Unconscious Identities

If we were to consider what the limits of our self were it is likely we would set these at the limits of our body, or possibly at the limits of our 'personality', perhaps listing a set of core properties which we felt best represented ourself. However, the limits of our self which we acknowledge consciously may differ from the limits set or utilised by non-conscious processes. Our sense of self can be thought of as that part of the world with which we identify, or put another way, the part of our experience which we identify with sets the location and boundary to our sense of self. The limits of this identification can vary according to circumstances, extending outward to include members of our family, tribe, culture, land etc. or contracting inward such that it is limited to parts of the individual psyche. It is likely that this feeling of identification is a product of adaptation: an animal that has such a relationship to its own body is clearly more likely to protect that body from harm. (In fact, it is probably more accurate to say that the feelings associated with the avoidance of harm and the seeking of pleasure result in the sense of identification). This adaptive advantage provided by identification also extends to those creatures who share genetic material, which may account for the feelings we have of identifying with a social group to which we feel a (genetic) affinity. It is likely that this wider identification, and indeed other levels of identification both wider and narrower, are in operation at all times, and for part of the non-conscious backdrop to our actions.

Acting the Subtext - Chekhov and Gist

The rehearsal technique known as 'acting the subtext' is a method for developing, in an embodied fashion, the physical schema articulating the competing or complementing psychological sense present in a performance. In this technique, the subtextual 'gist' of a scene is made physically available such that gestures, actions, etc might be constructed appropriate to this gist. This gist is then available as a non-conscious schema or trace which might then inflect the overt schema representing the surface text. One example of a technique which utilises this combination of schema is the 'psychological gesture' of Michael Chekhov.

Genetic Remembering

Althought the 'human genome' is referred to in the media and popular press as if it were a single, universal component of all human beings, there is variation in this genome across different members of the human race; variation which accounts for the different ways in which the being of human is expressed by different individuals. Nevertheless, the percentage of common genetic material is well above 99% and it is this common material which gives us our similarities and, ultimately, accounts for the universalities which exist. We also have much in common, genetically, with non-human animals; with primates this percentage is also in the high 90's. Even creatures with whom we may choose not to identify, lobsters or snakes for example, share over 50% of our DNA, and so can be considered distant relatives, and this also goes for every living thing on Earth.

The evolutionary process can be considered as a kind of remembering, in which the good ideas of past generations, i.e. those which confer a survival advantage, are passed on to future generations. These memories live on in our bodies in the form of opposable thumbs, thickened skin on the soles of our feet, binocular vision, etc. They also live on in our minds as drives, instincts, reflexive responses, and emotions. These psychic memories helped our ancestors to survive and they now form the basic architecture of our thoughts and actions.

Gist and the Organisation of Proprioception

Non-conscious schema, or physical 'gists', display themselves as organised proprioceptive sets which inflect behaviour. Performance may be enhanced by the adopting of such a physical gist when this gist organises the proprioception in ways which correspond to the required goals of the performance. This organisation is likely to operate across a large number of different variables and to make detailed alteration to actions.

Combinatory Schema and Embodied Metaphor

Complex behaviour often entails the mobilisation of a number of physical schema simultaneously, as for example when one is walking and juggling at the same time, or, more commonly, when one is talking and also physically displaying emotion through smiling, crying etc. The combination of such schema, which may be seen as complementary or competing, contributes to the overall performance which is taking place. On a cognitive level, this combination suggests that several 'gists' (fuzzy traces, scripts, schemata etc) are also in operation simultaneously, all of which are constructed through metaphor.

Evolutionary Emotion

In the evolutionary history of humanity, consciousness is a comparatively late arrival, appearing as a faculty only in the relatively recent phase of the evolution of life. Stuart Hameroff puts this date variously at between 1 and 200 million years ago (1). This suggests that, for the majority of the time that beings have been on Earth, they have relied on non-conscious mental processes for survival.

