What Ideonomy Can Do

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Reconcile Differences

Many things that on the surface appear different are surprisingly reconcilable; they can be: made, shown to be, or treated as being : consistent, congruous, harmonious, integral, equivalent, convergent, mutually derivable, symmetric, complementary, homologous, interchangeable, coessential, congeneric or co-taxonic, etc.

Ideonomy can be used to:discover, define, describe, name, explain, and interrelate : all of the : actual or possible : differences of : any pair or set of things or of all things; and the : causes, dimensions, properties, laws, interrelations, effects, corollaries, importances, contents, types, taxons, instances, analogies, associations, etc : of these differences.

In this way it can: find differences to reconcile, find partial or optimal ways to reconcile arbitrary things, find reasons to reconcile things, find opportunities to reconcile things, find opportunities and needs to reconcile many things at the same time, find useful symmetries among differences, find out the relative importance of alternative and diverse reconciliations of things, find out what is irreconcilable, etc.

Reconciling differences may be important because: it can obviate things or prove them to be unnecessary, it can reduce needs or relax requirements, it can simplify and render more realistic the explanation or description of things, it can reveal unsuspected or all-important kinship or clarify the general relationship Of things, it can pave the way for the useful combination or managerial coordination of things, it can obliterate irrelevant distractions, it can produce an éclaircissement, it can bring eclipsed differences to light, it can facilitate the fusion or synthesis of things, it can correct or refine a classification or classifying scheme, it can promote more universal theories, it can help account for the differences, it can make for a more accurate quantification of differences, it can improve the analogization or analogical use or exploration of differences, it can focus attention upon more fundamental things, it can redefine differences, etc.

By way of example:

Ideonomy could reconcile the apparent or actual difference between the predicted and actual form of an earthquake, so as to corroborate or exonerate a seismological theory;

Differences among various plant species could be reconciled so as to excuse, enforce, or enjoin their classification in the same botanical family;

Real or apparent theoretical or practical differences between communism and capitalism or democracy could be reconciled so as to make the rival systems tolerant of one another, cooperative, synergistic, fusible, dialectically synthetic, or equivalent;

Differences between two different planets (their magnetic fields, atmospheres, topographies, or internal structures) could be reconciled to support a particular theory of the origin of the solar system;

Differences among individuals in the symptoms or course of a supposedly identical disease could be reconciled to uphold the identity of the disease or to confirm or clarify a theory of its mechanism;

Reconciling spectral differences observed between or within classes of stars could eliminate the need for the introduction of a new stellar class, subclass, or superclass;

By reconciling disturbing phonological and morphological differences between two contemporary languages, paleolinguists could more confidently derive them from the same parental language;

Reconciling measured differences in the performance of students in different educational systems--by theorizing or demonstrating equivalence, nonequivalence, or equilibria] reciprocity of various indices or dimensions of performance--could throw doubt on the need for certain contemplated reforms and portentous observations; and

If observed differences in the mineralogy of two neighboring mountain ranges could be reconciled as being the two alternative manifestations of a particular petrogenetic process, an overall simplification of geophysical theory might be possible.

Ideonomy can propound principles that can assist and guide the. reconciling of differences generally, such as principles to the effect that: a given thing or process can have many disparate manifestations, effects, or forms; big differences can result from tiny changes; so-called "chaotic" processes can easily give rise to deceptive complexity; differences often presuppose one another or one another's simultaneous existence or operation; there may be many different--and very different--ways of reconciling observed differences of things; the things that look similar are often in fact very different, even more different than the things that happen to look different; differences are often : variable, cyclical , protean, or dynamic; differences- even those that seem absoiute--may be context -dependent, narrowly functional , relativistic, or holistic, or may be either purely local or purely external; where sets of differences are : extremely many, diverse, or complex, or are nonequivalent : it may be possible to : find, create, or exploit : combinations of subsets of certain differences that virtually : reconcile, nullify, erase, or invert : some of the other coexisting subsets of differences; differences may be specific to just one or a few : hierarchic or nonhierarchic : levels, and : invalid, redefined, or transcendable : at one or all other levels; differences may be metastable or nonequilibrial; apparent differences are often imaginary; differences are always finite or a matter of degree; etc.

