Part 09: Seldon’s Message Series --
‘Categoryology’ [Categories Character-Language].
Dear Readers,
It is my pleasure, and my honor, as an officer of the Foundation Encyclopedia
Dialectica [F.E.D.]
Office of Public Liaison, to share
with you,
from time to time, as
they
are approved for public release by the F.E.D. General Council, key excerpts from the internal writings, and from the internal sayings, of our co-founder,
Karl Seldon.
The ninth such
release in this new
series is
entered below [Some E.D. standard
edits have been applied, in the version presented below, to the direct
transcript of our co-founder’s
discourse].
This instalment addresses the fundamental nature of ‘Categorial Ideography’ that Seldon discovered.
For more information regarding,
and for [further] instantiations of, these Seldonian insights, please see --
ENJOY!
Regards,
Miguel Detonacciones,
Member, Foundation Encyclopedia
Dialectica [F.E.D.],
Participant, F.E.D.
Special Council for Public Liaison,
Officer, F.E.D.
Office of Public Liaison.
“... Categories are something that we constantly use, in our thinking, our speaking, our writing, often
without being aware of that use, and of their usefulness.”
“Our
ideography is a shorthand, an algebra, a “character language” [cf. Leibniz] --
a language that uses “borrowed” phonetic characters to represent, no longer sounds of speech, but,
instead, the humans-made
idea-objects
that are whole categories; to represent all of their content.”
“It is a language about how
categories combine.”
“However, the key to the
meaningfulness of the sentence above is that this categorial ideography covers not just the “combinations” of one category-symbol with one or more other, disparate category-symbols.
The key to the success of this ideography is that it also covers the ‘self-combinations’ of categories.”
“That’s what makes this ‘categoryological’
algebra, or “class” algebra, more
than Boolean. This algebra does, indeed contain the Boolean part of the ‘‘‘self-multiplication’’’
of a category or “class” symbol. But its
form of category-symbol ‘‘‘self-multiplication’’’ also goes beyond that Boolean part.”
“What does the ‘self-combination’
or ‘‘‘self-multiplication’’’ of a category-variable represent, per this ‘categoryology’?”
“Consider the “units” called
“letters of the alphabet”, or “phonetic characters”. By the presently-existing [net] ‘self-combination’
of that category, we may mean, for example, the category of “words” --
of word “units”, words being another, higher level, higher scale -- more
inclusive -- kind of “units” in relation to the letter “units”. The word “units” contain letter “units”. That is, each typical word unit contains multiple
letter units.
“Or consider the “unit” called
“an atom”, of the category called “atoms”. We hold that the earliest “molecular clouds”,
in the early phases of our
universe,
from which new stars [and, later, new planetary systems] formed, began as
‘‘‘atomic clouds’’’. Atom-units are
presently combined to form another, higher level, higher scale kind of “units”,
molecule-units, that “belong to” the category of “molecules”.” The molecule “units” contain atom “units”. That is, each typical molecule unit contains multiple atom
units.
“The discovery that this ‘categoryology’
is dialectical is best grasped as a
discovery after the fact. First comes
the category-ideography/-algebra/-shorthand. Later comes the observation that it is a dialectical ideography. Such an
observation may be made by those who have gained experience with using this ‘categoryology’
repeatedly, to help them to guide their thoughts in domains of practical
application, and who have thereby become familiar with its ways. They may notice, in time, that its patterns
mime different aspects of those of the classical «species» of ‘Rhetorical
Dialectics’, in Zeno, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Hegel, and Marx. ...”