The development of the non-conscious mind, a mind we are still most certainly in possession of, therefore preceded the emergence of those conscious mental processes which are capable of self-reflection and reporting. It is likely that much of what we do is shaped by these adaptively established mechanisms of non-conscious thought. It is also likely that the motivation for much of what we do, which we experience as 'feelings', derives from this pre-conscious phase in the development of (human) life.

http://www.quantumconsciousness.org/penrose-hameroff/cambrian.html

Liveness and Simultaneity

One of the key features of 'liveness' is best partially understood not as a property of an individual entity or event, but as a relationship between two or more entities. In this formulation, liveness signifies a simultaneity in time such that to experience an entity 'live' is to be in a relationship to that entity that includes this simultaneity. This correlation of liveness and simultaneity also allows for the apparent paradox of the 'live recording' in which an event exists simultaneous to its inscription on a recording media of some kind. This would be in contradistinction to the non simultaneous 'recording' carried out in recording studios for example, in which the inscription onto media takes place progressively, with different tracks being recorded and assembled at different times.

Virtual Environments of the Mind

What we choose to think about changes the way we feel. This is an obviousness, but it is worth looking at in more detail. The way we feel, our feelings, are the observable, experienced evidence of complex cognitive processes; processes which are non-rational, non-conscious, and multi-valent. The cognition which results in feelings is far more complex than that which is available to us consciously (1). This suggest that when we think of a certain idea, and this thinking makes us feel a certain way, the content of our conscious thoughts is causing changes to take place across the complex networks of non-conscious processing, resulting in certain emotionally-tagged, felt responses.

Remembering also that, ultimately, feelings and the cognitive processes of which they are a result, exist because they confer (or conferred in the past) some kind of survival and/or reproductive advantage to the organism experiencing those feelings; we feel pain when we put our hand on a hotplate because this feeling motivates the adaptively advantageous action of moving the hand. More complex feelings; love, jealousy, fear etc. confer similar advantages, but with more circuitous pathways between the stimulus, the feeling engendered by the stimulus, and an appropriate response. This implies that our ability to produce certain feelings by the action of dwelling on particular conscious thoughts effectively modifies what might be called the 'virtual environment' of our minds. This in turn causes an emotional response to be evoked which would be adaptively advantageous in that environment.



1. For an interesting explanation of this, see the gist or Fuzzy Trace theory of Reyna and Brainerd. Adv Child Dev Behav. 2001;28:41-100.

Elephant Knowledge

The parable of the blind men and the elephant tells us something about the partiality of knowledge; that only having access to local information does not give us the 'big picture'. It also suggests that our sense of touch (feeling) is individual and separate, whilst our visual sense is communal. So it is that our feelings, metaphorically mapped from our sense of touch, and the emotional knowledge that these feelings represent, separates us. Our visual sense, and the objectified knowledge it gives character to, brings us together. It is also noteworthy that the men in the story are blind, and therefore would have to take the reality of the big picture on faith.

Performing Silence

The moment of 'performance' signals the silencing of the other voices which obtain during other phases of the creative cycle. At that moment there is no criticism, interaction, dialogue, or communicative exchange of any kind. All this comes before and after.

Ghosts in Space

When we think consciously about space we often imagine it as Newton may have imagined it; as an effective emptiness; an absolute nothingness that existed distinct from matter and the body and spread uniformly without regard to the events of the world. Space, in this understanding, is the neutral backdrop against which experience and action takes place, it is not implicated in that experience and action. This imagination of space affects our felt relationship to space; we do not, typically, consider ourselves to be part of space, or to have an affect upon space, but simply that space is the void between one body and another. When we move, we imagine ourselves passing through this emptiness like a ghost passing through the walls of an empty house. We are dead to this space.

Obviousness and Intuition

Many of the actions we carry out are marked with a sense of 'obviousness'. The placement of a chair in a room; the moment we step off a pavement to cross a road, avoiding oncoming cars. There is no need for much, if any, conscious deliberative thought when carrying out these actions, and often they do not appear in consciousness at all, being carried out on 'autopilot'. The obviousness of the decisions involved in these actions is, in a sense, a strong form of the 'intuition' that we mobilise when making other, less commonplace, decisions. When we get a 'bad feeling' about a particular course of action we may be consciously aware of the feeling but reasoning is usually absent from consciousness. The actions steered or shaped by both intuition and obviousness are characterised by this lack of conscious, rational thought. In fact, to bring rational thought to bear on the kind of 'problems' usually solved by intuition and obviousness, crossing a road for example, actually makes the task much more difficult and hazardous. In both these forms of decision making, the decision is being made and the action shaped by non-conscious processes, and often the conscious mind is not given access to that process, or is incapable of understanding that process.

