preview

Counterontology

Decent Essays

Central-Tendency Effect and Counterontology
Many aspects of life are incongruous meaning that they are bizarre and contradictory, this interests humans due to the fact that humans are extremely curious by nature. With this curiosity comes a craving for understanding. Humans are also very intelligent beings and enjoy being challenged in terms of stimulation if something is not very stimulating it becomes uninspiring and considered not worth understanding. Nevertheless, this does work both ways, if something is too challenging it becomes confusing which is not appealing. This means that there has to be some area in the middle that leads to the highest contentment of an individual or the general population, this spot in know as the “sweet spot” …show more content…

An ontology (ontologies for plural) is a group or category in which humans put in everything known to man in order to help understand the world. Some example ontologies would, but are not limited to, inanimate objects, art, and living things. As mentioned in Jim Davies book Riveted, humans are curious by nature and crave understanding, these ontologies help fulfill that craving and make it possible to investigate the world in a more organized fashion. Pascal Boyer’s counterontology theory takes an object and gives it characteristics from at least one other ontology to see how the human mind reacts to the contradiction of what it thinks to be true. Boyer’s counterontology theory shows that people will only find something intriguing if one or two characteristics from a different ontology are combined with it. An example given in class was the example of a crying statue. There were two ontologies mixed together, the inanimate quality being the statue itself and a biological quality, the tear. The statue had broken one of the foundational rules of being an inanimate object by having that living, biological characteristic of the tear. Had there been more characteristics from other ontologies the statue may have been regarded as too complex, hard to look at and …show more content…

For example, an orchestra is composed of many different elements, the individual instruments, the members and the conductor. There is a lot happening, but because pieces composed to intentionally have different intensities and tempos at different times, even if an observer starts to feel bored there will suddenly be a change in intensity to grasp their attention again. These varying levels of intensities create a sweet spot for the observer because it creates suspense, they become curious as to when the tempo is going to change which keeps them engaged and interested. The major ontology in this example would be music with an added characteristic of suspense, two different ontologies that fit well together. In addition to this, counterontology would suggest that if any more ontologies were to be added to the existing mixture orchestra would become very confusing and therefore unappealing. Taking music as an example again, there is another side of music that is not only instrumental but also lyrical, this mixes two ontologies resulting in a positive engaging experience. Moreover, to add to the central tendency effect in order to make the experience even more enjoyable the music can be performed live with lights and special effects, like a rock concert. The orchestra and the concert are two very different

Get Access