Suggest the Fundamental Dimensions of Things

By such dimensions may be meant such things as any or all of the following:

Descriptive, generative, or explanatory : quantitative and/or qualitative : elements, properties, terms, concepts, operators, references, coordinates, etc : actually, hypothetically, or virtually possessed of and/or specifying : a : finite, defined, and characteristic : extension, range, domain, magnitude, direction, and/or the like : and that are by nature : maximally or optimally : fundamental, universal, unique, elementary, defined, necessary, simple, few, limited and yet complete, important, separate, orthogonal, self- evident, sufficient, invariant, homogeneous, uniform, linear, isotropic, 'essential', etc;

Things to which all else is reducible or-from which all else can be derived;

Those things that are maximally or infinitely : heterogeneous, diverse, divergent, opposite, polar, etc;

Those things that are maximally inclusive;

Those things that are maximally complementary or synergistic;

Things that specify degrees of freedom, maximize freedom, or define spaces and manifolds;

Those elements of nature, thought, or reality that directly or indirectly maximize information (in Claude Shannon's sense), or that minimize the need for additional information;

Those things that, more than anything else, allow the : simplest, clearest, and best : arrangement and coarrangement : of things universaIIy;

Those things that allow other things to be described in the simplest possible way;

Quantities or qualities that, when combined, permit the possibilities of a thing to be exhaustively specified;

Ranges that, conjointly or when mapped upon one another in ordered ways, permit other ranges to be created or described;

Elements that are simultaneously qualities and quantities, or constants and variables;

The simplest parameters known or possible;

The most basic kinds or sources of order.

Actually the problem of what the nature of "dimension" is represents one of the greatest : scientific, philosophic, mathematical, logical, and noological : problems known to us, and it has yet to be solved.

Reality may be without any absolutely fundamental dimensions, but even if absolutely fundamental dimensions are mythical, it is vitally important that we continue our search for progressively more fundamental dimensions.

Ideonomy is a perfect instrument for identifying such dimensions, and in a sense the quest for them is its primary and special mission.

By exhaustively combining all manner of concepts and things--or comprehensively exploring, in effect, mental space--that vastly smaller subset of combinations of things or concepts that is nature as we know or think of it, becomes transcended by the operations of thought, and the ideonomist finds himself stumbling upon countless hitherto unrecognized and even inconceivable dimensions, and confronting a hierarchy of dimensions that are of ever higher and lower order.

In a sense ideonomy is, or represents an attempt to create, a set theory of all possible dimensions.

Special dimensions, and special structures of special clusters of dimensions, describe or are connected with different : objects, phenomena, processes, laws, realms, subjects, concepts, mathematics, tasks, logics, languages, etc. They need to be discovered, systematized, and generalized.

There also exist an infinity of special senses of dimension, and these, too, ideonomy seeks to identify, order, and exploit.

Despite the obvious importance of the fundamental dimensions of things, science has only recently shown signs of becoming aware of -the need to determine what they are over the full range of phenomena it studies. Of course there are certain dimensions that are extremely difficult to discover, characterize, and comprehend, and nature undoubtably contains various infinite series of ever more strange, obscure, difficult, unexpected, and 'illogical' dimensions-paths that give even God a headache.

To illustrate some of the things whose fundamental dimensions it might be worth knowing, or what the importance and uses of such knowledge might be:

What are the fundamental dimensions that describe, define, or give rise to human intelligence?

What are all actual or possible dimensions of human perception?

What is the set of dimensions that is necessary to fully describe the meaning of musical melodies--or all musical qualities?

What are the canonical dimensions of the physical universe?

What are the qualitatively quantitative, and quantitatively qualitative, dimensions that might be necessary to depict or discover the most perfect human figure or face, or all existing--or possible--types or continua of faces and figures?

Similarly, what fundamental canine dimensions are necessary, or would suffice, to construct an abstract combinatorial space containing all possible types of nonexistent dogs that it might be interesting to breed for under the direction and inspiration of a prior vision?

What is the set of fundamental dimensions of molecules that is necessary to predict the properties of a family of, all (~55,000,000) known, or all possible chemical compounds?

What are the fundamental dimensions of the world, and of vocational and social skills, that need to be taught to schoolchildren if their education is to be complete or perfect?

What are the most universally investigable dimensions of scientific phenomena, upon which research could or should concentrate?

What set of fundamental 'biological' dimensions could describe all possible forms of life elsewhere in the universe?

What are the universal and fundamental dimensions of human ignorance, either in general or of particular things?

What are all the fundamental qualitative dimensions that are needed to describe the set of all observed chess strategies?

From what set of fundamental visual, tactile, or sensory dimensions could a classificatory scheme for all common or discernible textures be constructed?

What are all of the fundamental phenomenological or conceptual dimensions necessary to describe or explain the evolutionary course of life on Earth?

What are all of the fundamental logical dimensions upon which all of conceptions and perceptions of fundamental physical dimensions depend?

What are all of the fundamental dimensions of, or that underlie, human emotions?

Even what are to be considered as being 'fundamental dimensions' need to have their connections and analogies explored; or perhaps they especially deserve this, given the importance of demonstrating, analyzing, and understanding their supposed or so-called fundamentality, or what we ourselves mean by fundamentality in general.

Define All Physical Dimensions

This is not just a task of interest to physicists. We have not as yet any idea as to how to circumscribe the subject matter of physics, or what the essential phenomenon is that that science studies--or will ultimately study. The focus has clearly changed over the centuries, and just as clearly it continues to change. Also concepts of the presumptive nature of physical being have encountered great problems, and questions have been raised about their accuracy, validity, and spirit. It is obvious that physicists have many prejudices of which they must one day divest themselves, in a painful metamorphosis.

