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Charles Darwin
Origin of Species
The
1859
Louis Pasteur
Invention
Corpuscles in the
Of
Atmosphere 1863
Eduard Manet
Knowledge
Luncheon on the
Grass 1863
James Clerk
Maxwell
THE UNIQUE ARTIFACTS THEORY
Electromagnetic
Field 1864 www.artifacts.com
Auguste Rodin
Man with a Broken
Nose 1864
A general theory of knowledge
predicting great revolutions in the
disciplines - the beginning of the
Unique Artifacts period
Lewis Carroll
Alice in Wonderland
1865
Lewis Carroll
Alice in Wonderland
Art Bardige
Karl Marx
Das Kapital artbardige@hotmail.com
1859-66 art@artifacts.com
kba publishing
Leo Tolstoy CAMBRIDGE, MA V4.0 1/99
War and Peace 1866
Copyright © 1995 & 1999 Art Bardige
Overview
• This element, used for the first time here, makes possible this theory that
unites all knowledge. Such fundamental elements are long lasting, and
new ones are rare in the history of knowledge. The last - environments-
caused the great explosion of knowledge in the 1860's that included the
works of Darwin, Maxwell, Pasteur, Manet, Marx, Rodin, and Tolstoy.
Unique Artifacts provides some insight and offers guidance to the inventors of
these new works.
7/7/95
Dear Reader,
I feel today as if I am opening the doors for the first time on a long hidden mysterious
construction. I have had, for much of the past 30 years, two working lives, one as a
teacher and educational software developer and the other as an artisan in a secret
workshop. Even my closest friends rarely heard about the project and with the
exception of my wife, very few had any inkling of what I was spending my other life
doing.
I bring to you and to them what I hope is at long last complete and beautiful, a theory
of knowledge. If this work is what I believe it to be, then you may find it helps you to
understand and order the evolution of knowledge. If it is what I believe it to be, then
you will find it may help you to develop new theories or to see better into the future of
knowledge. If it is what I believe it to be, then we may all be better able to help our
children to learn.
One result of this long hidden incubation is that I have never published on
epistemology. The book length manuscript I wrote two years ago has not made it past
the publishers in-box. It is very hard for an uncredentialed author to get attention,
especially in deep academic disciplines. I have taken two steps to abrogate this. The
first is to write a short version, what you see below. The second is to publish it on this
wonderful new medium that I am familiar with and that is familiar with me.
I have also written this for you. I do not know how to speak to academic
epistemologists, though I look forward to learning. I do know how to teach and I hope
that I am presenting this theory in a way that each person who looks at it learns
something of value. No, I have not simplified an obscure theory for mass consumption.
I believe this theory, as it is presented here, to be a human construction in the fullest
sense of that word, and I hope that I have presented it in such a way that each of you
can understand its deepest implications.
I thank you, as I do all of those in my sources, for the time and effort afforded to my
artifact. I look forward to your thoughts, and like you, cannot wait to see what the
future of knowledge brings.
Sincerely,
1. THE PATTERN 6
A Theory of Knowledge 6
2. THE THEORY 27
Free Inventions 27
Artifacts 29
Constructing Artifacts 30
Uniqueness 31
The Forms of Uniqueness 32
Uniqueness and Knowledge 34
Language and Unique Artifacts 36
The Pattern of Knowledge 41
The Pattern in Elementary Mathematics 46
A Visit to the Pre-Socratics 47
The Pattern to the History of Knowledge 51
This work is a new It is hard to imagine a theory of knowledge. We have so little experience with
theory of
knowledge, a them. Unlike theories in the sciences which many of us hold and use with great
theory in the clarity, theories of knowledge have traditionally been difficult to understand and
fullest sense of very hard to use. To be honest, since the Greeks, broad based theories of
the word.
knowledge just have not been very powerful. They have not been comprehensive.
And they certainly have not had the utter simplicity and beauty of the great
theories of science.
It includes a This lack of powerful theories, or even of comprehensive patterns to the history of
comprehensive
pattern to the knowledge, makes us deeply suspicious of the possibility of their existence. Even
history of though the great theories of physics encompass the universe, the great theories of
knowledge. biology explain a complex and multifaceted natural world, and the Periodic Table
systematizes chemistry; many of us have come to believe that knowledge is just
too big, too complex, and too idiosyncratic to fall under one comprehensive
human construction. Without a single example of such a theory or of a pattern,
how can we be expected to believe that one can be built?
Perhaps, just perhaps, there are reasons to suspend our natural disbelief. After all,
the great theories and patterns of science, which give us such deep confidence in
human intelligence and creativity, are relatively recent inventions. If we had lived
in Shakespeare's time, early in the 17th century, when the Aristotelian hold on the
sciences was being discredited, we might well have believed that comprehensive
theories of science were equally impossible or at best muddy and hard to fathom.
Yet before the end of that century, belief in science's ability to explain the
universe became virtually unquestioned.
