Tuesday, July 3, 2007

The Past Holds No OR


When contemplating Nodism, one realizes that siblings in the hierarchy are ORs and children are ANDs. Going across possibilities is an OR statement. Going down deeper and joining attributes is an AND statement.

There are many future possibilities - perhaps infinite number (but not exhaustive) with a set of mysterious probabilities - but the past holds no possibilities. The past holds facts or truth or connections sealed in time. Our perception of the past is rife again with possibilities but that is not the past - just the cusp and curdle of the present as it churns the future into the past.

Think of your files and folders on your computer. You decide to open a folder - that is selecting from an OR statement - selecting from sibling folders. Once you make the choice, that choice becomes history - you are moving down the hierarchy. Your choice cements the start of an AND. Then you choose from folders within that folder - again selecting from siblings. Your choice is again cemented. So now you are in the DanZen / Nodism folder.

It is the benefit of exploring a philosophy that pushes us towards questions like "what happens if we decide to come back out of the Nodism folder? How is traversing a folder structure on our computer related to the hierarchy of life - does the hierarchy hold up?" This also relates to the aspect of feedback which also appears to go against a hierarchy - similarly, the aspect of a Web, etc. The same solution is starting to appear for these - it is a solution that I may have already explained or if not will explain in the future. But the point of this paragraph is to say that if you treat this thought as exploring a philosophy, then you have a duty to complete the thought rather than just leave it standing as an interesting thought.


So once again, you are invited to explore as well - don't worry that the philosophy has a name - that is just a name. It is your thoughts that count. I'll keep adding mine, but yours would be nice too.

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1 comment:

Dan Zen said...

As a corollorary, I suspect that the future holds no ands...