Think Feel Act

Feelings (and intuitions) exist in order to motivate action, or to shape an action that will inevitably take place in some form. We feel pain in order to motivate us to make an action that will remove the source of that pain. Feelings are the result of cognitive processes, some of which are conscious, some of which are non-conscious. Pain is the result of non-conscious processing; we feel the pain but we are not consciously aware of the 'thoughts' which led up to this feeling. Other feelings can be induced by consciously thinking certain thoughts, or looking at certain images, or carrying out certain actions which produce thoughts. These thoughts may produce feelings; we think sad thoughts and the result is that we feel sad. So we might entertain a thought that will produce a feeling that will in turn motivate or shape an action. Simple feelings motivate simple actions, and are produced by simple thoughts. Complex feelings motivate complex actions and are produced by complex thoughts.

Paradigmatic Performance

There is a stage in all (creative) processes, including the processes of both art and science, where the practice moves from the preparatory to the actual; from the potential to the the real. In science this is the moment of the experiment (which, as Robert Crease points out, may, if carried out correctly, constitute the performance). In the visual and plastic (and some of the digital) arts, this moment is distributed across a number of moments in the making, and in the performing arts, unsurprisingly, it takes the paradigmatic form of the performance itself. In terms of the processes, whilst there may be differences in form, tradition, histories, and practice, all have this moment. What distinguishes 'performing' as a particular artform is not in the fact of its having this evanescent moment, but rather in the access that it gives to this moment. Whereas other creative practices prioritise and give access to the traces of this event, performing arts dramatises the event and includes it as part of the experience. We not only see the event, we see it as an event illuminated by the light of its own (apparent) appearance. A secondary effect is the coincidental placing of this moment with a parallel moment in the mind of the audience, the moment in which the performance is received and realised.

Thinking from the Centre.

Thinking from the centre.

• Sit comfortably in a chair and close your eyes.
• Imagine yourself sitting exactly as you are and where you are.
• Breathe.
• Place your consciousness at the front surface of your body.
• Breathe
• Place your consciousness at the back surface of your body.
• Breathe
• Place your consciousness at the left side of your body.
• Breathe
• Place your consciousness at the right side of your body.
• Breathe
• Be aware of the top of your head.
• Breathe.
• Be aware of the soles of your feet.
• Breathe.

You have identified the dimensionality of the body in space.

• Be aware of the space in the room in front of your body.
• Breathe.
• Be aware of the space in the room behind your body.
• Breathe.
• Be aware of the space in the room to the left of your body.
• Breathe.
• Be aware of the space in the room the right of your body.
• Breathe.
• Be aware of the space in the room above your body, up to the ceiling.
• Breathe.
• Be aware of the floor beneath your feet.\
• Breathe.

You have identified the dimensionality of the room you are in, and made a connection between this space and that of your body.

• Be aware of the space in front of your body that is beyond the room, all the way to the horizon.
• Breathe.
• Be aware of the space behind your body that is beyond the room, all the way to the horizon.
• Breathe.
• Be aware of the space to the left of your body that is beyond the room, all the way to the horizon.
• Breathe.
• Be aware of the space to the right of your body that is beyond the room, all the way to the horizon.
• Breathe.
• Be aware of the space above your body that is beyond the room, extending infinitely into space.
• Breathe.
• Be aware of the space beneath your body that is beyond the room, extending through the Earth, and infinitely into space.
• Breathe.

You have identified the dimensionality of all space, and made a connection between that space and your self.

The Magical Power of Enlightenment

Sometimes, people seeking 'enlightenment' are responding to a sense of loss in their lives; a feeling of being marginalised, unimportant, not part of the great plan. They feel that gaining enlightenment will change all this and put them back in the picture. This is fine. These people are usually right. Having a sense of loss is right because we have lost something. To not feel part of the great plan is right, because we don't really have a conception of what a great plan might be. Feeling marginalised is right if you really are on the margins. And sure, enlightenment can help to put these things in order and in perspective; give you a sense of what a plan might look like, and what your part in it might be. But some people have greater expectations than this. They believe that enlightenment will not only give them knowledge and wisdom, but will also give them limitless control; control over their own lives, control over their own passions and desires, even control over other people. They see themselves as like the Human Torch from the comic 'The X-Men', flaming with the power of their own illuminated consciousness, able to walk through wall and see into the heart of all things. These people are confusing self with ego.