A part of the problem is the eventual reducibility of other sciences to physics, or their transformability into subfields of physics. It is not merely astronomy, chemistry, geology, technology, and biology that may be physicalized in this way; the same fate may subsequently await psychology, sociology, historiology, economics, and even aesthetics, philosophy, mathematics, logic, and ideonomy. Of course by then, as was anticipated above, the nature and methods of physics may be almost unrecognizably different, for when the conqueror conquers something great he is apt to be transmuted by the battle and by the substance and form of what he ostentatiously assimilates.

In any case, in the set of fundamental dimensions thought necessary to describe a thing or process, the subset of physical dimensions have some right to be considered primary, or the most fundamental.

It may be possible to derive other dimensions, of a decreasingly fundamental nature, from them; and there should be a sustained effort to do this, no matter what the temporary difficulties of accomplishing this are. Of course, let it be said at once, that there should also be an ongoing parallel effort to derive all physical dimensions, or all dimensions in general, from increasingly fundamental mental and logical dimensions.

One of the reasons why it is important to define all physical dimensions is that a-typology and taxology of physical dimensions and extremes, when constructed, simultaneously gives a typology and taxology of the future subfields Of physics, and does so in the measure that it is complete.

A scheme identifying from the outset the branches of a science that are apt to, or that must, develop can have great value in subsequently steering the development of that science, or in increasing the efficiency, speed, directness, and intelligence of the process.

Conversely, ignorance of such branches can create unfortunate: redundancy, research with the character of aimless wandering, neglect of opportunities, failure to converge efforts that are fated to converge, trivialization of emphases, etc.

The structure leading to the development of the branches or to the isolation of the dimensions, or that the branches and dimensions will ultimately be found to define, will inevitably partake of many different but interconnected aspects, that in a universal sense all correspond to a set of things that are of the most central interest in all of ideonomic inquiry: convergences, divergences, trees, vergences, hierarchies, series, manifolds, lattices, circumplexes, networks, circuitries, "chaotic" patterns, fractals, etc.

An example of a physical dimension or phenomenon that can and must be diffracted into a multitude of discrete but interconnected forms, aspects, or elements is sound, whereof may be distinguished: frequency, amplitude, power, duration, spatial concentration, coherence, monochromaticity, constancy or variability, loudness and other subjective properties, wave number, wave shape, entropy, modulation or information content, divergence, convergence, velocity, complexity, isolation, autocorrelation, pressure, penetration, ranges (in space, frequency, amplitude, etc), evolution, hierarchy, differentiability, 'internal curvature', etc ad infinitum.

An ideonomic axiom requires that the sound must have an infinity of both potential and actual aspects or sub-dimensions, and ideonomy can assist with the theoretical isolation and subsequent experimental discovery and exploitation of this heterodox sonic infinitude. Also, as stated above, such things must have a complex, and indeed an infinitely complex, structure that likewise must be worked out.

Comparable investigations of all other physical phenomena need to be pursued with ideonomy's peculiar and irreplaceable assistance.

The list and structure of things that can pertain to sound generically, once worked out, will afterwards be applicable and reapplicable to an infinite number of things of which sound is an aspect, or to an infinite number of particular sounds.

Actually in the case of particular things and sounds, there are also infinitely-many finite subsets whose more specialized ideonomic lists and structures--or complex dimensionalities--need to be researched and defined, and the aggregate of these will also have broad utility.

It is not just the different types of dimensions, however, that will define future subfields of physical investigation. So also will the innumerable irredundant combinations and permutations of such types--as well as the nodal branch-points, limits, 'self-applications' and 'cycles', mutual interferences, subversions or reconditionings, virtualizations, and active structuring of the types.

What are all of the--actual or relevant--physical dimensions of such examples of things as: soap bubbles, stars, neurons, calving icebergs, lightning bolts, human speech, earthquakes, mechanical gears, electrons, auroras, Dirac-vacuum fluctuations, spinning tops, pollen grains, storm fronts, protein molecules, cellular microtubules, brain EEG waves, volcanic eruptions, the liquid-helium fountain effect, the physiology of tasting licorice, or the brain event effecting the summation 1 + I = 2?

Moreover, what are their interrelationships in terms of these phenomena viewed en bloc?

