Ultrametric Model of Mind, I: Review
This work provides a mathematical framework for psychoanalytic theory, which is incremental in applying existing ultrametric methods to a new domain.
The authors mathematically model Ignacio Matte Blanco's principles of symmetric and asymmetric being using an ultrametric topology, showing how it can represent the structure of logic in conscious and unconscious reasoning processes.
We mathematically model Ignacio Matte Blanco's principles of symmetric and asymmetric being through use of an ultrametric topology. We use for this the highly regarded 1975 book of this Chilean psychiatrist and pyschoanalyst (born 1908, died 1995). Such an ultrametric model corresponds to hierarchical clustering in the empirical data, e.g. text. We show how an ultrametric topology can be used as a mathematical model for the structure of the logic that reflects or expresses Matte Blanco's symmetric being, and hence of the reasoning and thought processes involved in conscious reasoning or in reasoning that is lacking, perhaps entirely, in consciousness or awareness of itself. In a companion paper we study how symmetric (in the sense of Matte Blanco's) reasoning can be demarcated in a context of symmetric and asymmetric reasoning provided by narrative text.