A new I believe that such a new tool is just now available, and that breakthroughs in
fundamental tool
for constructing knowledge, while often the result of individual genius, are enabled by such tools. I
knowledge makes believe that this new tool will lead to the construction of wonderful new
this theory knowledges, for it is not a matter of how much the ground has been plowed or
possible.
prepared by others; great inventions are, as Thomas Kuhn taught us, revolutionary
changes in paradigm that have surprisingly little predictability. I believe that this
new tool is finally powerful enough to build a well-defined pattern to organize the
history of knowledge, and a comprehensive theory to explain the development of
knowledge.
We climb above In order to understand this new tool, we need to look at the fundamental tools of
the great morass
of knowledge to the past. To see them, I like to imagine knowledge as a great, richly detailed map
see a pattern. spreading across the disciplines and across time. No matter where we look on this
map, knowledge appears massive and complicated. Today, it is produced in
prodigious quantity, growing so rapidly that in many disciplines knowledge has a
half-life of just 3 to 4 years. Most of us master only minute areas of this map,
holding often disconnected bits and pieces of other locations. If we simply scan
the map, we are awestruck by the scale of human knowledge so overwhelmingly
vast and complex, filling libraries of books, overflowing in uncountable journals, all
different, and each piece seemingly capable of being plumbed to any depth. Is it
any wonder that most of us, mainly focused on a tiny region, cannot imagine that
there is a pattern to it all?
But if we rise above this map, the complexity and chaos of detail begin to fade.
We no longer see the small changes, the fine distinctions. The major events, the
ideas that span decades, begin to stand out from the maze of detail. As we
continue climbing, only the largest features are visible, those that dominate the
broad historical map of knowledge: great ideas, enduring knowledge, major
theories, wondrous works of art, grand inventions. We can actually enumerate
these greatest works in the history of knowledge, for they are the treasures of
humankind.
Once high enough to take in the whole of knowledge, we see many of these works
as singularities, great inventions spread seemingly at random. But, we also see
striking surprises, groups of great ideas, unmistakable eruptions of human
invention so clustered in time that they could not be random, so dominating that
they could not be arbitrary, so revolutionary, and so simultaneous that they could
only have represented a single extraordinary event.
Nearly every James Clerk Maxwell produced "A Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field;"
discipline was
revolutionized by this seminal work of 19th century physics connected electricity, magnetism, and
a single work of light with a single fundamental new idea - the field. Louis Pasteur's most important
great work established modern medicine, seeing the causes of disease as bodies in the
importance.
atmosphere. The origin of modern art can be traced to a single painting, the
compelling "Luncheon on the Grass" by Eduard Manet, the first work of what came
to be called Impressionist art. It was soon followed by the first Impressionist
sculpture “Man with a Broken Nose," by Auguste Rodin. Karl Marx revolutionized
the study of both government and economics with Das Kapital. In literature
Tolstoy's War and Peace, Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment, and Carroll's Alice
in Wonderland, changed forever the nature of fiction and the definition of the
novel. Gregor Mendel established a new discipline, genetics, with his careful
breeding and statistical analysis of peas. Such a unique grouping of the greatest
new works of knowledge could not be accidental or arbitrary. Each was not just of
great importance, each was revolutionary.
Each of these I found this singularity by accident 30 years ago when I was trying to teach my
revolutions was
built on the same high school physics students to understand electromagnetic fields. Searching for a
new idea, the metaphor for these abstractions, I was comparing the idea of the field to similar
environment: ideas in other disciplines. Maxwell's field was like the selecting "nature" in Darwin,
surroundings,
field, nature, the surrounding "atmosphere" in an Impressionist painting. It was an
atmosphere, social environment. This word that I accidentally blurted out seemed to capture the
class, essence of all of these great inventions. Maxwell's field, "the space in the
populations.
neighbourhood of the electric or magnetic bodies," was an environment. Darwin's
nature, selecting those individuals and species that would live and die, was an
environment. Manet's painting of a picnic created what came to be called
“atmosphere" shows no interactions, only the action of the environment on its
characters. The atmosphere was the cause of fermentation and putrefaction for
Pasteur. Rodin's new form of sculpture reflected its environment and was changed
by it. "Social classes" for Marx were environments that defined people. Lewis
Carroll's Alice in Wonderland showed the effects of a distorted environment on the
This element The signature theory of this revolution was the heliocentric system of Copernicus.
was the object -
a body, an For him, the heavens were made of real objects; the earth and the planets were
organ, a state, a objects - massive, actual bodies, whose locations and paths were governed by the
thing. great central object, the sun. The heavenly bodies were not "ideas," not aetherial
truths as they had been to the Greeks - but real, tangible objects. This theory came
to be called the Copernican Revolution, taking its name from the title of the work
and adding "radical change" as another meaning of the word.
Once the world was populated with real objects and not the truths, the grip of the
popes and the Catholic church on religion, the Aristotelians on science and
philosophy, and the ancient Greek philosophers on all matters from medicine to
mathematics was broken. Even the symbols of the old authority were captured by
this new element. The new Church of St. Peter was designed by Bramante on a
"central pattern" with its great dome as the central object, the architectural symbol
of the mother church. Those disciplines not revolutionized during that remarkable
20 year period were soon after rewritten with great works in medicine, in
philosophy, and in literature. The object continued as the basic element of
knowledge through 1859.
