A Constellation of Concepts

or perhaps just one

I collect here notions from several authors that I have recently read. The notions are much alike and have been given different names. I don’t know whether they should be unified but they should at least be contrasted. Perhaps “pattern” is the commonest word that applies and that word is already heavily used in psychology.

Hurley in “Inside Jokes” describes his “frame” which we subconsciously adopt as we hear a joke. We already have the frame before we hear the story. The particular frame has ‘slots’ which must be filled in for the particular joke we hear. We fill in the frame subconsciously and if we err the punch line of the joke will correct us.

Page 52 (L 867) of Thinking Fast and Slow broaches “idea” in the common use and notes links between ideas. He invokes Hume’s notions on linking as arising from physical or temporal proximity, similarity and causality. A good start but on the small side of what I am thinking. Most such ideas are linked to a word.