IDEA – MIND MAP

ART & ORGANISM

ideas

Mind-Mapping

FLOW-CHARTs, MIND-MAPs, and the psycho-semantic mind map

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BACKGROUND:

There are various ways to represent ideas important in organizing and executing projects. In general, where flowcharts are built on reasoning, mindmaps are built on feelings.  Flow charts show carefully organized step-by-step mechanistic relationships between key elements of problem solving;  mind maps represents spontaneous and presumably more authentic personal intuition and feelings.  Often mind-maps flush new and valuable ideas from the subconscious and indicate the feelings that motivate.  

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A flow chart is a best estimate of cause-and-effect flow of information.   EXAMPLES:

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DEEP analysis of the flow of information within and between student and teacher

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MIND MAPS are not simple flowcharts of interacting components.  They include tangible elements but also (especially) emphasize the MEANING of an idea by connecting them to subconscious ideas.   The principle is that all subconscious background to an idea affects its real meaning–the uniquely individual meaning that goes far more deeply that mere dictionary definitions.

  Mind maps (also called “concept maps”) are visual representations of what’s on your mind with particular attention to a specific target concept.  It is a kind of “free association” exercise in which you rapidly write down things that come to mind.   When you create one of these you may be amazed at some of the associations.  It essentially taps into IMPLICIT levels of consciousness which — because of your impulsiveness or spontaneity in expressing them  — may be important components of the EXPLICIT concept.  All concepts are built up from preceding experiences as your brain has more-or-less enabled you to perceive them and their interactions with each other.

 

A.K.A.: Concept maps a similar visual representations of ideas.   and see Wikipedia on MIND MAP –this can be a wonderful way of organizing thoughts, but is also an instrument of DISCOVERY.

A distinctive feature of mind-mapping in Art and Organism is its emphasis on speed and spontaneity.   In the manner of a “free-association” test,  doing this as quickly as possible is likely to evoke associations that that might never have been represented if you were thoughtful about your map -BUT which are nevertheless an important part of its meaning to you.  You will express connections to implicit or intuitive ideas in a nonjudgmental way.  Its spontaneity will result in a more authentic representation of what the focal term means to you.

The spider web (the matrix of interconnected meanings that defines the idea at the center of a mindmap looks like a spider web)  (a coincidence? read The spider web of experience (then [tangent alert] dive deeper: the thoughts of a spider web)

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Psycho-Semantic Mind-Mapping

Obviously we are more-or-less the same and we are different from each other –and from ourselves throughout our biological development, with accumulated experience, and in different contexts, including states of mind—but these are problems of levels of organization.

The psychosemantic mind map one can get a rough idea of the diversity of connections, associations, resonances that converge on our understanding of a term for an idea (such as “love” or “art” or “who I am”) …and EACH of these, so different for each of us, is a PATH to meaning.  read on

(Psycho-semantic Mind-maps were discussed as a teaching/learning tool in a lecture presented at a conference in Virginia in 2020: “Personal and Shared Meaning” ) 

 

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NEXUS for FREE-ASSOCIATION:

• free-association (Wikipedia)
• Entropy, Free Energy, and Symbolization: Free Association at the Intersection of Psychoanalysis and Neuroscience
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stream_of_consciousness_(psychology)

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