The human We turn first to that - to the inventions of the "first humans" - combining
revolution - a
burst of
circumstantial archeological evidence with anthropological studies of surviving tribal
invention. peoples to find the element of the first revolution. For the first humans were also
tribal and everything that we know about them indicates that they were very
similar in their constructions, treasures, and behaviors to surviving tribal peoples.
Even the most "primitive" of today's tribal peoples have a complete and complex
language, art, a wide range of tools, a sense of counting, rich collections of stories,
powerful dances, elaborate rituals, myths, and magic. They build structures to
house themselves, make clothing, use and keep fire, and have sophisticated social
and clan relationships. That all surviving tribal people, no matter how primitive
have these accouterments strongly suggests that the first humans had them as
well. These were all inventions. They were all made possible because of a new
element invented by the first humans.
The symbol- Of all the things that made us human, the most distinctive were our rich
representations,
names, art, languages. They were constructed of symbols. Symbols were the first element
language, myth, and it enabled this species to construct the knowledge that we think of as human.
magic, ritual. Tribal people saw everything as symbols and constructed symbols for everything
of significance in their world. All things had their symbolic names. Their physical
tools and physical artifacts were themselves symbols and were always fashioned
symbolically with ritual, magic, myth, and chant. Tribal people created ritual to
invent and hold on to their symbols. They told stories to remember and to teach
their symbols, and to build and connect their symbolic world. They created chants
and dances to engage their symbols. And they named themselves and their
groups with symbols, indeed becoming those symbols.
I do not believe that we can yet say what caused the brain to change, making
this new tool for constructing knowledge possible, or when it exactly happened in
human evolution. Nor can we say how quickly these symbolic inventions
occurred. But from our experience with other new elements, I would be very
surprised if the symbol revolution did not turn out to be surprisingly rapid; from
an historical perspective, nearly instantaneous. It is hard to imagine that once
this wondrous tool - the symbol - was available, that rich language did not follow
quickly. And with language came stories which drove the demands for rich
language, and with stories myths, magic, and all of the mental constructions that
make us human.
Elements
Symbols c. 50,000
Universals 600 B.C.
Objects 1498
Environments 1859
The Empires
Each period Returning to the revolution we skipped, we could focus on the inventions of the
breaks into two
empires of Sumer and Egypt around 3000 B.C.; China a thousand years later; India
parts -
"singular" and or the Aegean about 1500 B.C.; Mayan America after 600 A.D.; or in several others
"plural" places like the Holy Roman Empire that started with the reign of Charlemagne in
800 A.D. All were strikingly similar. Each marked a knowledge revolution that
suddenly changed dispersed and separate tribal societies into a dynamic, great
"empire." Each of these empires, in a very short time, invented: written language,
monumental buildings, calendars, mathematics, governments, and feudal societies
with well-defined social classes. Each built great cities, created laws, developed
games with complex rules, and had religions with a small number of important
gods served by a priestly class. Each extended control over large territories,
developing bureaucracies and armies, along with money, weights and measures,
and histories. While different in style, they were the same in substance, inventing,
with little or no borrowing, the same forms, works, and social structures. Even
their arts differed in style, each based on its own geometric shape, and not in
form. All empires produced art works with full-scale human figures in either profile
or frontal views, and all sculpted full-sized figures that remained supported or
embedded in stone.
Symbols This new plural symbol was categorical, enabling true classification for the first
represent time. Their statues were symbols of classes, carefully including dress or attributes
groups.
that represented not the person but the position. Calendars organized social
activities, festivals, and celebrations, maintaining group cohesion. The great
monuments they built were massive, highly organized group social activities that
people willingly participated in to create powerful collective identity symbols of
their empire and society. The societies of the first civilizations were organized
alike; their social structures were all feudal. Feudal societies submerged the
individual into a rigid hierarchy of social classes, which completely defined their
actions, activities, and behaviors. This structure was reified in numerous class
symbols and symbolic ritual.
Singular and Plural
Do entities When we look across the great periods of knowledge, we find this same dichotomy
represent
in each. During the first half of the period the entity is singular, one thing, unitary.
individuals or
groups? It is an individual symbol, universal, object, or environment. During the second
half the entity is plural, a collection, a group, a particle common to larger units.
The most important singular entities are separate; they stand out, they are special
external and they act on other things. The most important plural entities are
atomistic, elements that are within the things of the world, internal; they produce
experience by their interactions. During the singular parts of each period people
search for ideals, for perfection, for those entities that represent perfection. During
the plural parts people search inside of things and think about themselves and
their world as internal, looking not for the ideal but for the real, for the perceptual,
inventing new elements that are within all things, making them up and explaining
their nature.
Plural Universals
Socrates 469-399
Democratus 460-361?
Euripedes 485-406
Hippocrates 460-377
Parthenon 448-432
Protagoras c.480-411
Thucydides 460-404
Dying Nioboid 450-440
Hippias 460-?
The Enlightenment
Plural objects In the objects period, the break was clear; it came in 1686 with the publication of
began with
Newton and Newton's Principia. For Newton the objects were the "particles of bodies."
