Talk:Mental space

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[edit] Some thoughts on the topic

These are a few ideas that my colleages and I have been debating for the past month about how methods of communication and information exchange are changing the way we experience spatial relationships with others. We are fifth year undergraduates studying in the School of Architecture at Carnegie Mellon University. We realize that we dont have many references for this information, but we have been reading essays by Marshall McLuhan (Understanding Media)to gain inspiration.

Mental Space- a non-visual architecture

The world is experiencing an IMplosion as a result of information EXplosion. This implosion exists not in physical space, but in what we define as mental space. Everyone inhabits a mental space by virtue of thought. But our mental space is translated into ‘reality’ as a result of unprecedented communication means which we call the Media.

In mental space, communication and participation are key. Both happen through a medium, such as script. It is the medium (primarily script) that massages and communicates the content, which manifests in one’s mental space. Today we are witnessing the growth of communities interacting purely in mental space. These interactions are divorced from the physical, but yet they exist because people are emotionally invested in these alternate realities. So what does our mental space look like? How do we operate in and inhabit such a space?

It is the medium through which communication is established that controls the interaction. For instance, when I type “ I am inside my home now” to my friend online in one of these virtual communities, the information relayed is:

- I am indoors. - I am going to rest after a day’s work, etc.

It is irrelevant as to what my home looks like or what color my carpet is. In mental space, the visual is removed from the architecture.

We are investigating the nature of architecture in mental space, as massaged through a medium.

[edit] This article contains two different topics

The first paragraph is a good short summary of Mental Space as used by Gilles Fauconnier; the rest has nothing to do with it.