freshly minted instance symbol, the default options can easily be overrid-
den, but unless this is explicitly done, they will remain in the instance
symbol, inherited from its class symbol. Until they are overridden, they
provide some preliminary basis for you to think about the new instance-
for example, the movie I went to see-by using the reasonable guesses
which are supplied by the "stereotype", or class symbol.
A fresh and simple instance is like a child without its own ideas or
experiences-it relies entirely on its parents' experiences and opinions and
just parrots them. But gradually, as it interacts more and more with the re~t
of the world, the child acquires its own idiosyncratic experiences and
inevitably begins to split away from the parents. Eventually, the child
becomes a full-fledged adult. In the same way, a fresh instance can split off
from its parent class over a period of time, and become a class, or pro-
totype, in its own right.
For a graphic illustration of such a splitting-off process, suppose that
some Saturday afternoon you turn on your car radio, and happen to tune
in on a football game between two "random" teams. At first you do not
know the names of the players on either team. All you register, when the
announcer says, "Palindromi made the stop on the twenty-seven yard line,
and that brings up fourth down and six to go," is that some player stopped
some other player. Thus it is a case of activation of the class symbol
"football player", with some sort of coordinated activation of the symbol for
tackling. But then as Palindromi figures in a few more key plays, you begin
building up a fresh instance symbol for him in particular, using his name,
perhaps, as a focal point. This symbol is dependent, like a child, on the class
symbol for "football player": most of your image of Palindromi is supplied
by your stereotype of a football player as contained in the "football player"
symbol. But gradually, as more information comes to you, the "Palindromi"
symbol becomes more autonomous, and relies less and less on concurrent
activation of its parent class symbol. This may happen in a few minutes, as
Palindromi makes a few good plays and stands out. His teammates may still
all be represented by activations of the class symbol, however. Eventually,
perhaps after a few days, when you have read some articles in the sports
section of your paper, the umbilical cord is broken, and Palindromi can
stand on his own two feet. Now you know such things as his home town and
his major in college; you recognize his face; and so on. At this point,
Palindromi is no longer conceived of merely as a football player, but as a
human being who happens also to be a football player. "Palindromi" is an
instance symbol which can become active while its parent class symbol
(football player) remains dormant.
Once, the Palindromi symbol was a satellite orbiting around its mother
symbol, like an artificial satellite circling the Earth, which is so much bigger
and more massive. Then there came an intermediate stage, where one
symbol was more important than the other, but they could be seen as
orbiting around each other-something like the Earth and the Moon.
Finally, the new symbol becomes quite autonomous; now it might easily
serve as a class symbol around which could start rotating new satellites-
Brains and Thoughts^353