Locke. The Laws
of Nature were ...for I am induced by many reasons to suspect that [mechanical
interactions
between bodies
principles] may all depend upon certain forces by which the
within. particles of bodies, by some causes hitherto unknown, are either
mutually impelled towards one another, and cohere in regular
figures, or are repelled and recede from one another.
Isaac Newton, Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, Preface to the
First Edition, 1686
Gone was the central object that acted on other objects found in the work of
Plural Objects
Huygens 1629-1695
Locke 1632-1704
Leeuwenhoek 1632-1723
Newton 1642-1727
Leibniz 1646-1716
Bernoulli 1654-1705
Halley 1656-1742
Defoe 1660-1731
Swift 1667-1743
Watteau 1684-1721
Berkeley 1685-1753
Plural Environments
Pavlov 1849-1936
Poincare 1854-1912
Freud 1854-1939
Shaw 1856-1950
Conrad 1857-1924
Planck 1858-1947
Bergson 1859-1941
Dewey 1859-1952
Hilbert 1862-1943
Curie 1867-1934
Matisse 1869-1954
Wright 1869-1959
Russell 1872-1970
The theory takes We now have a broad scale pattern to the development of knowledge, a pattern to
center stage.
the history of knowledge. But these periods are very long and there is great variety
to the kinds of knowledge produced during them. Is it possible that there is an
order to the knowledge in each of these periods? Is it possible that this order is the
same in all of the periods? Is it possible to use the same kinds of methods and
similar tools to find it? The answer to all three questions is yes! There is a further
and more refined pattern to the knowledge in each period and that pattern is
common to all of the periods. The search for this pattern of phases of knowledge
works much the same way as the search for the periods.
But before we would plunge headlong into that search, there is a compelling
question that also comes out of the pattern of broad scale periods. What comes
next?
And that question leads us off on an entirely different trail, for predictions require
theories if they are to be anything more than educated guesses. We would thus
have to build a theory of knowledge in order to predict the next element. And as
we shall quickly find out, we will have to make good guesses about the next
element in order to build a theory of knowledge.
We have these two choices of paths to take, and both are valuable. But if we take
the theory path then that theory should produce the pattern of these phases within
the periods of knowledge and make it much easier to find them. This direction
enables us to more quickly establish these ideas and use the pattern making to
help us to understand them. In a short work such as this one, this trail is perhaps a
little more direct and easier to navigate. It is thus the one I will lead you on. If you
are impatient to see the final form look at the Pattern of Knowledge.
These two paths, one leading to a complete pattern of experience, the other
leading to prediction and theory, are typical of the invention of knowledge. In
every actual invention of knowledge these trails naturally intertwine, for one
informs the other. But following both would be confusing and they would make it
very difficult to both follow a logical argument and fill in the detailed pattern. Thus
we will begin by looking for the prediction of the next period of knowledge, and
follow this path to a theory of knowledge and once there begin to fill in the
pattern.
It is based on a There is good reason to believe that we are near the end of a great period and that
new element!
the next element is on the horizon. Plural environments has been going on for just
short of 110 years, more than twice as long as singular environments.
Furthermore, the past several decades have a great deal in common with those
before 1859 and 1498. While the pace of new invention is rapid, few of these
inventions are novel. Much like the waning years of both the objects and the
universal periods, there is lots going on, but there have been no great new ideas.
To be honest, knowledge building seems stale. We have seen no great new
theories, no great new artistic visions, no fundamentally new ways of thinking, no
There is very good reason to believe that this Pattern of Knowledge is not based on
environments. Nothing we have been investigating has suggested environments.
Indeed, environments are only one of the elements. It would be surprising if the
plural environments entity could actually explain itself. These elements of
knowledge, symbols, universals, objects, environments, are archetypes and not
atoms. They pervade knowledge during a given period because they shape it and
not because they are the simple building blocks. They have the characteristics of
singular periods and not plural ones. They are ideals, they are external, they are
singular, they are central. There is something new going on here - very new! These
ideas smell different from what we have been used to.
The pattern The descriptive path, delving further into the periods, does lead to a detailed
breaks down
further into a
pattern to the history or knowledge. Each half period, with either a singular or a
series of plural entity is made up of six parts or phases that are common to all. The result is
consistent a Pattern of Knowledge that is well formed and that, I believe, fully defines the
phases.
knowledges we invent. The other path enters uncharted territory and leads to the
theory. I will take you down this latter path. It is shorter, allowing me to condense
the descriptions of each phase and to give you a sense of both the pattern and the
theory with less attention to the detail of the pattern. But it is the more difficult
path, so I hope that you will make use of the Pattern of Knowledge chart to help
you find your way. I also encourage you to try to order your own areas of expertise
as you reconstruct this theory and pattern for yourself.
Free Inventions
Theories unlike The work of finding patterns is always less difficult than the work of making a
patterns do now
grow out of theory. The pattern is a matter of laying brick upon brick, built by adding more
experience - they and more information and of finding some kind of sameness in that information. It
are inventions. may not be easy, for the bricks may be hard to come by and the interpretation of
what is common between them is generally far from evident for the first builder.
