Ground

Ground is a profound and powerful concept that is too often taken for granted. Obviously we are familiar with the earth's rocky surface which we most commonly refer to in English as the ground. Wiktionary's entry gives the etymology and common usage definitions. I think of particular interest is the definition of ground as: A level of electrical potential used as a zero reference. Here ground means a point of reference from which force differentials can be determined. The force potential is voltage, comparable with water pressure. The ground of the earth is the point of reference from which we can determine a point of reference between the earth's surface and objects which orbit it. All objects above the surface have a energy differential with objects at base level (the ground). Every object outward from the center of gravity and above the surface has a certain amount of potential energy or pressure to travel toward ground.

Take this philosophically and we can apply the idea of ground across the broad spectrum of thought and feeling. We create as we grow a set of ideas and images which provide the base level as we encounter new experiences and ever more new and "alien" ideas. Any accepted belief set is a mental ground and new sights and ideas are figures standing apart from the background. Each sight or idea has a potential difference from the ground. It will either be attracted or repulsed depending on its polarity in relation with the belief set ground.

This process is extremely fluid. Our attention is constantly shifting among a mosaic of image figures and corresponding environments, grounds. When we focus on an object in space we shift our conscious attention to that object and all the remaining field of vision is unfocused and perceived unconsciously or not at all. Every shifting set of arbitrarily bounded and fragment abstractions changes what we perceive as figure and what is ground.

Have you ever been waiting for a friend at a park and you are scanning back and forth, looking at everything around you. You believe you have seen everyone and suddenly you realize your friend is only 20 ft away sitting on a bench and you didn't realize it the whole time. Your eyes past over your friend but you did not see them. Your eyes being focused on the whole ground suddenly focus on the figure of the friend. After that the friend figure is attended too and the rest of the environment becomes a new ground.

As we go through our day we constantly focus on a never-ending series of images and specific objects and ignore 99% of the environment around us. We wake up, immediately the habitual routine images are attended to, "brush your teeth", and you go to the bathroom and see a toothbrush everything else is dim. At work we focus on our job (except for the inevitable daydreaming, more attention to unreality, imbalance toward figure). Our job consists of trained habitual steps. Each step is a figure in the ground of the company.

Sometimes though we are lucky enough to be standing on a cliff surveying a beautiful scene and figure and ground blend together, synthesize, and a powerful sense of beauty and love overwhelms us.

Electrically the ground is the sink that the energy potential flows to. Power generated by the power plant flows along wire to your house and then through into the Earth via the grounding rod. Can we make a comparison between electrical ground and the ground of inattention or background environment of McLuhan? Images in our sight and therefore our mind are figures sometimes with or without a ground. Mental images most definitely cause us to experience emotion which is similar to electricity flowing toward a ground. The body is the ground and the image the figure. The energy flow just may be the resonate interval.

It is important to realize that this interactive,shifting figure/ground patterned process can be consciously observed, understood, and utilized in a tool-like manner. Generally we focus our attention on figure and pay no attention to the ground (surrounding environment). I propose that a balanced conscious action of synthesense includes attending to ground in addition to figure. Attended to consciously, the sphere of ground can be expanded indefinitely. This is a right-hemisphere activity of intense shifting pattern recognition and without focusing, attending to ground. Left-hemisphere has focus and direction and attends to figure.

The Resonant Interval

Interface, of the resonant interval as 'where the action is' in all structures, whether chemical, psychic, or social, involves touch.
McLuhan Laws of Media

The emotion generated by either the disappointment or fulfillment of mental image to actuality is the interplay between and evolution of the figure/ground relationship.

There is a infinitely thin border between focused figure and the inattended environmental ground. The border McLuhan calls the resonating interval. He says in The Global Village, "the resonating interval defines the relation between figure and ground and structures the configuration of ground. Through comprehensive awareness we may see both past and future at once.....The book of nature contains innumerable borderlines and interfaces. The resonant interval may be considered an invisible borderline between visual and acoustic space." Acoustic space is the natural space inhabited by non-literate people. It's like the mind's ear instead of the mind's eye.

Some curious aspects of figure/ground relationships can be seen here. First, note that the
outline of the one image [the dogs] is also the outline of the other [the telephone]. This is
always true of structural relations: it is just as true of the drawing as figure in relation to the
page as ground. Secondly, because of the shared outline, figure and ground create and define
each other… the parts are reciprocal. Thirdly, contrary to a common misconception, both figures
can be seen simultaneously and held in the visual field. This simultaneous perception is, at first,
easier for some people than for others, because it requires a certain amount of 'un‐learning'.
Marshall McLuhan

The “interplay” between figure and ground, when simultaneously perceived, “requires interval or a gap, like the space between the wheel and the axle.” And McLuhan asserts provocatively that “the interplay between figure and ground is 'where the action is'.”

