Instrumentation has 256 categorical
Terms in the Creation layer. These Terms are the basis for the
"Common Vocabulary for Casual Conversation" within Instrumentation.
Ideally these terms would equitably cover the most likely
conversational scenarios for any human being.
This section deals with the (less obvious) attributes that I would
like to see embodied by Created or 'categorical' Terms and by
Described terms in order to make the language consistent, efficient
and universal.
Disclaimer:
The 'Initial load' vocabulary is a prototype that I threw together
in a couple of months to demonstrate how Instrumentation can work.
Some parts fit together reasonably well, but other parts are in
obvious need of repair. My point is that the current vocabulary may
not always accurately support the ideals expressed herein. I hope to
find some automated way to create a
more complete and balanced vocabulary, but until then individual
changes can provide needed terms for specific instances.
Keep Creation simple
First of all, the 256 basic singular entity nouns should be the
first terms learned, so they must be the most simple, common, useful
form within their category. These should be the terms a child would
use when dealing with this subject. These terms need not have the
'archetypical' meaning if that meaning is less common. My current
inclination is that the 'archetypical' term should be the 'top'
Description term (the term that has the Relative, Value, Sensation
and Time laths.)
For example, the term 'mother' is the root term for the category
Created with the "Self, Object, Meaning, Thought and Number" spokes.
This category contains terms for various 'close relations'. 'Mother'
was chosen over the terms 'parent', 'sibling', 'father', etc.,
because a mother is an 'average' (hypothetical) child's first
contact and focus within a family. This image is taken from the
Instrumentation game.
Check for Duplication
Make sure that the term you want to add doesn't already have a
synonym or other closely related term within the existing
vocabulary. Since Instrumentation can only ever have sixteen
thousand 'nouns' in its "Common Vocabulary", it is important to try
to make sure that each of those nouns has a distinct meaning.
The Specialization layer will be the
place to put terms that are "variations on a theme". In other words,
'dog' is Descriptive, 'poodle' is Specialized. 'Wolf' could probably
be replaced with a more global term for a wild canine.
Keep Creation flexible
Every categorical noun should be easily convertible to an
adjective, an adverb or an active noun. Mother has no active term
('motherhood' might be a reasonable choice), but it has an
adjective form (motherly) and an adverbial form (motheringly). If
the noun can't be used as an adjective or adverb it should be a
'Non-Descriptive Noun'.
Each Categorical term also has sixty three
other terms that should be related to it in some way.
Together, these terms should cover everything necessary for
dealing with that subject. The trick is in identifying the
unifying theme that runs through all of the terms within a
category and then elaborating that theme by 'abstracting' new
terms that further define the theme.
When beauty is abstracted
then ugliness has been implied;
when good is abstracted
then evil has been implied.
So alive and dead are abstracted from nature,
difficult and easy abstracted from progress,
long and short abstracted from contrast,
high and low abstracted from depth,
song and speech abstracted from melody,
after and before abstracted from sequence.
The sage experiences without abstraction,
and accomplishes without action;
he accepts the ebb and flow of things,
nurtures them, but does not own them,
and lives, but does not dwell.
-- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching
Separate entity and action nouns
The entire collection of basic nouns
is partitioned into passive terms (entity nouns and adverbs) and
active terms (action nouns and adverbs). Determining the Yin or
Yang provenance of a noun can be difficult, but the following
method may help.
When adding a noun to the vocabulary, ask yourself if the noun is
something that an entity can 'be' or something that an entity can
'do'.
If something can 'be' the noun, the noun is an entity
If something can 'do' the noun, the noun is an action
'Something' may not be a person or even a physical object. A
dream can 'be' an obsession (passive) or a dream can 'do'
obsessing (active).
If a noun can apparently fill both roles, there is probably
another form of the word that is obviously active or passive.
These two words together are the Yin and Yang pair that form the
backbone of Instrumentation's semantic
structure.
Make Description global
Each categorical noun will expand to fifteen (additional) entity
nouns, sixteen active nouns and thirty two non-descriptive nouns (or
four 'banks' of sixteen terms). These sixty four terms should cover
the most common and universal things within that category.
For example, the term 'occasion' can be an 'anniversary' or a
'holiday', but "The Forth of July" is specific to the United States
as a holiday (and 'July' is already an existing term). The "Spring
Equinox", on the other hand, is an annual global (or astronomical)
phenomenon even if you don't personally celebrate pagan rituals.
