Return to Shakespeare: The Machine Code of Rhetoric in Biosemiotic Programming

We searched for keys to control somatics in metaphorical language. We studied Shakespeare, the speeches of great orators, and sales copy, hoping that the art of persuasion, rhetoric, would tell us how to compose a lexical contract of maximum penetrating power. It seemed logical: the deeper, more beautiful, and poetic the metaphor, the stronger it should transform the biological substrate.

Experiments and recent shifts in computational neurobiology (including the paradigm of predictive routing) brought a sobering insight. A metaphor at the peak of a biological override - is a lethal noise generator.

When we give the brain a poetic comparison, the prefrontal cortex (PFC) explodes with a computational storm. Instead of instantly directing a dopamine volley to trigger an endogenous epigenetic reset, the brain wastes precious milliseconds solving a puzzle: "What does 'the light cleanses the depths of the well' mean? Is it about the vitreous body or consciousness?". Representational overlap occurs, predictive uncertainty skyrockets, and the laser pulse of the command turns into scattered fog.

The Paradox of Abstraction: Why Do We Love "Noisy" Language?

Here a fundamental question arises: if the brain's main task is to minimize uncertainty and save calories, why haven't we turned into dry robots speaking exclusively in the language of instructions? Why do we write poetry, read drama, and adore ambiguous metaphors?

The neurobiology of active inference and predictive coding provides three deep explanations for this. Our brain loves abstractions and controlled noise not despite its predictive nature, but because of it:

1. "Dopamine Jackpot" from Prediction Error (The Joy of Resolution). The brain receives dopamine not when everything is 100% predictable (that's boring, there's no new information in it), but when it encounters a prediction error that it successfully resolves. Faced with a metaphor, the brain plunges into a state of slight cognitive dissonance for a fraction of a second - uncertainty spikes. But then, thanks to context, a "eureka!" moment occurs: the brain finds the hidden connection, solves the puzzle, and instantly shuts down this uncertainty. This moment causes an explosive phasic dopamine release. We do not like the noise itself; we like the process of triumphantly overcoming it. Abstract language is a legal amusement park where the brain artificially creates a computational riddle for itself to immediately get high from solving it.
2. Energy Optimization (Data Compression via "Archivers"). Paradoxically, abstract and metaphorical language in the long run is the highest form of cortical energy conservation. Abstraction works like a computer archiver (.zip or .rar). Imagine you need to describe a state of deep, existential, melancholic sadness mixed with bright memories. If you describe this in the straightforward, "dry" language of biology and facts, you will need hours of text, listing hormones, pulse rates, and childhood triggers. But you say one abstract word or metaphor - for example, "autumn of the soul" or the Portuguese "saudade". This word instantly unpacks a huge, terabyte-sized array of associations, emotions, and memories in your head, which is already recorded in your neural network. The brain adores abstractions because they allow activating colossal layers of experience with one short semantic tag. This is peak computational efficiency.
3. Evolutionary Plasticity Trainer (Exploration vs. Exploitation). Any living predictive system has two basic survival strategies: exploitation (using old, rigid, 100% verified schemes and automatisms) and exploration (looking for new connections, expanding the map of reality, testing hypotheses). If we only used straightforward language, our prefrontal cortex would eventually become absolutely rigid. Abstract and metaphorical language is a safe evolutionary plasticity trainer. Encountering poetry or complex rhetoric, the brain "stretches" synapses, builds new associative routes between zones that never communicate in ordinary life (for example, links a visual image with the concept of memory). We like the uncertainty of art because our subconscious knows: this "noise" keeps the brain in a living, plastic, and adaptive state.

Why then do we ruthlessly banish this beautiful abstract language from BSR lexical contracts?

Because in BSR we are in a mode of strict exploitation under conditions of acute time deficit. We only have a few seconds of window to input the code. In these seconds, the brain should not train plasticity, unpack archives, or earn dopamine by solving puzzles - we have already created this dopamine! In the protocol, the brain must act as an executive mechanism: receive a flawlessly compiled, unambiguous command and direct all parasympathetic resources to the target zone.

But we will read Shakespeare, enjoy metaphors, and train our prefrontal router with abstract noise after the session.

Does this mean rhetoric is hopeless in our research? Absolutely not. It means we must take from it not the romantic fog of metaphors, but its pure mathematical framework. Shakespeare's greatness is not in abstract beauties, but in the flawless architecture of sound, rhythm, and syntactic symmetry that can forcefully reduce neuronal noise.

We return to Shakespeare. But now we use rhetorical devices as dry, algorithmic machine code.

Architectural Exploits: Form vs. Meaning

The meaning of a BSR lexical contract must remain straightforward, descriptive, and fact-stating - zero calories for decryption. But the form in which this meaning is clothed can obey strict laws. The brain is evolutionarily programmed to look for patterns, and when it finds them, predictive uncertainty drops to zero.

Here is how real rhetorical tools work in the service of neurosemiotics:

1. Tricolon - Rhythmic Closure

The brain thinks in chords. A tricolon divides a command into three symmetrical steps, creating an ideal prediction vector. The first element sets the motion, the second confirms the pattern, and the third places the final dot.

• Straightforward noise: "My vision is improving right now, the spasm is passing, and everything is clearing." (Amorphous, the cortex wanders).
• Mathematical tricolon: "Sharpness returned. Suspension dissolved. Eye renewed." (Symmetry reduces the variability of the neuronal membrane potential, causing a cognitive closure effect).

2. Alliteration - Frequency Filter

A repeating acoustic pattern lowers the threshold of excitability in the speech-motor and auditory cortex, literally "imprinting" the phrase into the neural network.

• BSR Code: "System steady. Spasm stopped."

3. Isocolon - Syntactic Alignment

A device Shakespeare used to create a monumental, inevitable sound of speech. An isocolon is a structure in which adjacent phrases have exactly the same length, grammatical form, and syllabic weight. For the prefrontal router, an isocolon is a set of rails. The brain calculates the rhythm of the second phrase with one hundred percent certainty, completely eliminating predictive noise.

• BSR Code: "Focus exact - spasm compact" or "Gaze is clear - nerve in gear." (Equal number of syllables, identical grammatical structure. Total predictability of form with a rigid statement of physiological shift).

NB. The code examples above are for illustration only. In real experimental protocols, we run all codes through a ruthless meat grinder, and few survive. But, by the way, the examples for the isocolon look, at first glance, not bad.

Code Cast in Stone

We rehabilitate rhetoric by cleansing it of its romantic fog. In Cognifica protocols, a lexical command no longer sounds like a ballad. It sounds like a Roman military order or a flawlessly compiled line of software.

The meaning is dry, descriptive, and uncontested. The form is rhythmically ideal, symmetrical, and mathematically verified. It is this hybrid that pierces rigid somatic defenses, transforming predictive routing and forcing the body to obey syntax.

Shakespeare was a great engineer of the human brain. We are simply translating his blueprints into the language of modern neurobiology.

Forsyth, M. (2014). The elements of eloquence: Secrets of the perfect turn of phrase. London: Penguin.

Furutachi, S., & Hofer, S. B. (2026). Rethinking Predictive Processing. Annual Review of Neuroscience, 49.

Gabhart, K. M., Xiong, Y. S., & Bastos, A. M. (2025). Predictive coding: a more cognitive process than we thought?. Trends in cognitive sciences.