I’m working on a “mental gravity” hypothesis to explain how graviception shapes higher-order cognition. Today I stumbled on the idea of “cognitive tropism” (link below).
Tropism in biology is when organisms grow or move in a particular direction - towards light, water, nutrients, heat etc.
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Tropism in biology is when organisms grow or move in a particular direction - towards light, water, nutrients, heat etc.
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Comments
Emotional valence (pos v neg), numerosity (more v less), and time (future v past) are all biased along a vertical spatial axis - good, more and future are all “up”
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https://www.researchgate.net/publication/234838829_TEST_A_Tropic_Embodied_and_Situated_Theory_of_Cognition
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We literally feel UP when we’re happy and DOWN when we’re sad
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The external physical world has shaped our internal mental world in fundamental ways that go beyond embodiment as the interface between the two.
Gravity shapes how we think about abstract concepts, too.
We are gravitropic.
Thanks for reading
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