But each can be shaped and molded and the pattern built on accumulated
evidence. A theory is something else entirely. As Einstein said, it is a matter of
"free invention;" the creation of pure imagination. It begins with an initial
selection, a starting idea. There is no way to build that idea in a systematic way.
There is no way to know when you start that it must lead to something of value.
It is just a hunch, a guess, a feeling that you are on the right path, that the idea
will prove to be useful in building a complex and powerful structure.
The next element Thus when we start building a theory of knowledge by finding this new element,
must be a larger
idea than we make a great leap of faith. We have not yet seen this element. We hope that
environments. we find the right one, and then that it leads to a theory of knowledge. And here is
the freest invention, for it is clear that we need to invent the next element to
construct a theory of knowledge.
Here is what we know, some grist to invent with. Elements - symbols, universals,
objects, and environments - were the largest ideas available in their respective
periods. The environment is the largest idea we currently have, embracing the
biggest pieces of experience. And off the top of our heads we cannot even think
of anything larger or more general that is not itself an environment. There are no
words in our vocabulary that represent larger ideas.
A union of Yet the sequence of elements is one of increasing generality. A universal is a
environments
larger idea than a symbol. We can even think of a universal as a union of symbols.
For the Greeks the geometric form, a circle was a universal, symbolizing the
collection of all circles, the natural motions of the heavens, perfection, the infinite,
pi, and so many other things. It was a very special universal, a union of all the
things that a circle is symbolic of. An object is a larger idea than a universal. An
object is a collection of a variety of universal attributes, but it is something more,
it acts by its own laws. Thus a person is a real thing, a complex of attributes
Artifacts
Physical and Artifact is the word we use to describe our physical constructions. If knowledge is
conceptual
constructions are
a human construction, then we could use this same word to describe our mental
artifacts. or conceptual constructions as well as our physical constructions. We are makers
of artifacts, both physical and conceptual. If an artifact is any human construction,
it could be a chair, a statue, a building, or a word, an idea, a concept, or even a
theory. Force and species are artifacts like wheels and writing. Energy and
molecule are artifacts just like automobile and house. Even a tree can be thought
of as an artifact, for we construct trees in our minds to give coherence to a
collection of experience. Whatever we fashion, from the simplest stone tool to the
most complex theory, would thus be a human artifact.
Conceptual Artifact is singular - a single word and a singular, external, individual, element. It
artifacts can be
the most general can be very general, and it can represent any piece of knowledge that we fashion.
ideas we can Indeed, environments are artifacts, objects are artifacts, universals are conceptual
make. artifacts, and of course, symbols are artifacts. An artifact - since it is anything we
can fashion with our minds - is a larger idea than environment. Every environment
is thus an artifact. The union of environments is also a human construction and
would also be an artifact.
We can use Artifact is thus a fundamentally new tool for constructing knowledge. Imagine
physical
construction thinking about knowledge as the fashioning of conceptual artifacts, just as physical
analogies. structures are the fashioning of physical artifacts. Our words become artifacts, our
concepts become artifacts; our works of art, our designs, and our patterns will be
constructed of artifacts. Our causes, our theories will be based on artifacts and not
environments.
Constructing Artifacts
In which we If artifacts are the new entity, then by understanding artifacts we should both
define the nature
of the central
understand this new entity and have the basis for a theory of knowledge. What,
artifact of then, will knowledge constructed of artifacts look like in this new period? We know
knowledge from the Pattern of Knowledge that we will not be interested in the great variety of
artifacts that can be built, just as the inventors of the Renaissance were not
concerned about just any object. Rather, we will focus on special artifacts, on
singular artifacts - on the ones that stand out - that we can build our theories and
patterns on. This will be a singular phase of knowledge, and we would expect that
there will be "central" artifacts.
Those are our Indeed, it is easy to argue that we already think this way; that singular, special
most important
artifacts. artifacts in the physical and artistic world are the ones we pay attention and even
homage to and always have. The buildings, the inventions, the physical objects,
the artistic works, are the patterns that are special, rare, and beautiful - the
objects of our attention and affection. We protect them, put them on display, and
venerate them. These singular artifacts are distinct; they are rare; and we would
say that they are unique. We make conceptual artifacts by the millions just as we
do physical artifacts, and yet we choose only a few, only the special, the singular
ones to pay real attention to.
The unique
I would argue that these singular artifacts are unique. Something about them
artifact is the key
to knowledge. makes them rare, special, and valuable! We are constructors of unique artifacts!
Uniqueness is a What, then, makes an artifact unique? Uniqueness, like most words we could
measure of
rareness and not choose, comes with some everyday bias that needs to first be dispelled, for it is
arbitrariness. often used to describe arbitrary distinctions. Colloquially, we call a teen with wild
rebellious clothes and a face full of ornaments unique. We call off-the-wall ideas
unique. And we call an artistic creation unique, even when we think that it is
nothing at all special. We sometimes go so far as to suggest that anything that
slightly distinguishes one work from another makes it unique. But these arbitrary
distinctions have nothing to do with real uniqueness. There are thousands,
perhaps millions of slight variations among teenage styles, weird ideas, or even art
works sold on a highway's shoulder. If everything that is arbitrarily distinguished is
unique, then everything would be unique, and we would have lost a wonderful
word and a wonderful idea.