Accelerate Discoveries

Ideonomy can step up the pace of discovery by: suggesting new and critical scientific instruments, amplifying the flow of data and ideas throughout the scientific community, multiplying interconnections among all the different sciences, mapping out future fields of research perpetually enriching the wealth of scientific techniques, aiding the design of experiments and originating new tests of hypotheses and theories, reconciling seemingly disparate ideas and approaches, increasing the mutual understanding and rapport of scientists, maximizing the generalization of scientific ideas and their transformation into other ideas, using discoveries to predict other discoveries; identifying and characterizing ignorance, problems, and important questions; simplifying the requirements for discoveries, identifying other discoveries unrealizedly implicit in known discoveries, raising the efficiency with which data is analyzed; reducing the number of distracting and costly errors, illusions, and misconceptions; enlarging the amount of data extractable from any sample, specimen, event, situation, test, or domain-and the number of things deducible from that data; increasing the richness of scientific reasoning, helping to automate the process of discovery (both experimental and theoretical), augmenting the knownness--and intensity of use--of what is known, calling attention to the biggest possible clusters of discoveries that might be made, enabling phenomena to be modeled and simulated, maximizing the ideational content of science, making research more 'multiplexed' in its activities (or multipurpose), enhancing the ideonomic meta-structure of scientific knowledge and research (e.g. its network-like, tree-like, chain-like, hierarchy-like, and other qualities), extending the range of science or involving it in new domains and realms, expanding the guiding catalog of known or possible types and taxons of phenomena, making scientists more open to discoveries by training them in new modes of thought, magnifying the axiomatic machinery available to scientists and multiplying laws, isolating the larger-scale patterns of discovery over historical time or in abstract cognitive spaces, identifying universal phenomena that recur in all subjects and the habitual properties thereof, making science more planned and systematic, etc.

In such ways it could make the process of discovery--everywhere in science, mathematics, technology, and life--more: straightforward, efficient, powerful, scientific (sic), methodical, assured, meaningful, directable, encompassing, exhaustive, creative, beneficial, synergistic etc.

Ideonomy can also speed research by identifying ahead of time the needs that exist in science and society for various discoveries, or the broad uses that could be made of discoveries. It can describe the special needs that exist for sets of discoveries to occur--because of the combined consequences or applications they would have, or because of the world's interdependent problems, ignorances, opportunities, or factors.

It can suggest, for either instructive or scientific purpose, the totality of different discoveries that might be simultaneously or alternatively possible concerning, or in connection with, one particular thing.

Facilitate Discussion

With ideonomy it is possible to have a computer generate a galaxy of diverse questions about an arbitrary topic, that can then initiate, fertilize, or guide a lively group discussion on the topic.

As the discussion develops, such a group can make further and more complex use of ideonomy. Ideonomic organons or computer programs can be consulted to answer or help answer :he original questions or the group's own questions, to analyze or direct the discussion, to suggest alternative courses of the discussion, to synthesize new ideas, to suggest methods of discussion that the group might wish to experiment with, to criticize or help structure the discussion, to suggest related matters or concepts or series of subtopics, to promote argumentation or debate, to define the dimensions and elements of the discussion, to suggest illuminating analogies to other discussions that have occurred on the same or disparate topics, to determine the needs or possible goals of the discussion, to learn the possible values or outcomes of the discussion, to remake the discussion, to plan the future course of the discussion, to engage other ideonomic divisions in the discussion, etc.

Supreme brainstorming sessions can be triggered in this way, when experts in some field get together with an ideonomist for a day and use is made of diverse general and specialized ideonomic : lists, charts, books, computer software and printouts, and other tools and materials. Such sessions may variously treat the whole of the experts' field, that field in relation to some other, some topic or problem inside the experts' field, or some topic, problem, concept, or concern outside it.

But ideonomy can also be used to facilitate discussions of any type whatsoever: in elementary school classrooms among pupils or with their teachers, among university students, at conferences and symposia, in a scientific community through publications or the network of telephone conversations held over the years, among the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the United States Armed Forces formulating long-term strategy, of academic committees reviewing day-to-day problems, of the youngsters of a family in playful bicker, of a husband and wife anticipating the day's events over breakfast, of an author-hunched over the manuscript of the book he is writing- with himself or others mentally, among the various actors in a courtroom or jurors later deliberating the verdict they shall render, etc.

Ideonomy, in terms of its many divisions, can facilitate discussion of a thing by calling attention to or explicating the thing's: causes, effects, goods, bads, relations, history, future, analogies, differences, appearances, abilities, elements, implications, definition, changes, uses, etc; or by suggesting what is relevant to the thing, such as: principles, paradoxes, processes, knowledge, ignorances controversies, values, assumptions, decisions, purposes, acts, events, etc.

Ideonomy can train individuals in the art and science of discussion. It can raise universal standards of discussion. Ordinarily--or without
exception--discussions are defective or deficient in : purpose, direction, logic, skill diversity, force, pace, structure, responsibility, range,
breadth, depth, planning, method, self-understanding, relevance, value development, completion, etc.

Distinguish Things

Often things that appear to be similar or identical are in reality different, opposite, or of an unrelated nature.

The costs of confusing things, or of their inadequate discrimination, can be considerable.

