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> I can try to elaborate on these if there's interest As someone who asked "why?" all the time as a kid, I'd love to read your elaboration.

by gknoy 10y ago

vinceguidry 10y ago
Sure. I'll start with an example. Take the United States. This is the topic, the verse in which the thing is the thing. The next step out is the inverse. What is the inverse of the United States? This is where you need an organizing concept. I call this the whole. The whole is the topic plus the inverse of the topic. So if you're using the whole of all nations, you might say that the inverse of the United States is all the other countries of the world that aren't the US. Next step is the reverse context. The United States is a country, so the reverse would be everything that is not a country. As you can imagine that's a very big space. We now reach the converse. The converse is the part of the reverse that is the counterpart of the topic. To find the converse is the whole point of doing this kind of logic, and it requires some location. The part of the reverse that isn't the converse is called the obverse. So to understand what the converse of the United States is, find the United States-shaped hole in the the rest of the universe that isn't the United States. A good approach is to take the inverse of the United States and use it to "cast a shadow" on the reverse. This highlights the converse. Note that I used the word "universe" just now. It turns out that there's just no good word for the combination of the whole of a topic and it's reverse. Any word you use is going to constitute some kind of limitation on what it is. If you're spiritually-minded, though, it maps perfectly onto concepts like God, or the Source. In fact, I developed this whole scheme in order to better understand spiritual topics like what does it mean to be non-physical. Locating a thing's converse isn't easy and it requires delving into a lot of things that might seemingly have no relation to the topic, but will if you keep applying context logic to them. I'm going to just jump through the intermediary contexts to arrive at what the converse of the United States is. Not that it wouldn't be interesting but it just takes a lot of work to articulate. I told you this was hard to write about. In the beginning we assigned the inverse of the US to the other states of the nation, but that's not really the case. The real inverse is the people. The inverse of America is Americans. People have agency. Agency means you can change yourself to become something you're not. But you're not just changing randomly, you're directing it. The United States, being a collection of people, has agency of its own. Agency charts a path through the reverse, that path is the converse. It all seems a bit boring, but this sort of analysis is extremely useful for making sense of spirituality. What does it mean for something to be real? What are verses of reality? I can sit here and tell you what it is, but it's better to do the analysis yourself and have insights yourself. It's essentially a way to explore the world of ideas in a rigorous fashion.
- logicallee 10y ago
  Can you give two or three practical real-world examples of where this line of thinking gives you some insight? For example you use the U.S. and, sure, it can be useful to think of every country that isn't the U.S. So if someone says "C++" it can be useful to think of every computer language that isn't C++. But the rest of your "-verses" didn't give me any reason to think of them in the future. Can you give a few more real-world examples and the insight you gained? Why is this useful?
  - vinceguidry 10y ago
    One thing I find myself reaching for contextual logic a lot is in analyzing film and other creative output. You can think of a stage / screen as a whole, where each individual element you see on the screen is a topic to analyze. The reverse of the elements are all the things the filmmaker could have put into the film but chose not to. You can work out all manner of insights about a film this way. Works well with comic fandoms, legal concepts, anywhere where there's significant amounts of hidden context to uncover, you can use context logic to quickly sketch out an outline of how it all hangs together, and fit all the information you read into fleshing out that model. I noticed the human mind doesn't tend to be able to work consciously with inverse / obverse. For example, humor tends to leave the scene when you start analyzing a joke. I call these "core" contexts. A lot of insights can be mined out of what you're not seeing. If the inverse is hard to find, maybe it's like that for a reason.
    - logicallee 10y ago
      Okay, your film example was super-interesting - but you touched only on "reverse" with it. Look, as far as I can tell these terms are your own. If you could, would you please give more, illustrative, examples - I know it's hard to do. Like, with your film example. I'm not looking for a list of domains like "comic fandoms, legal concepts, anywhere where there's significant amounts of hidden context to uncover". This is just a list of all sorts of things. I would request for you to please walk through exact explicit examples of each of your "-verses". Make an example up and show me the insight. Be super explicit with a specific real example, if you can. I am on board, due to the example you just gave with "reverse" and films -- meaning, "everything else the filmmaker could have put there." So I'm on board and you have my interest and attention. Meticulously walk through the other "-verses", while staying with real, specific examples. Try to work hard to make a genuine example that grants insight. I'm sorry to make this request (I'm on board with everything you've written), but I find your abstract definitions too hard to follow. Instead of a single example (like the United States), if you would give specific examples that really give insight (as you did with film above) it would be helpful. Thank you.

