each of our brains shares the same model-making abilities and standard
operating procedures.
Douglas Hofstadter suggests that human brains share certain “iso-
morphisms” that make coding and decoding possible and adds that these
isomorphisms represent a “correspondence which not only maps sym-
bols in one brain onto another, but also maps triggering patterns onto
patterns.” Though exact correspondences might not always appear at
smaller scales, there are enough global similarities in these patterns to
make real communication possible. This is also what makes translation
possible from language to language and culture to culture.
The implications of this for literature are obvious. Somehow, writers
pack four dimensions of space-time implicate with human meaning into
two-dimensional strings of letters on a page, which readers must then
unpack, using built-in procedures they share with the writer. A further
complication is that in order for this process to work, the writer must
first model the minds of prospective readers to predict how they’ll
respond. To satisfy and subvert reader expectation, he must continuously
refer to his own internal model of the reader’s mind and adjust the writ-
ing process to accommodate it. Because both writer and reader share a
language, a culture, and certain universal human experiences, their men-
tal maps of the world share similar patterns. The full context of any text
must include this large, recursive mapping process.
To understand the complex nature of writing, consider how a novel
is written. The writer may begin with an intuition of the novel’s overall
tone, plot, or theme, which he may have glimpsed—in toto—in a tiny
scrap of memory or an overheard conversation. Proust found the seed of
his seven-volume Remembrance of Things Past in the taste of a
madeleine (tea cake). From as little as a single phrase, a voice or char-
acter can emerge, bringing with it a tangle of associations. Once sensing
the gist of a plot or a character, the novelist begins typing, starting with
a single letter, then a word, then a phrase, then a sentence, looking ahead
to the small episode in which each element is lodged—and perhaps to
the entire story—as he writes.
The first declarative sentence the writer types contains within it a
tiny plot, which will take place within and help comprise the novel’s
larger plot: “Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a
moocow coming down along the road and this moocow that was coming
down the road met a nicens little boy named baby tuckoo.... ” This first
sentence anticipates, and helps create, all that follows by establishing a
tone, a repetitive rhythm, and a specialized diction evocative of early
childhood.
The Enchanted Loom: A New Paradigm for Literature 153