In which we get If humans see uniqueness in the same ways, and I would argue that we do, then
to the heart of
we would logically expect to be able to enumerate and define the forms of
the theory
uniqueness. If uniqueness is well defined, then we should be able to find some
simple standards by which we judge whether an artifact we make or see is unique.
Forms of
Uniqueness
Then, what makes an artifact unique? The most obvious answer is that it is
different. If an artifact is different, fundamentally different, from other artifacts
Difference
then it is unique. For if an artifact is significantly different from all other artifacts,
Sameness then it must be rare and if it is rare then it is unique.
Matching
And if both difference and sameness are unique, then their combination, matching
will also be unique. When artifacts match perfectly they are certainly unique and
certainly as rare and distinctive as difference and sameness.
These are the three, and only three, forms of uniqueness: difference, sameness,
matching. An artifact is unique because it is different in a significant respect from
other artifacts. An artifact is unique because it is the same in some significant way
among other artifacts. An artifact is unique because it matches, or produces a
match, between other artifacts. Of all the artifacts that exist or that we can create,
only those that are fundamentally different, that are inherently the same, or that
match can be called unique. These are the only ways we compare artifacts, by
how different, how similar, how close a match there are. These are the ways we
determine uniqueness.
These are the Thus these are the three forms of uniqueness; difference, sameness, matching.
only forms of
uniqueness. They Artifacts - both physical and conceptual - are unique when they are different, when
are the basis for they are the same, or when they match others. We find these three forms of
the construction uniqueness in many different areas. As we have already seen they make up the
of all knowledge.
games we teach our babies. They are the heart of most tests of IQ as well as the
In which the
forms of
uniqueness are It is upon this foundation, I believe, that we will be building the knowledge of the
connected to the new period. These are our singular artifacts; they are unique. Like the "central"
elements of objects, the "first" principles, and the "natural" environments, the "unique"
knowledge.
artifacts will be the key elements in the knowledges we will be constructing. The
great explosion of new knowledge - the thrilling revolutions in the disciplines that
we expect to occur over the next few years will all be constructed of unique
artifacts. And these fundamental elements - difference, sameness, and matching -
will be the forms upon which we build a new theory of knowledge.
Entity Artifacts
The elements that The first step in constructing a physical artifact is to cut it out of a substrate. The
hold experience
first step in constructing knowledge is the same, cutting out a portion of
experience by giving it a label, a name, a definition. When we make a conceptual
artifact, we are naming a piece of experience, differentiating it from all others.
Each name is thus an artifact that has been created by difference, each "sets
apart," separates that experience from everything else. These separate pieces of
experience we can call entity artifacts, because they have the form of the
fundamental entity - the unique entity - the tool from each period that were used
to construct all of its entity artifacts. The unique entities - symbols, universals,
objects, environments, and now artifacts, are the most fundamental of all artifacts
because they are the tools by which we cut up - differentiate and name -
experience.
Site Artifacts
The collectors of The second step in fashioning physical artifacts is to collect them, to bundle and
entities
package together those that are the same or similar. This, too, is the second step
in our construction of knowledge. We use sameness to gather artifacts together,
to group and collect entity artifacts. This is what we do when we build classes,
These are the three elements of knowledge - entities, sites, and fasteners - based
Entities, sites, and on the three forms of uniqueness - difference, sameness, matching. The entities
fasteners are the
separate experience, cutting it up; the sites collect the entities, in essence
elements that
form the Pattern connecting similar experiences; and the fasteners tie all of these sites together
of Knowledge bringing a fundamental unity to our world. I would argue that we do this on all
as well as the
levels, from the simplest day-to-day knowledge building to the great theory
elements of
thought. constructions. We start making pieces of experience by naming them. When we
have a number of pieces, we collect them together into groups by finding or
giving them a sameness. And lastly, we join these collections together. We do this
all of the time. It is particularly noticeable when we learn something for the first
time; for example, when we go to a new country and learn the names of the plant
life. We first name them, which allows us to pick them out from the background
of "weeds." Then we classify them into types, which allows us to collect and hold
more names. And finally, we try to explain the classes, make links between them
and the climate, the geography, the type of gardening, ... putting the classes into
a theoretical framework.
The great knowledge builders work in exactly the same way. Linnaeus took
collections of named plants and animals and constructed a hierarchy of categories
based on principles of sameness. His most important category type was the
species, defined as a group whose members could interbreed, but could not breed
with outsiders. Darwin took the Linnaean categories which had a certain degree of
artificiality, as all categories will, and linked them together with his Theory of
Natural Selection, explaining their origins and existence and thus enabling us to
go past the definition by fiat and give the sites rationale.
Here we complete If unique artifacts (entities, sites, and fasteners) are so important to the
the logic of unique
artifacts and find all
development of knowledge, then we should find them to be fundamental to
of the forms of the languages as well. It would be an enormous waste of effort if languages were
elements of constructed with a completely different set of tools than knowledge, and thus
knowledge.
were used only for communication and not for knowledge building. And I would
argue that if languages are fashioned for conceptualization, then they must be
built out of these same forms of uniqueness.