> I can try to elaborate on these if there's interest As someone who asked "why?" all the time as a kid, I'd love to read your elaboration.

by gknoy 10y ago

> I can try to elaborate on these if there's interest As someone who asked "why?" all the time as a kid, I'd love to read your elaboration.

vinceguidry 10y ago

Sure. I'll start with an example. Take the United States. This is the topic, the verse in which the thing is the thing. The next step out is the inverse. What is the inverse of the United States? This is where you need an organizing concept. I call this the whole. The whole is the topic plus the inverse of the topic. So if you're using the whole of all nations, you might say that the inverse of the United States is all the other countries of the world that aren't the US. Next step is the reverse context. The United States is a country, so the reverse would be everything that is not a country. As you can imagine that's a very big space. We now reach the converse. The converse is the part of the reverse that is the counterpart of the topic. To find the converse is the whole point of doing this kind of logic, and it requires some location. The part of the reverse that isn't the converse is called the obverse. So to understand what the converse of the United States is, find the United States-shaped hole in the the rest of the universe that isn't the United States. A good approach is to take the inverse of the United States and use it to "cast a shadow" on the reverse. This highlights the converse. Note that I used the word "universe" just now. It turns out that there's just no good word for the combination of the whole of a topic and it's reverse. Any word you use is going to constitute some kind of limitation on what it is. If you're spiritually-minded, though, it maps perfectly onto concepts like God, or the Source. In fact, I developed this whole scheme in order to better understand spiritual topics like what does it mean to be non-physical. Locating a thing's converse isn't easy and it requires delving into a lot of things that might seemingly have no relation to the topic, but will if you keep applying context logic to them. I'm going to just jump through the intermediary contexts to arrive at what the converse of the United States is. Not that it wouldn't be interesting but it just takes a lot of work to articulate. I told you this was hard to write about. In the beginning we assigned the inverse of the US to the other states of the nation, but that's not really the case. The real inverse is the people. The inverse of America is Americans. People have agency. Agency means you can change yourself to become something you're not. But you're not just changing randomly, you're directing it. The United States, being a collection of people, has agency of its own. Agency charts a path through the reverse, that path is the converse. It all seems a bit boring, but this sort of analysis is extremely useful for making sense of spirituality. What does it mean for something to be real? What are verses of reality? I can sit here and tell you what it is, but it's better to do the analysis yourself and have insights yourself. It's essentially a way to explore the world of ideas in a rigorous fashion.

logicallee 10y ago
Can you give two or three practical real-world examples of where this line of thinking gives you some insight? For example you use the U.S. and, sure, it can be useful to think of every country that isn't the U.S. So if someone says "C++" it can be useful to think of every computer language that isn't C++. But the rest of your "-verses" didn't give me any reason to think of them in the future. Can you give a few more real-world examples and the insight you gained? Why is this useful?
- vinceguidry 10y ago
  One thing I find myself reaching for contextual logic a lot is in analyzing film and other creative output. You can think of a stage / screen as a whole, where each individual element you see on the screen is a topic to analyze. The reverse of the elements are all the things the filmmaker could have put into the film but chose not to. You can work out all manner of insights about a film this way. Works well with comic fandoms, legal concepts, anywhere where there's significant amounts of hidden context to uncover, you can use context logic to quickly sketch out an outline of how it all hangs together, and fit all the information you read into fleshing out that model. I noticed the human mind doesn't tend to be able to work consciously with inverse / obverse. For example, humor tends to leave the scene when you start analyzing a joke. I call these "core" contexts. A lot of insights can be mined out of what you're not seeing. If the inverse is hard to find, maybe it's like that for a reason.
  - logicallee 10y ago
    Okay, your film example was super-interesting - but you touched only on "reverse" with it. Look, as far as I can tell these terms are your own. If you could, would you please give more, illustrative, examples - I know it's hard to do. Like, with your film example. I'm not looking for a list of domains like "comic fandoms, legal concepts, anywhere where there's significant amounts of hidden context to uncover". This is just a list of all sorts of things. I would request for you to please walk through exact explicit examples of each of your "-verses". Make an example up and show me the insight. Be super explicit with a specific real example, if you can. I am on board, due to the example you just gave with "reverse" and films -- meaning, "everything else the filmmaker could have put there." So I'm on board and you have my interest and attention. Meticulously walk through the other "-verses", while staying with real, specific examples. Try to work hard to make a genuine example that grants insight. I'm sorry to make this request (I'm on board with everything you've written), but I find your abstract definitions too hard to follow. Instead of a single example (like the United States), if you would give specific examples that really give insight (as you did with film above) it would be helpful. Thank you.