The number of ways in which two different things could differ--and the number of ways in which they do in fact differ--are apt to be surprisingly large. The harsh truth is that we are pathetically ignorant and naive about the real : variability, differentiation, range of variation, discriminability, individuality, complexity, separability, multidimensionality, specificity, discordance, and differential classification : of the world of things and of the things of that world.

By being unaware of the differences of things and ideas we suffer greatly, and are deprived of many advantages.

Unawareness can mean: mistaking what is bad for what is good, or what is good for what is bad; being the victim of many illusions and deceptions, wasted perceptual effort, retarded action and reaction, diminished acuity and subtlety of perception, reduced learning from experience, failure to recognize and exploit compresent or unfolding opportunities, inability to enjoy and partake of the full diversity of things, intellectual confinement, diminished and erroneous classification of things, overgeneralization, etc.

Put positively, discriminating things can mean: noticing changes and discontinuities, recognizing the relative--and hence also the absolute--degrees of things, seeing analogies between things that are a function of their differences, finding ways--and reasons--to differentiate them further, gaining clues as to their more exact or complete nature, etc.

Ideonomy can investigate the differences of things to learn how to predict the probable and possible differences of other things of a similar or quite different nature. It can also undertake to discover all of the possible advantages of differentiating, and disadvantages of not differentiating, things.

Diverse examples of how specific things may differ or can be differentiated--and of what they may differ in or with respect to--are: Lava flows by age, Poetry and prose via degree of concentration, breviloquence, complexity, figurativeness, or inspiration, Fabrics by roughness, texture, weave, or fiber, Social classes by manners, Planets by solar distance or density, Flags by symmetry, outline, or simplicity, Water wells by depth, potential or actual production, or pollutedness, Cliffs by slope, uninterruptedness, height, abruptness, or length, Falling leaves by stability, angular velocity, or brownness (loss of chlorophyll), Cats by hair length, coat density or smoothness, placidity, shyness, and quirkiness, Oceans by storminess, temperature, chemistry, and shallowness, Garbage by homogeneity or malodorousness, Glasses by heat tolerance or brittleness, Supernovae by expansional isotropy, Ocean waves by height or profile, Caves by slope, branchedness, filledness, or splendor, Coals by energy or sulphur content, hardness, density, color, or foliation, Translators by speed, accuracy, vocabulary, expressiveness, subtlety, simplicity, quality of voice, or endurance,

Handwriting styles by cursiveness, grandeur, stability, expressiveness, or legibility, Smells by muddiness, softness, or piquancy, Elementary particles by quantum number, mass, or stability, Clouds by height, orientation, flatness, solidity, puffiness, stability, energy, temperature, texture, asymmetry, or rarity, Dogs by barks, Jokes by color, Personalities by differentiability, Ideas by elementariness, clarity, universality, transcendentality, difficulty, correctness, power, extraordinariness, isolation, necessity, or modifiability, Sports by intellectuality, violence, rapidity, or simplicity, and Faces by mobility, symmetry, breadth, or closeness of features on the same face.

Ideonomy can be used to: accelerate the learning and teaching of differences and to emphasize those differences that are important and sufficient to learn and to de-emphasize those that are trivial, redundant, misleading, or unjustifiably hard to learn (i.e. that can only be learned inefficiently); to learn and teach how to produce or maximize desirable, generic, or arbitrary differences--or even differentiational processes, series, hierarchies, networks, etc;

To codify differences per their: causes, effects, measures, signatures, levels, concomitants, cooperations and interactions, thresholds, geneses, evolutions, capacities, potentials, limitations, transitions and transformations, rates, degrees, goodness and badness, corollaries and implications, populations, spectrums, disguises, senses, definitions, absoluteness, controls and governments, primacy or secondariness (or N-ariness), superordination or subordination, consistencies and inconsistencies, descriptive determinants, "group" memberships and intertransformations, idiosyncratic treatment by the mind (or cognitive laws), combinations and permutations, spaces and manifolds, boundaries, information-theoretic content, domains and loci, probabilities, roles, distributions, disjunctions, criterions and proofs, alternatives, dimensionalities, divergences, convergences, order types and taxons, behaviors, niches, interferences, morphisms, uses, connections and topologies, mathematics, 'languages', needs, individualizations, patterns, processual relationships, logical laws, analogies, analogical devolutions or degenerations, relationships to and occurrences in regna, unifications and syntheses, reciprocities, inversions, symmetries and asymmetries, holistic relationships and laws, conservations, properties, cybernetics, elements, etc;

To learn how to construct complicated things out of the differences between or among particular or generic things; to limit, extinguish, prevent, negate, compensate for, or obviate differences; to develop methods and means for measuring differences; to model or simulate given differences in a variety of interrelated and divergent ways; to work out an algebra for differences (so that they can be added, subtracted, multiplied, exponentiated, reduced to zero or less, ''associated", etc.--in both special and universal ways); etc.

