unfiltered data intake while also allowing clarity of the outward action of attention. Frames are transjective. This means they are within our minds in a way we might think of as subjective, but they are triggered by and fully developed from reality outside our minds. Thus the frame is not something you can control and manipulate outright, you may only place your attention upon or through it in such a way as to shift it.  In order to increase the resolution of any frame, attempt to place your attention on it with the orientation of finding nuance. 

An example of a high resolution frame would be sheep for an old shepherd. He has spent many years caring for and working with sheep, a rather simple herd animal. Thus, for him, “sheep” as a frame has a massive amount of data related to the habits, lifespan and difficulties likely to be encountered. 

Power:

Frames have power relative to their positioning in the matrix of all frames. A frame which orients my attention in relation to other frames has power. The greater the number of frames downstream of a given frame, the higher that frame's power. High power frames have the feature of generality of context application, they provide constraints and affordances for a broad cross section of experienced situations.  While high power frames provide diverse affordance, they give us very low specificity. In and through low power frames one finds affordance to interact with reality which is highly specific to a given situation. Thus, in general the power of a frame is often inversely related to the resolution. However, this is not necessarily the case. High power frames which have been integrated and refined carefully over many years, usually across generations, may be very high resolution; such as the frame it is better to speak truth than to lie. These types of frames are often to be found as the building blocks of major religious traditions.

Conclusion:
A key shift in consciousness is when one learns to break frames. This does not mean to discard them, but rather to recognize that every frame is in need of constant updating. In order to allow the updating of any frame, we must remove any sense of identity from that frame. This is the chief problem for all of humanity: we attempt to create and “have” our own Self. The only way to do this is to define the self as associated with any single or set of frames, and as soon as this identification is complete, the true Self (attention) is constrained to hold onto that frame in the state it was when the identification happened.  You are more than you can possibly know.