Entities Nouns When we build knowledge of singular entities; we place them on a pedestal; we
make them central, the source for all things and all actions, ideals, fashioned to
Singular Singular be truly different. We find ideals in logic, not in experience; we find them outside
Plural Plural
of ourselves in constructions that are independent of us or our perspective.
Plural entities are inside, the same, common to all, and interacting. To construct
them we have to look at experience, to be realistic, to search within experience
to find knowledge, to take the proper perspective and see the common
elements. The distinction between artifacts in singular and plural periods is
simply whether we construct entities based on difference or on sameness.
Site artifacts must be nouns as well: for they are still names, but these names
represent classes. When we look at all languages we again find a variety of
common ways to specify such collections or categories. We distinguish
common nouns, proper nouns, and mass nouns. Proper nouns are entities for
they name single thing. Common nouns are generally sites for they name
collections. And mass nouns, too, are always sites, representing collections.
But it is not just the kind of noun that defines it as a site: noun phrases
produced with articles and descriptors – principally adjectives – turn any noun
into a site. We can use articles to make the distinction: “the” for an entity, “a”
for a site. Adjectives specify not only a member of a class but clarify that the
noun itself represents a collection. In the noun phrase, the red ball – “ball”
becomes a site and red refers to a specific entity in that site.
The final major ingredients of all languages are the verbs and verb phrases.
They produce sentences. Verbs are the fastening artifacts of language; they
connect nouns and noun phrases, entities, and sites to form a web of meaning.
Every language has sentences, and in every language, the sentence is the basic
element of understanding. While verbs may have singular and plural forms, this
"agreement" - like declension and case - is a simple reinforcement of the noun.
The important distinctions in verbs have to do with the way they fasten. In
English, verbs can be linking, transitive, or intransitive.
We can clearly see how these three types of verbs connect to knowledge by
turning again to physical artifacts, in this case, the fastening tools in a
woodworker’s toolbox. There are three distinct varieties that match the three
kinds of verbs. In the toolbox the simplest and most obvious fasteners are the
glues that stick things together forming a connection. They stay on the surface
and make a simple bond between pieces. Then there are the "jointers," the
screws and things that make joints like: threads, dowels, and dovetails. Joints or
relations fit one piece into another and fittings of all sorts form a tighter bond in
which a portion of each piece is shaped to fit on or into the other. Lastly, the
"melting" fasteners actually change the pieces; disintegrating and reconstituting
them, dissolving them, welding two together, changing one into another, these
are the transformations. They typical woodworker's toolbox is full of glues and
jointers, but lacks melters. The plumber's toolbox generally lacks the weaker
glues and is full of the stronger fasteners - jointers and melters. If we could go
Fasteners Verbs
Connections Linking Verbs
Relations Transitive
Transformations Intransitive
• difference – connections
• sameness – relations
• matching - transformations
The fasteners of our languages are the same. Linking verbs are connections,
gluing disparate nouns and forming the weakest link between them. Transitive
verbs are relations, requiring an object noun as well as a subject noun to
produce a match. And intransitive verbs, which do not have objects, are in effect
transformations of the subject noun. Three kinds of verbs, three kinds of
fastening artifacts; each represents one of the three forms of uniqueness.
The connection The connection between language and knowledge, touched on so lightly here,
between thought
and language has significant ramifications in the ongoing controversy between language and
thought. Does knowledge create language or does language create knowledge?
This battle dates back centuries and recently the debate has turned particularly
lively. Though the history is fascinating we must, as we rush to conclusion, jump
to the modern view that the elements of language - in particular the deep
structures of the grammar - are pre-wired in our brains coded in our DNA. There
is good reason for some of our most prominent linguists, like Noam Chomsky, to
argue for this "grammar organ" in the brain. The essential elements of grammar
are present in every human language, and groups of children who are exposed
to "words" without grammar (deaf children and children whose parents speak
Pidgin languages) will construct grammars that exhibit the same fundamental
properties as those of established languages.
It is uniqueness and From the point of view of unique artifacts, I would argue that it is not grammar
not grammar
that is inborn, but rather the capacity to recognize uniqueness. And, further, it is
uniqueness that gives us the primary elements of our languages as well as the
primary elements of our knowledges. It is uniqueness that gives us an
understanding of why we use nouns and verbs, why single words are so
powerful, and why we make the peculiar combinations of these words that we
call sentences.
The human brain constructs grammars because the human brain constructs
artifacts, and our languages are simply reflections of the unique tools we use to
construct all of our artifacts. It matters not whether we are fashioning a new
physical artifact, a new cognitive artifact, or a story, we are using the same
fundamental set of tools - the forms defined by uniqueness from which we build
entities, sites, and fasteners. These are the elements of knowledge and the
elements of language. It is the nature of these elements that produce our
grammars and the order and use of our languages. It is not their joining medium
but rather their particular forms, and it is the forms of uniqueness and their
application to all artifacts. In this new period it will be the structural artifacts of
language that become our focus. Our languages are reflections of the elements
of uniqueness, the artifacts of knowledge, in both their units of meaning and
their grammatical patterns.
