Compression and global insight

Compression is a phenomenon in conceptual integration that allows human beings simultaneously to control long diffuse chains of logical reasoning and to grasp the global meanings of such chains. Compression operates on a small set (under twenty) of relations rooted in fundamental human neurobiology as it applies to shared physical and socio-cultural human experience. So-called Vital Relations, including Cause-Effect, Change, Time, Identity, Intentionality, Representation, and Part-Whole, can apply across mental spaces, and also define essential topology within mental spaces. In blending networks, a vital relation across inputs (outer-space vital relation) can be compressed into a vital relation within the blended space (inner-space vital relation). We show how one of the overarching goals of compression through blending is to achieve `human scale' in the blended space, where a great many of our conscious manipulations take place.