Ideonomy can help to rectify the status quo. Today it often happens that when things are found to be different, or differences are found to exist between things, confusion arises and a paralysis of action; no one knows how to proceed, what the consequences of proceeding would be, or how to adapt to the situation. Alternatively, the differences may simply be disregarded--which may produce problems, errors, or misconceptions or an ignorant forfeiture of valuable opportunities.

The taste of a fruit such as a nectarine may--explicitly or implicitly-- 'contain' many separate and diverse taste components. These may not be differentiated. The failure to differentiate them may mean that opportunities for the extraction or development of special 'new' tastes are overlooked and unexploited.

Again, when nectarines are eaten upon successive occasions, subtle variations of taste may be overlooked or ignored. The variations may be objective and/or subjective. Perhaps different nectarines have individual tastes that vary or that can vary on certain occasions or in certain circumstances, but which are only poorly differentiated by eaters not ideonomically trained to note, analyze, or reflect upon the possible significance of differences among particular or all things. A largely timeless 'nectarine-taste gestalt' may be reappearing on each occasion when a nectarine is eaten and masking (relegating to the land of unimportance) convergent or divergent variations upon and way from the archetypal nectarine taste. Yet as we have seen, these nuances, subthemes, and discords, could potentially be important. Not only could they lead to the development of new and novel tastes, but their isolation, improvement, and subsequent weaving back together--or recombination with the primary taste--could exalt the taste of a nectarine or even produce a flavor paradoxically closer to the quintessence of nectarine than the vulgar taste achieved in any actual nectarine.

In the course of eating a single nectarine, explicit or implicit kaleidoscopic or opalescence-like variations upon and complexities of--or different group-theoretic or myriorama-like interpretations of--nectarine taste' may be actually and potentially encountered (there could even be a Goedelian undecidability and/or a Heisenbergian uncertainty-and hence an infinite ambiguity and complexity-about tastes). Again, these may be essentially undifferentiated and yet variously important, from both a theoretical and applied point of view.

It may be that the universe of all possible or actual differences of things--especially of all kinds of things en bloc--consciously or unconsciously impresses people as being so infinite and amorphous that it intimidates them or discourages further or ataractic inquiry, or prompts the fallacious conclusion that the universe of differences, or even mere regions thereof, must be inherently anarchic, impenetrable, and unmanageable, or irreducible to any smaller set of universal types and laws of differences.

Yet if this is so, ideonomy could transform the situation by offering hope that a compact and universal calculus of qualitative differences can indeed be brought into being in the humble service of man and his needs, and that the future study of all the differences among things can be given the necessary paradoxically progressive-and-yet-growthless form.

Things whose existence would favor the idea that such an Elysian simplification is possible include: concauses of differences, common mental mechanisms for treating all differences, homologies of differences, universal analogies among differences and convergence of those analogies to a unique hierarchy and set of laws (possibly even with a role in physical causation), common measures of differences, clusters--even perhaps hyperclusters--of differences, the occurrence of differences in--possibly even their generation by--meta-structures, an analog of the simplex method for treating differences, mathematical constants constraining qualitative or conceptual differences, convergent series and integrals in the case of such differences, a unitary structure of interdependent probabilities of all possible differences that is accessible via multivariate analysis cum multidimensional scaling, cellular automata able to simulate or reproduce whole families of different differences en masse, an equivalent simplification in the opposite but complementary--or inverse--study of analogies (icelology), etc.

Maximize Diversity

Life and the mind thrive on diversity, and ideonomy can be used to maximize such diversity. Diversity has great--and in the future will have even greater--industrial significance, in a cornucopian and kaleidoscopic world. Human diversity is almost another name for democracy. The evolution of biological life has depended upon progressive--orthogenetic and experimental--variegation and anamorphosis.

The secret to diversification is combinatorics, which lies at the heart of ideonomy.

Ideonomy aims at the production of a truly universal scheme and system of classification, and such things can be stood on their heads and used as omnificent machines.

All of the ways in which all things can and do change can be discovered, and these will indicate all of the ways in which things can be made to change.

Ideonomy can be used to learn and master the greatest sources of diversity, variation, and evolution that exist or are possible, be they: laws, processes, mechanisms, mathematics, systems, hierarchies, or whatever.

Among the types of things it could directly or indirectly help to variegate are: words, inventions or lines of invention, the world's plants and animals, microorganisms (which may be the foundation-the underlying regulatory machinery-of the bios), human recreations, the arts, jobs, industries, sciences, topics of conversation, ideas and thoughts, the basic form and interior design of houses, mankind's wardrobe, chemicals, scientific theories and speculations, colors (sic), odors, materials, drugs, laws of government, people, books, newspaper articles, laboratory techniques, military tactics, functions of things, solutions to problems, answers to questions, metaphors, story plots, secret codes, philosophies, societies, organizations, public services, and life's days.