Art and Gist

Brainerd and Reyna propose a process for the relationship between knowledge and memory which they refer to as the 'fuzzy trace'. This concept identifies a cognitive structure in the brain which is formed by repeated exposure to, and education about, specific experiences. So, for example, the experience of learning to drive a car, and of repeated driving behaviours, will create a mental schema or 'trace' of this behaviour. Similarly, repeated exposure to art, and education about art, will create a 'trace' of this art. This fuzzy trace is a kind of abstraction of all of the experiences, and represents the core, crystallised knowledge about the subject, and all of the individual experiences can be seen as 'instances' of this trace, (and I realise I am mixing metaphors wildly here). Significantly, this trace, or 'gist' as Brainerd and Reyna more colloquially call it, is then mobilised when new, related, experiences are encountered. So when driving a car, our moment by moment experience is referred to the existing 'gist', and this referring affects our actions and behaviour. Similarly, when we experience a new work of art, this experience is evaluated and understood in reference to our existing 'gist', and this referring produces the (critical) action and behaviour we have with regard to this artwork. This process works entirely subconsciously, and we do not think rationally prior to making a response or producing an action. Instead we get a feeling of 'rightness' or 'wrongness'; an intuition about the experience which guides our behaviour.

Computational Mind

The mind is (partly) a computer, programmed by the body, which is, in turn, designed through evolutionary interactions with the environment. Or, 'the mind is embodied, and the body is embedded'. But this may not be saying very much.

A few years ago the only objects capable of performing computations were brains and room-sized mainframes. Now computing is relatively ubiquitous, taking place routinely in our phones, toys, kitchen appliances, clocks, cars etc. This increasing distribution of computation is likely to continue, and will, at some point become routine, part of the fabric of our experience. We will soon refer to the computational abilities of material with the matter-of-factness that we currently use when talking about a materials strength, or weight, or colour. At that point, (and we are already seeing the signs of this), the concept of the brain as kind of computer will cease to be interesting. Of course the brain is a computer, and of course part of its functioning is the wielding and manipulation of symbols. But when computation is commonplace and everything computes we will feel obliged to ask 'what else does the brain do?'.

Enlightenment - No Golden Tickets

Enlightenment is not a ticket to a better world. We might imagine that knowing enlightenment, or 'becoming enlightened', is a little like a good kind of dying. That when we see the light we are somehow magically transported from this fallen, dangerous world to a better place; a place without war, or fear, or hatred. A place where everyone thinks pretty much the same as we do, and where the grass is greener, the sky is bluer etc etc.

This can't be right.

Enlightenment - Line and Point

Enlightenment is not a 'state', it is a 'way'. Both these terms use spatial metaphors to organise experience. It is tempting to think of enlightenment as a 'state' in the geographical sense; a special place we can move ourselves metaphorically into which is radically different from the state we are in at present. It is tempting to think that if we were in this place or state then we can simply stay there, permanently and completely enlightened, and from the vantage point of this mythical, brightly illuminated place, we can look back at the place we left and at the unenlightened people who are still standing in that place, and we can feel secure that we have not only seen the light, but we now live permanently in that light. Citizens of that special place.

This is all wrong. If we are to use a spatial metaphor to talk about enlightenment then we have to use one which reflects its status as a process, not as a fixed way of being. We need to see it not as a place but as a journey. Not as a place to hang our hat and relax, but as a road that we might walk down. This journey has no destination (although it probably ends at our death) but a journey in which the walking itself is the reason. Constant moving is both the way and the point of enlightenment. Walking and waking, walking and waking.

Visual Worlds

The evidence of the senses is sometimes contradictory, giving either different impressions of an aspect of the world according to which sensory mode we access it, or different impressions via the same mode when accessed at different times or in different ways. For example, when we are stationary and our eyes are not moving (more that the usual saccading), the visual world presents itself as a two dimensional perspectival painting, with the vanishing point corresponding with whatever our eyes happen to be focussing on. When we are moving forward, however, the optical flow transforms this image into a tunnel that we are moving through. The sides of this world tunnel slide behind us and objects in the distance become part of the 'walls' as we approach. If we stand in one place and look around us, the world changes again, becoming a three dimensional diorama with ourselves located at the centre; the sky like an inverted bowl over our heads.