Patriotic and religious festivals should be covered within the
Specialization vocabulary that covers that specific country or
religion
Make Conversational Phrases Generic
The conversational phrases within the 'Non-Descriptive Noun' area
should be chosen for their commonality. Take the phrase, "Lets go to
the shoe store". Any specific references to a 'type' of something
(like a 'type of store') should be generalized as much as possible
without losing their applicability to the original phrase. In other
words "shoe store" could become 'store' easily, but turning it into
'place' would remove the connotation of shopping (and therefore
probably the entire point of the conversation).
Using this method, a second glyph would be added to customize the
conversational phrase for multiple purposes.
"Lets go to the store" + "with parameter of
shoes"
Use the Types as a guide
The term should relate, as closely as possible, to the combination
of spokes that define it. The term should be accompanied by a rationale explaining the
connection. This rationale is separate from the definition of the term.
The 'initial load' vocabulary currently lacks rationales.
Group Terms by fours
The 256 basic singular entity nouns can actually be thought of as 64
major categorical terms with four variations each.
The Relation and Number spokes are the lowest value spokes in the
Creation layer. As such, they are considered to be variations on the
'major categorical terms' defined by the six spokes that out-rank
them (Self, State, Object, Time, Meaning and Thought).
The Relation spoke creates a term which is important 'to' (or
important 'because of') something else. The Number spoke creates a
term which involves a quantity, a fraction, subtype, a supertype, a
more inclusive or more specific version of its categorical parent
term. To expand this into a list:
Spokes
Conceptual
Logical
Hierarchical
Neither
Neutral
Typical
Class
Number
Mental
Empirical
Data
Relation
Social
Comparative
Method
Relation + Number
Physical
Parts + Assemblies
Object
For example, 'sport' is a major categorical term involving Self,
State, Object and Thought. If we add the Number spoke we get
'player', which is the 'thinking' component of a sport. If we add
the Relation spoke we get 'team' which shows how sports relate to
people (within Instrumentation, most relationships involve people).
If we add both the Relation and Number spokes we get 'bat'. Bat is a
simple example of sports equipment (and 'ball' is already a type of
'toy). Each of the three minor categories (team, player and bat) is
an element of the major category (sport), but each minor category is
a completely different type of thing.
Hopefully this hierarchical ordering will make the categories easier
to remember.
Optimize common Terms
Always attempt to put the "Most Common Meanings" where they can take
advantage of the shortest aspects. This is true whether the terms
are actually 'spoken' or not. The fewest syllables require the
fewest keyboard chords.
Here is a chart of the Instrumentation term length frequency.
The 'Calculation' is, "The number of combinations of eight items
taken (Syllable Count) items at a time, times sixteen to the power
of (Syllable Count) minus the total previous counts".
Syllable Count
Calculation using Syllable 'count':
8(combined by)count X 16^count
Aspect Count
0
1 X 1 (the term is 'yes' or 'true') =
1
1
8 X 16 (minus previous count) =
127
2
28 X 256 (minus previous counts) =
7K
3
56 X 4,096 (minus previous counts) =
224K
4
70 X 65,536 (minus previous counts) =
4.55 Meg
5
56 X 1,048,576 (minus previous counts) =
52 Meg
6
28 X 16,777,216 (minus previous counts) =
392 Meg
7
8 X 268,435,456 (minus previous counts) =
2 Gig
8
1 X 4.3 Billion (minus previous counts) =
2 Gig
This table only covers positive terms. The chart for negative terms
would have the same aspect counts, but the syllable counts would be
larger by one.
Avoid awkward finger combinations
The most awkward finger positions are Index + Little and
Pointer + Index + Little. They have values of '5' and 'D'
respectively (or 'neatly' and 'zooming', if you've learned the mnemonic). They can be used to
better represent unpleasant events, but care must be taken in
order to avoid any bias. The "Greater Good" should be defined in
terms of simple human
needs, such as clean water, fresh food, secure shelter,
personal safety, open ended education and uncensored
communication. (This list is not authoritative.)
Philosophical values must be adopted by autonomous aware
individuals if those values are to have any weight at all.
Designing any personal viewpoint into the Instrumentation language
will not end well. There are plenty of educated people in the
world who can spot an agenda and would mistrust any tool that was
found to be 'tainted'. The fact that the vocabulary could be
corrected would be lost in the socio-religous-political fire storm
that would ensue.