At the same time it can be used to predict the good and bad effects of such diversification.

It could be used to cope with the problems that maximal diversity would cause or a protean world would experience.

Depict Dynamics

In nature everything is in motion, and part of infinite systems, subsystems, and supersystems of motions.

One of the great keys to the universe lies in this dance, or in its methodical and progressive decipherment. Things are moving: but whence, whither, how, and why? What grand system of interdependent and interramified movement moves reaIity forward?

What are motions relative to other motions? How do they differ qualitatively? How do they evolve?

What are the ultimate sources and the ultimate goals of motion? What are its primary, secondary, and N-ary costs?

What are the most extreme--the maximal or minimal--motions? What are all of the senses or dimensions thereof: e.g. velocity, flux or flux density (of mass, numbers of things, energies, informations, actions, interactions or reversals, changes, etc), distance, flux-distance, auto-rotation, curvilinear or helical motion, sum-of-all-types-of-motions, diversity of motion, virtual motion, complexity of motion, variability or stability of motion, acceleration, higher-order motion, change or oscillation of size (diametric, area], or volumetric), duration, etc?

What general and specific effects result from what general or specific motions?

What general and specific motions result from what general or specific causes?

What dynamical meta-structures and meta-processes are there: e.g. cycles, series, networks, hierarchies, vergences, circuitries, etc?

What types of things stop motions? What types of things constrain or transform motions?

What are all possible transformations and intertransformations of all possible types of motions?

What combinations, syntheses, and branchings of motions are there?

What portion of all types, instances, and degrees of motion has man harnessed to date--and what portion remain unharnessed?

Is the amount and variety of motion in the universe finite or infinite--and, in either case, exactly how great is it?

How great is our ignorance--relative to our knowledge--of motion apt to be? What aspects of motion are we apt to be ignorant about?

What plans, priorities, and methods should shape man's future investigation of motion?

What are all possible uses of motions?

How should all known or possible motions be classified, in : relative and absolute, horizontal and vertical, special and general or universal, algebraic and topological, static and adaptive, descriptive and fundamental, differentiative and integrative, empirical and theoretical, analogical and homological or reductive, and other : ways?

What are all of the types and instances of equilibria and disequilibria of all of the types and instances of motions?

What are all known or discoverable laws of motion?

What things move synchronously or cooperatively, and how do they do so? What motions compete, or are independent of one another?

What are all of the known or possible : concrete or abstract : degrees of freedom of : general or specific : motions?

What paradoxes of motion--or paradoxical motions--are there?

Clarify Economics

The concepts of economics and of an economy allow and require great generalization in the future, for historically they have always been limited to overly specific, particular, and concrete things in a way that has tragically hobbled their development and application. Such relaxation, reconceptualization, universalization, transformation, and perfection of meaning--in the case of excessively restricted concepts, disciplines, entities, and phenomena--are major concerns of ideonomy and among the most important things that it can initially accomplish.

In the literal sense, economics is the science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of commodities, or that focuses upon considerations of cost and return. These terms and concepts can be extended, redefined, treated analogically and metaphorically, or replaced by others.

Price, cost, supply and demand, money, the circulation of goods, exchanges of goods and services, investment and return, the organization of labor and production, credit and debt, the operation of interestthese and other economic phenomena can all take on a larger significance when reconceived from the perspective of a science of ideas.

Yet economic ideas also have a more conservative and conventional role to play in ideonomy, for there exist countless things that have never yet been fully or adequately treated by economics in the usual sense, and this is a neglect that ideonomy would correct. Put simply, the "gray science" needs to be treated far more imaginatively and intelligently than has been the case hitherto.

Already in biology--especially in physiology, ecology, and evolutionary theory--a metaphorical extension of the economist's world view has begun to occur and shown practical results. Computer and information scientists, physicists, chemists, neuroscientists, geochemists, and others have been flirting with similar ideas and approaches.

The biologist may be interested in the comparative energy cost of plants competing for the same ecological niche, or of alternative metabolic pathways competing for natural selection in the bodies of conspecific organisms. More literal examples of commerce and of other economic institutions may operate in the bios, where there may be the coevolution of barter systems, trade networks, and symbiotic industries, where genes may function in lateral gene flows in the manner of money, where various spatiotemporal forms and analogs of jungles and deserts may mimic business cycles, booms, and busts, etc.

The geologist may recognize analogs of money and of economic structures, processes, and laws in the planetary flows of energy and in the complex architecture and interactions of geochemical cycles.

A few quantum physicists have entertained the idea that physical information may be the most fundamental quantity in the universe and one that in some sense flows conservatively throughout nature, again à la money.

Economics remains one of the most primitive sciences, and ideonomy, which has the power to advance the scientific status of all sciences, could contribute to its structural and methodological evolution.