Waiting for AHA

An experiment in which an abstract picture slowly resolves itself, producing an AHA! moment of raised consciousness, demonstrates the continuum which exists between this creatively illuminated moment of enhanced cognition and the constant 'lights on' feeling of normal waking consciousness. In addition, it also hints at the relationship between the type of cognition which exists just preceding the recognition of the image and the strength of the AHA! moment when recognition itself takes place. When there is no noticeable delay between the initial perception of the image and its recognition, (or rather when the time delay is set only by the organs of perception and visual processing), then the observation is characterised as being accompanied by standard consciousness. However, when recognition is delayed, the time delay, and the corresponding amount of anticipation and 'waiting' which occurs in the moments before the image resolves, seems to be in proportion to the strength of the AHA! which follows.

Mini Aha

Animations are constructed in which pictures, which begin as abstract mosaics, progressively resolve into recognisable images; faces, buildings, objects. The moment at which the image is recognised is accompanied by a feeling of heightened consciousness; a mini Aha! As the succession of animations, and the successions of Aha! continues, the time which the picture takes to resolve is reduced so that it becomes recognisable quicker and quicker. At a certain point there is no noticable period in which the image is unrecognisable, and at this point the Aha moment corresponds to normal waking consciousness.

A Course in Enlightenment: Feelings aren't Facts.

The techniques which lead to enlightenment may produce certain feelings, emotions, or bodily responses. This is inevitable; all thoughts are connected to shifts in the responses of the body, and the thoughts associated with enlightenment are no different to any other thoughts.
These feelings may include, awe, love, empathy, a sense of clarity, compassion; we may feel tearful, joyful, or as if we are about to burst with the power of our feelings. But these feelings are not enlightenment, they are just feelings. They tell us no more about enlightenment than the pain which accompanies falling tells us about gravity. The truth of enlightenment is itself, not the responses our body makes to that truth.
So does this mean we should ignore these feelings? Of course not, for just as the pain of falling gives us information about the fall and about our relationship to it, motivating us to produce actions and behaviour appropriate to our needs, so the emotions we feel when using the techniques of enlightenment give us similar information. We should observe these emotions, maybe even enjoy them, but we should not confuse them with the enlightenment itself.

Visual Duality

The visual sense (and the visual imagination) has an inbuilt tendency to objectivify experience by locating concepts at a remove from the body, thus transforming them into objects, and simultaneously creating a viewing position separate from those objects; the subject which is ourself. Inevitably, our eyesight gives us the impression that our 'self' is located here, behind the eyes, while the world is 'out there', beyond the surface of the skin. The faculty of sight is not therefore conducive to the development of non-dualism. Wherever we look we cannot see ourselves and, from this perspective (sic), whilst we may visualise the rest of the world as a unity; a single big picture, we ourselves are not in that picture. Visually, we are not in the world. Mirrors do, of course, provide a visual image of our selves, evidence for our worldly existence, but this evidence is circumstantial, not experiential. We usually do not identify ourselves literally with the reflection, or feel our consciousness to be located behind the mirror.

Shared Skin

Imagine that your skin is not a thin envelope of tissue holding your internal organs together, but is 15 ft thick. Its inner layers are close to the core of your body and you can feel the organs, vessels, and bones penetrating the skin. At this level it has the texture and consistency of meat. About 1ft out from your centre your skin is more glutinous, and there are organs here than migrate slowly through and around the body. Further out still the skin is runny like syrup, although there are currents within it which prevent it from dripping away completely and pooling on the floor. At this level your skin is permeable and subject to influences from outside. There may be currents flowing in your skin that are caused by a passing car, or another person moving close to you. There may even by objects and parts of objects protruding into your skin from the outside world. Further out still from your centre, and your skin is like water, like the aliens in The Abyss. It flows and forms eddies around you as you move and your thoughts and feelings appear as ripples in this liquid skin. Here there is considerable traffic with the outside world; objects float in your skin and the hands of lovers and friends splash in the waves. At its outermost level your skin is an evanescent gas, roiling and swirling amongst the atmospheres of the world. Here your skin mixes with the skin of everything else around you. The world appears in your shared skin.

