THE TREFOIL CORE. We should now return to the perceived trefoil pattern, and look at the centre of all the overlaps -- the trefoil core (marked 1) -- where the ideas appear common to all three of the great traditions. As most readers will know, the ideas are often called elements (2), sets (3) and relations between elements and between sets (4 and 5) -- ideas that are considered in much more detail in the main publication.
For the purposes of this brief introduction however, we should concentrate on the proposed core of the core. The formal inversion theory suggests that the concept of form itself is a strong candidate for the most central idea in human abstraction. The proposal is of course not new -- it has been previously proposed in various ways by various people including Plato and Aristotle. What is new is that the proposal is backed by arguably strong physical evidence concerning all brains including our own.
The distinction between a set and a form is best demonstrated with an example. The diagram marked 6 shows a set of elements that are not recognisably related. The diagram marked 7 shows a set of the same elements that are recognisably related. Diagram 6 represents a set. In diagram 7 it has become a form.
Form seems to be the characteristic that the brain adds to a set when its elements (be they elements of sight, sound, smell, taste, touch or whatever) become recognisably related.
Having looked briefly at some putative mind forms in individuals, we should next look at them in communities.
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