Define Effects

The character, elements, and circumstances of things to some extent allow the effects those things are apt to have to be foretold. Yet even after events have occurred, the effects things have caused often remain obscure or only partially defined.

Ideonomy can help to illuminate effects in both these cases.

In fact it can assist with the answering or investigation of many different questions about effects.

What are the limits of effects, and the boundaries between different sets or kinds of effects?

How predictable and unpredictable are effects? Why? What can predict the balance, and reciprocal forms, of the two cases?

From what do effects develop, how do they develop, what controls the development, and how can such controls in turn be usefully controlled--or redirected--by man?

What are all the effects that things do or could have-the instances, degrees, and types? On the other hand, what are all the effects that they do not or could not have, in general or in particular cases?

How can the effects that different things have be compared? How are they similar and different? How are they homologous and unrelated?

What amplifies and transforms effects?

How do different effects interact? Why? What effects are the result of interactions of effects?

How can apparent or hypothetical effects be proven, and how can they be disproven? What methods exist or could be developed for this purpose? What effects are the most and least important to prove, or in what order should effects in general be proved? What effects are contradictory or incompatible, and what other effects are equivalent or compatible?

How do different effects cooperate with, reinforce, or even presuppose one another?

Do things have finite or infinite effects, or both? Why? What kinds? What, where, and when are their manifestations?

What effects of things are useful and useless? What effects are irredundant and redundant? Why? How? In what relative measure?

How ambiguous, indeterminate, or undecidable are effects? How polysemous, complex, multidimensional, or relativistic? What are the virtual effects of things and the limits thereof? In what ways are the virtual effects infinite?

What standard questions need to be asked when analyzing or treating effects? What standard or specialized ways are there of answering these questions? In what order, or orders, should such questions and answers occur? Why? In what circumstances?

What problems do effects pose, are they apt to give rise to, or are related or relevant to them?

What methods and means are there for defining particular or general effects of particular or general things? What are all the different ways of defining effects, and the different values, interests, and aspects thereof?

What are all the different reasons for and importances of investigating effects?

What is the structure of an effect--including its complete spatial and temporal, and quantitative and qualitative, structure?

What are all the meta -structures of effects--or that they cause, from which they derive, that classify them or their possibilities, or in which they participate: networks, chains, series, hierarchies, vergences, clusters, rings, plexures, etc?

What are all the genera of the species of effects, and all the species of genera? What are all the major and minor interrelationships of these genera or species? What are all the higher and lower taxa of effects, and all possible related and unrelated classificatory schemes in which the taxa occur or are absent?

What effects should be taught? To whom? Why? How--with what methods and means?

What may be our errors and misconceptions regarding the actual or potential effects of things? What mistakes are treatments of effects prone or liable to make?

What types of defects and excellences may effects have? What causes them? How important are they? Where are they exemplified? In what senses and measures--and for what--are they good and bad?

What words exist--or what language needs to be or can be developed--for describing or cogitating effects?

What criteria are there for discriminating different, but perhaps easily confused, effects?

What systems of effects operate in nature?

How do different effects scale, and what are all the different possible ways of scaling them? Some of the ways in which effects can be scaled are per: probability, immediacy, importance, complexity, magnitude, multiplicity, goodness, duration, etc.

Which effects of a given thing diverge, which converge, and which proceed in parallel without interacting?

What are the different and common paths and courses that effects take?

What experiments are possible for discovering effects?

What has historically led to the discovery of various specific, or of general types of, effects?

What historical trends in the discovery of effects can be descried or might be extrapolated to the future?

What effects does a thing have upon itself? How do effects affect themselves?

What minute particulars can produce or modify effects, in a grossly disproportionate way?

What continuums of effects exist? What paradoxes may be associated with them?

What tendencies may effects have to hide or be hidden? What hidden effects may exist?

What effects, or types of effects, are so interwoven that they are difficult to separate from one another? By what means might they at last be separated?

Examples of effects that ideonomy could help to investigate or discover are: the malformation of an organ produced by a teratogen; the subsequent course of the universe that resulted from its initial conditions; the consequences for the continuation of civilization or the bios of a future all- out nuclear war; the effect upon the future course of the universe of any single quantum event; the effect upon the course of human history of various accidental events in the past; the effect upon the stability of the global ecosystem of the anthropogenic extinction of given species; the effect of the violence of American television upon the incidence of crime in the United States; the effect of a reward upon the subsequent behavior of an animal; the effect of a catalyst upon the course of a chemical reaction; the effects of the sunspot cycle upon agricultural production; the impact of a military tactic upon the course of a battle; or the effect upon the meaning of a sentence of altering one word.

By contributing to human understanding of effects ideonomy could: make for a more rational world, trigger inventions, lead to the discovery of new natural phenomena, increase the power of art, render the future more prognosticable, heighten understanding of causation as well, clarify history, raise the standards of industrial goods, etc.