Safe Art

The phenomenon of 'art', as a recognisable experience of human beings, has a number of overlapping and related psychic features. These include aspects of aesthetics, social production, function etc. but a significant feature is the primary categorisation of a particular object or event as 'art'. This categorisation is what allows the various other processes to become operative. Without the initial allocation of an experience to the category of 'art' other processes either do not come into play at all, or do so in a variant form. An analogy may be drawn with the experience of being hurled violently back and forth in a moving vehicle, narrowly missing other vehicles and travelling at high speed down perilously steep descents. In a car this would be a terrifying and possibly immobilising experience, whereas on a fairground ride this would be classified as 'fun'. The basic physical action is the same but the categorisation of the experience allows other responses to come into play. Many of the original responses may still be in place; we may still experience fear, but these responses are located in a category of experience which recontextualises them and allows them to be interpreted in other ways. When we categorise an experience as belonging to the domain of 'art' (by prompts such as frames, galleries, etc) we are orienting ourselves such that a particular set of responses become available, and possibly that other responses are suppressed. And just as the context of a fairground ride produces its variant responses by ensuring the experience is actually safe, so the context of 'art' allows its responses to be made by making similar assurances. The exhibition in the gallery my be terrifying, or perplexing, or minimally stimulating, or seductive, but it is also, ultimately, safe, providing us with an opportunity to contemplate, feel, absorb, or process in other ways the events and objects in front of us.

One Space

Space does not stop at the boundaries of objects and people, but penetrates and permeate everything and everyone.

There are no holes in space, and there is only one space.

When I move through space, space moves through me.

Proprioceptive Knowing

The various sensory modes which make up the human sensorium; sight, hearing, touch, taste, smell; map onto a set of knowledge types which range from the most 'objective' knowledge to the most 'subjective'. So, for example, we use the faculty of sight to refer to knowledge which we regard as objective, placing the knowledge at a remove from our bodies in the (metaphorical ) interpersonal space of shared experience. At the other extreme we use the faculty of touch to refer to knowledge which we do not regard as objective. We talk of the objects of such knowledge in terms of how we 'feel' about them, collapsing the metaphorical space and assuming a personal contact in which we might even say we are 'touched'. In addition to the senses already referred to however, there is also the additional sensory mode of proprioception; the schematic sense of our own bodies in space and the relations between the parts. The type of abstract knowledge which maps from this sense is likely to be different from the objective and subjective types noted above, and is likely to be concerned with such embodied kineaesthetic operations as balance, relation, centre, location, weight, etc.

Feeling Came First

Survival and the ability to thrive as an organism depends upon that organism's ability to respond appropriately to opportunities or threats in the environment; to avoid noxious or threatening stimuli and to maximise contact with stimuli which offers protection, sustenence and (particularly) the opportunity to reproduce. These responses are still with us and are, in all likelihood, experienced in largely the same way as they have been experienced in the evolutionary past, as a set of felt responses. That is, the attraction we experience for a member of the opposite sex, or a delicious cake, or a warm fire on a cold evening, is not the result of an academic, rational, deliberative process in which the potential benefits of such attractions are carefully considered. Rather, these attractions are experienced as feelings, or as a sense of their intuitive rightness. Similarly, the urge to remove our hand from a hotplate, or to run at the sight of a lion, or our experience of disgust at the dirty fork we are given in a cafe are not the result of a weighing up of potential hazards against other possible factors, but are the immediate felt responses to the conditions. Our behaviour in relation to these stimuli is usually appropriate in the evolutionary sense that it will, most likely, confer a survival and reproductive advantage. This behaviour is not the result of conscious thought (a recent arrival on the evolutionary scene) but of the urgings of non-conscious processes which we experience as positive or negative feelings.

Universal Feeling

Some of the traits, affordances, abilities, and tendencies that humans display are not particular to a single individual, or to a specific culture, but are found in all cultures, and in most, if not all, individuals within those cultures. These are what Brown referred to as 'Human Universals'. It is likely that the universality of these traits stems from combination of shared environmental conditions, shared evolutionary history, and a shared embodiment, (these factors are, of course, closely related). Given also that for most of that history we have been without consciousness, it seems likely that much of our non-conscious processing is similarly universal. These universals would not be something we are aware of, and may not have an overt visibility within culture, but would exist at the level of emotions, feelings, intuitions, and biases. Alternatively, it is similarly likely that there are responses, feelings, and behaviours which are part of all human nature, and which may be triggered by similar stimuli.