Christmas is time for some philosophizing. When I ask whether THEE is spiritual, I mean apart from containing spirituality-related entities as taxonomic elements (as explained in my last blog).

Answer: Yes, in a way. So let's now look at that way. 

A taxonomy uses categories to order what exists within a particular field. Until there is taxonomic clarity, it is very difficult to make sense of a field. You don't know what's there and you don't know what it's like. Try imagining chemistry without knowing the chemical elements or the periodic table. 

The field of THEE is one part of how people get on in life. Getting on in life has two parts, the biologically determined and instinctual realm, and the psychologically determined and creative realm. You and I are creative in so far as psychosocial reality is concerned. Or I should say that we are potentially creative. It is certainly possible to live largely in a zombie-like fashion, embrace conformity, and when in doubt herd, imitate and defer to others. Probably such a person More...

Are you and your brain essentially the same thing?  There is a materialistic fashion at present to answer: "Yes. Of course, how else could it be?"  But: It could be that transcendental ideas are relevant and some medical scientists would agree.

However, in recent years scientific fellow-travellers have fallen in love with a reductionistic neuroscience.  They have no trouble writing sentences like: 

When we are deprived of sensory input, we generate images using our memory and keep our consciousness agents busy by playing back memories.  

But do «we» generate those images?  Do «I» play back memories?  Or do such things happen to me/us?  Do you reach puberty or does puberty happen to you?  Do you grow old?  Or is aging happenstance?

There is an enormous difference More...

One of my continuing dilemmas is when to post material and how much at any one time.

I have been unhappy to post frameworks until I feel that they are correct and reasonably complete. This means that by the time I am scientifically satisfied that there is sufficient internal structural validation and that both the primary framework and its derived frameworks are mostly correct - well, by this time there is one hell of a lot of material.

So my question is: would people prefer me to post More...

I am currently struggling to get a phrase right.  Well, not exactly a phrase—a name.

Can you help me?  I hope so.  Let me put you in the picture.

The heart of the Taxonomy is identifying something and then giving it a really good name, so that everyone can immediately recognize what is being referred to.  The goals are: precision (i.e. exactness), resonance (i.e. generates the right vibes) and differentiation (i.e. discriminates from related, similar things).  Of course, in the process of identifying anything, I have to use words to describe what I am focusing on.  These are usually imperfect names, More...

My New Year’s Resolution…I will try out a blog: for the website and available on the website.  It took a few weeks to get the blog set up but I'm glad this is going out before the end of January (just).

It is going to be about TOP, my Project to put THEE online.  That means it will be about THEE, the taxonomy, and my current interests, frustrations, observations, reflections &c.  I will float ideas and findings not yet quite ready for formal posting.

I will also blog about the practicalities and realities of the website.

Probably, I will blog about anything that I might want to tell you if we were chatting over a cup of coffee during my mid-morning break, or having a glass of beer at the end of a long day.

It won’t be regular as clockwork, but I expect to do something every couple of days.

This is an adventure.  I’m not sure how it will go—but that is the way of adventures.

WK