Classification systems

For most areas of Western thought, we can trace a genealogy which moves from prehistory and a pre-Socratic world view, through an Aristotelian approach which remained dominant in the West until the time of the Renaissance when the Enlightenment project paved the way for empirical scientific method, which in turn has developed and transformed our view of its subject matter often through many paradigm shifts.

But even before considering classification systems, the definition and boundary of things themselves need to be examined.

Objects in the natural world differ from each other, while sharing some common characteristics. For example, mercury is not gold, and a hazel tree is not an oak tree; but this sample of mercury is the same as that mercury, in a way that this particular hazel tree is never really the same as that hazel tree (at either the genotype or phenotype level). In addition, this morning star is the same as that evening star (notwithstanding varying times of appearance, phases and elongations), if I have studied and understood the movement of the inner planets and formed that particular model of equivalence – but to a casual observer on a given day it may not even be distinguishable from a fixed star or another planet. Even though gods are abstract concepts, Mercury is not Venus, but he is frequently identified with Wotan. Considering these examples together, it should be clear that though things are sometimes the same, they are the same in different ways, and also that some things can be more similar than others.

Of any particular object or experience, we might ask ourselves the following sequence of questions:

· What is this? Of what general type is this a particular instance, or does it need a type of its own?

· How can I use it?

· How does it work? How does it fit into wider groups of similar and less similar types? (It is in this phase where we test and refine theories of classification, and of cause and effect, with a balance or pendulum between rational idealism and empirical method.)

· Where is it from? How did it get here?

· Why is it here?

At each stage, previous questions continue to resonate like organum, refining and redefining themselves in relation to developing themes.

Techniques have been developed in cognitive science for determining foci and boundaries of mental constructs in various cultures, and these techniques have been applied to subject matter areas as diverse as colour perception, spatial awareness, navigation and kinship.

At the neurological level and the cognitive level, we have a tendency to simplify phenomena to optimise our capability to respond appropriately. A need for simplification and speed in perception reduces individual objects into classes (or taxa), such as tiger or tree, and also classes which may be cross-cutting (diseased/rabid or healthy). We simplify by grouping experiences together, filtering out irrelevant details, and identifying objects with similar characteristics – like low pitch in music subsuming the perception of natural harmonics, or the same note coming from different musical instruments sounding similar. Simplification also leads to a tendency to apply classifications used in one area to other areas, for example the 7 “wandering stars” and the 7 notes in the musical scale leading to the 7 colours of the rainbow and the 7 days in the week and so on.

The use value of things tends to increase the detail involved in the taxa, and specialists in a particular subject (e.g. farmers, astronomers) can be expected to have more taxa for that subject than non-specialists.

This innate tendency, once rationalised, gives rise to ideal forms; in turn, we seek specific and general models for how various objects can be expected to interact with each other. As historical records, specialisation and empirical observations grew, former taxonomies are challenged and revised, sometimes giving rise to theoretical explanations and models which are later proven true by further observation (e.g. Mendeleev’s theory of the periodic table), or which may be counter-intuitive or beyond the scope of everyday human experience, but may represent an underlying hidden reality which our senses and cognitive powers cannot directly perceive (e.g. 11 dimensional string theory). Over and above such developments, including increasing specialisation, a unifying drive persists, which is actualised and brought to the fore in the Glass Bead Game itself.