The Unification Story
The Origin and the Root Hierarchy were difficult to discover, identify and name for many reasons. These difficulties constitute much of the background to discovering THEE, and they have not all disappeared.
Social Convention Pressured a Young Inquirer
Discovery work commenced deep within THEE and the social environment at the time encouraged viewing those fragmentary discoveries as «fundamental». My academic environment offered no protection or sympathy. Although little may have changed academically in the succeeding decades, awareness amongst the general public about how people actually function appears to have been transformed, if we can believe the evidence of bookshops and the Internet.
There are many fundamentals within THEE. Indeed it is a taxonomy of essences. But as to what is fundamental to THEE itself? Well, that is a different and difficult matter to clarify. However, following the accumulation of observations and frameworks over about 30 years, conceptual inquiry into fundamentals commenced in 2013 with findings posted in the Architecture Room.
My Own False Conjectures Led Me Astray
While various disparate frameworks were being identified and explored, I found it impossible to assume that all the frameworks were unified. It was just too great a conjectural leap, given my scientific background and the patchy picture of disparate structural forms.
For a long time, I assumed there was some sort of parallel system in operation with an underlying abstract controller determining similarity of structure. It may sound ridiculous now, but it seemed a reasonable conjecture at the time. You can see more of my mistaken conjectures.
Disparate Nature of the Structures Confused Me
In the initial decades, frameworks were discovered through the pressure of consultancy and a determination to assist rather than impose my latest framework. The result was that I developed a number of useful frameworks with differing structures.
Any structure takes time to elaborate and crystallize, so there was much overlap in their emergence. Still, as I recall, the order of discovery was approximately as follows:
The hierarchy was the first structure (), but the number of Levels was uncertain …
→ then came the Typology () …
→ then came awareness of two forms of hierarchy ( with nesting in , and without nesting in ) …
→ then came Dualities (oscillating initially, and then the dynamic duality, with other types coming later) …
→ then came the Tree () …
→ then came the Spiral () …
→ then came the Structural Hierarchy () …
→ then came the Style Hierarchy and Q-complex … and so on.
Each of these discoveries generated much checking and many blind alleys. The process of architectural discovery has continued even after having discovered the unification: e.g. the Typology Essentials Table (TET) was identified early on in relation to , but further implications developed while preparing for posting, and during later investigations. The internal duality only properly firmed up as a major feature with the exploration of .
I wish to emphasize the value of delaying judgement. If I had jumped the gun with some theory about how it all worked, I doubt that I would have been capable of continuing to discover all these distinct forms. As it happened, there was no danger of any breakthrough to premature theory, as I was mostly bewildered and surprised by whatever was emerging.
The Critical Juncture and Breakthrough
The critical discovery, which eventually led to unification, emerged as I was puzzling over the Spiral trajectory for . For the hundredth time, I noted that some looked a lot like . I had noticed something similar in regard to choices: control over «» was handled by «». Suddenly I extrapolated: being a discontinuous level above , with some sort of overlap which integrated two disparate domains. It did not take me long to check other frameworks and conclude that other similar patterns probably existed or could be rather easily found.
Getting Validation and Confidence
After identifying and naming all Levels in the Root Hierarchy, it was necessary to validate via various methods, especially structural corroboration. It took me about 10-12 years to finalize and become confident enough about the based on the Root Hierarchy to go public.
Structural corroboration is relevant to this Satellite because the elaboration of the architecture generated many unexpected and illuminating results. Most recently, there was the unexpected discovery of correspondences with other architectural forms, which opens new vistas of puzzlement.
It is likely that there will be errors of identification and formulation in the material posted to this Satellite.
Final Thoughts
Expositions are designed to make ideas look rather simple and obvious, but the recognition and naming of the Root Hierarchy Levels was arduous and uncertain for more than 20 years. I frankly doubt it would be possible for anyone to confidently postulate and develop the Root Hierarchy just from observation and reflection.
There have been numerous attempts to do just this in esoteric traditions, philosophy, and psychology. Many have followers. None have stood the twin tests of time and usefulness. I have sought to make the present approach safe, sensible and scientific but, of course, more could be done.
Originally posted: 27-Jan-2011. Amended 22-Jun-2023.
