Individual Frame Level: Meno’s Paradox

Abstract

Minsky’s frame theory portrays a human consciousness that condemns humans to experiencing the world through prototype or predicted future frames. When we intersect with the real world, we automatically recall a prototype frame of the episode we are about to experience in real time. We “enter” this experience. Minsky gives the examples of “entering an unknown room” or “going to a child’s birthday party.” The prototype frame predicts the episode of experience we are about to undergo, allowing us to see-the-world-as-understanding rather than directly experiencing the cacophony of real-world existence. Visualize yourself out in the world, on the street, without a frame directing your actions. A car to your right honks its horn; a woman in a window is shaking a rug clean of its dust; an airplane overhead gleams in the sky, etc. It is rare that we do this. It is probably good for us as we walk through a forest, or through a meadow. Thinking about nothing; living in the moment. But in these moments, we have no frame in place, no standard of what is relevant and what is irrelevant. It is chaos. We are not built like that, our species.