Alternative Visualtizations of MetaSelf: Computer, Puppetshow, Campfire; Plato's Cave
Other Ways the MetaSelf Model Could Be Presented

The MetaSelf approach, on the most general theoretical level, is simply a loose assembly of the spatial/visual metaphors (based on the axes of the body) that are used in English to describe the self. On this level, MetaSelf simply reveals some resources we draw on to conceptualize ourselves.

More pointedly, however, MetaSelf also presents a specific master metaphor - a box-frame exhibited on the wall of a room where there is a viewer, and this master metaphor summarizes and illustrates the loose assembly of linguistic facts. While another model might select the body's vertical axis for special emphasis, (for example, the one by Rolf von Eckartsberg), I have tried to show that it is possible to build a powerful and useful model that stresses the front/back axis instead.

There are, however, other ways one might illustrate a specifically front/back model. I think of three: a computer screen, a puppetshow, and some people facing a campfire at night. All three are like the box-frame/viewer interaction: one thing or person faces another. The campfire essentially substitutes another person for the box-frame, but it keeps the element of a light that casts a shadow behind each of the people present. Missing, however, is anything that schematically represents our spatial metaphors the way the box-frame does. Also missing is the element of the wall and the room, which is a tangible way to represent a system that surrounds some participants. Instead, the shadows behind people around a campfire fall a little behind them on the ground but mostly extend outward into the night, blending the figurative space of the personal unconscious with the endless space of a dark night.

A puppetshow is similar to a TV, a computer screen and a box-frame because people face and view it. And, at least in the case of Punch and Judy, it usually contains human forms (faces and rudimentary bodies) with the same three axes as ours. But there is a live person (or persons) inside taking on different roles out in front. Like a theater metaphor, the "actor" creating the characters could have different feelings from what is presented publicly, giving us the contrast between inner self and persona that is part of the MetaSelf model. There is nothing about the puppetshow's spatial organization, however, that specifically represents the personal unconscious.

Because the computer screen is organized with right angles and is boxy, it is like the box-frame model, but it has the smallest element of the human form, having nothing like facial features or body parts, although we do "inter face" with it. It has a memory, but it does not have the kind of deep memory that we call the shadow, which consists of a person's repressed (pressed back) needs, feelings and potentials. To expand a computer's potential, one has to insert a new card or change the mother board. But perhaps the comparison to a person is actually closer, because one could imagine a computer that had all sorts of capacities that didn't get expressed on the screen. The conscious front part has forgotten where certain program files are located and so they never get used.

Finally, a few remarks about the analogy of Plato's cave, which is another horizontal model. At the back of a cave, people are chained facing the wall. Behind them, midway toward the mouth of the cave, there is a trench filled with fire. Light from the flames casts shadows of the people horizontally onto the wall to which they are chained, and they mistake these shadows for reality. In Plato's view, most people live this way, mistaking images for real understanding, which he represents by the great light of the sun shining outside the cave.

Certain elements are shared by the master metaphors of the cave and the box-frame in the room: light, shadows, bodies, walls, and a location outside where there is a great light. I believe that most of us know the light outside only through metaphor and not directly through religious or spiritual experience. Therefore a model that explicitly places its emphasis on metaphor is needed. MetaSelf puts its emphasis on the ways our metaphors are organized around the body's structure, its locomotion, and light/shadow. I'd like to hear your comments on these alternative illustrative models (master metaphors), as well as your suggestions for others.