Imagine a wave of observation which collapses the quantum wave function into one actuality. Abstract becomes concrete with observation, in that moment when the undifferentiated environment is fragmented by cognition of ideas into things or objects. The movement of the possible grounding out into the actual. Now imagine the propagations of the collapse of the quantum wave function from multiple observers. Where these wave-fronts of the collapse into actuality meet and interact some resonate and some dissonate, or cancel out. Where the waves of collapsing resonate is where the most dynamic change and unpredictable change will occur. The resonate interval fluctuates with the ever-changing environment of observation and the style of observation vis-a-vi the arbitrarily bounded abstraction set in use.

Every media begins life as a figure in an existing environment (ground) with a resonating interval between. As the media is adopted it gradually replaces some existing media and becomes itself ground. The ever accelerating process of evolving ground and growing networks of resonating intervals is being experienced by people mainly unconsciously. The older generation sees the massive change, doesn't understand it, and says that the world is going to hell in a handbasket. Since I am publishing my ideas on the internet I will have readers who have at least a moderate level of literacy and computer media understanding. The majority this is ages 40 and younger (no offense to our elder readers). It is the now also responsibility of the youth to teach our elders. The teaching is a two way street. Elders teach the youth wisdom from experience, and the youth, with easily accepted and applied new concepts such as computers, can teach the elders.

The intermixing of a world of ideas (figures) with cultures (grounds) is producing large potential difference. From an electrical point of view the entire societal mind is charged and flowing energy along diverse and ever branching paths. There may be a relationship between flow of charge and resonating intervals. Why does lightning follow the path it does to relieve the charge differential between cloud and ground? Path of least resistance. Communication of ideas flows between open-minded people in every culture as the path of least resistance. These people swap between being figure and ground thus becoming resonating interval. Soon more and more people accept the new medias. As the new electric medias encourage more cultural interaction and unification we can expect a neural network of shifting resonating intervals programming ever new combinations and interfaces of figure/ground relationships.

These energetic flows of resonating interfaces permeate our galaxy, world, cultures, relations, and bodies. What charge differential is equalized when emotion flows through our body? Don''t images and ideas invoke emotion which has our body as a ground? Awareness of this process would be a great boon. Attend to your seeing of images and your feeling of emotions. Images are not good or bad they just are what they are. Make this process a tool to be used consciously. Intent focus on an image will provide you with emotions necessary to survive and create amazing things.

The task confronting contemporary[electric] man is to live with the hidden ground of his activities as familiarly as our literate predecessors lived with the figure minus ground.
Marshall McLuhan
Laws of Media

Pay attention to the ever changing figure/ground relationship in your awareness. A disciplined study will help reveal a consciously balanced sensory ratios. Auditory space has an all inclusive ground with individual sounds blending quickly with the sound environment. There is less focus on figure and more on ground. An equal combination of visual and auditory sense would bring about a balance between perception of the figure/ground relationship. You must understand that since the 40s literacy is not the dominant media and it has been replaced by electric media forms such as radio,tv,computers, and the internet. We are experiencing in mass changes in sensory ratios and brain-hemisphere interaction. All the figures of our literate world are blending together forming a new global ground; the interval between fading. Until suddenly as waves do interface grows and new perception of new ground will birth new figure. In and out the breath of evolving media structures the birth, life, and death of cultures.

...the ground of any technology is both the situation that gives rise to it as well as the whole environment (medium) of services and disservices that the technology brings with it. These are side-effects and impose themselves willy-nilly as a new form of culture
Marshall McLuhan

Our Time is the best time. We are living with great death and great birth. The ground literally shakes beneath our feet (Feb 2010 Chilean earthquake last week). To see all the people of the Earth united as one culture as is the reality, but for mass consciousness of that fact. This event occurs at least rarely. The death we fear and feel is the birthing of new culture, new ground. The ground of Earth is shifting on all levels right NOW. No one can predict what will result.

In fact, as our attention begins to point out into space, the scope of the ground is radically increasing. At a basic level our attention beyond our planet is forming a relationship between us and all that exists beyond our atmosphere. Who can say what impact interaction with extraterrestrial energies, and beings will have. Our scope of synthesense is expanding rapidly. In my vocabulary the figure/resonating interval/ground totality is the same as the unified field.