The logic of unique We can now create a complete pattern of elements upon which knowledge is built.
artifacts produces a
theoretical pattern. Unique artifact tools come in three forms: entities, sites, and fasteners. These tools
are the building blocks of all knowledge. They are fundamental to language. They
are fundamental to physical constructions. And we shall see that they are
fundamental to the construction of human knowledges. Both entities and sites can
be either singular or plural. When sites are singular we call them parts, and when
sites are plural we call them wholes. Finally, fasteners can be connections, relations,
or transformations artifacts. Putting it all together, there are 12 possible ways in
which knowledge based on a single element can be constructed.
Transformations
Singular
Connections
Wholes Relations
Transformations
Connections
Parts Relations
Transformations
Plural
Connections
Wholes Relations
Transformations
We apply this logical The entity artifacts are the most ubiquitous. Out of them we build a small
pattern to the history of
knowledge, choosing number of site artifacts to bundle our entities. And lastly, we construct out of
interesting phases here and those sites a precious few fastening artifacts that connect those disparate
there to test it. bundles, unifying our experiences and our world. This is the Pattern of
Knowledge. We have built it logically, based on the forms of uniqueness. We
could have built it solely from experience (which is what I first did), deriving
it from the history of knowledge. That we can produce the pattern we find in
real experience with logic is a very strong indication that we have built a
theory of knowledge. But more on that later. For now we will do some filling
in, which I hope will help to make this pattern meaningful, perhaps
illuminate some knowledge, and start you on the path to using it.
In the arts of the universals periods, the differences between singular and
plural were striking. Greek archaic sculpture was designed to geometric
perfections; bodies were sculpted to exact proportions and human features
were based on geometric shapes. The forms and features were all designed to
fit a logical geometry and proportion. During the Classic Period the sculptures
looked real. While they did not entirely lose their geometric (universal)
underpinnings, that geometry was now in the service of perception and
realism, producing Greek and Roman works of great fluidity and beauty. We
see exactly this same shift between the early and later Medieval sculptures in
Europe. There, the universals were not geometric but religious. Before 1250
these works were completely stylized, and after 1250 they were, in the words
of Giovanni Boccaccio about Giotto, "real:"
Sites
Each of these half periods The change in sites from parts to wholes divides each of the singular and
breaks into two phases,
parts and wholes. plural entity periods into two halves. We see it clearly in the 20th century; we
Plural
are surrounded by the conceptual artifacts of an wholistic phase. All our
Environments environments are wholes: gestalts, systems, complexes, ecologies, structures,
Wholistic unified realms. We have been embedded in our wholistic environment for
Connections
1927-1948
almost 70 years, during which we have seen, described, and invented whole
earth, wholistic lifestyles, searching for oneness, and enjoying stories of
Wertheimer 1880-1943
Keynes 1883-1946 complete lives and histories.
Weyl 1885-1955
Wittgenstein 1889-1951
Chadwick 1891-1974
This is very different from the environments prior to 1927, when the parts
Vygotsky 1896-1934 were of the essence and the whole neglected; when unity was to be found in
Calder 1898-1976 the pieces being brought together rather than in the greater whole. In 1927
Dirac 1901-1984
Fermi 1901-1954
Werner Heisenberg developed his Uncertainty Principle, a new formulation of
Godel 1906-1978 the underlying nature of quantum mechanics, in which he postulates that there
Yukawa 1907-1981 is a fundamental uncertainty in our ability to measure and completely know
Bourbaki fl1939
Wilder 1897-1975
everything about elementary particles including their position and momentum
at the same time. There is uncertainty in knowing the whole. In 1928,
Thornton Wilder published The Bridge of San Luis Rey, the story of the
connections between a group of complete strangers who die together when a
bridge collapses. For Wilder, we are all tied together into a whole.
Soon after, Einstein began his culminating and frustrated work to create a
unified field theory. Piaget moved from looking at individual stages of a child's
mental activities to constructing the entire sequence of their development of
knowledge. Bourbaki, the French mathematicians' collaborative, began to
collect the whole of mathematics into a single organized body of work; just as
Euclid had done in an earlier wholistic period. In 1931, Kurt Godel destroyed
the belief that mathematics could be developed as a complete logical system
arguing that such a system would necessarily be incomplete. And in the mid
1930's Alan Turing developed the basis for computer languages, the complete
set of instructions to create a computer program. Perhaps the seminal work of
this fascinating phase was Thought and Language by Lev Vygotsky. Published
in 1934, months after his premature death, it continues to drive many of the
paradigms of cognitive psychology today.
In our opinion the right course to follow is to use the other type
of analysis, which may be called analysis into units.
Fasteners
The final breakdown into The three kinds of fastening artifacts produced vividly different kinds of
the smallest phases -
connections, relations, knowledge in a lovely sequence of ideas in physics, starting with the work of
transformations. Newton. His three "Laws of Motion," which opened the Principia in 1686, are
among the most famous ideas of all time. I would imagine that aside from
religious phrases, a few lines of Shakespeare, and a few great speeches, more
people can paraphrase them than any other single work. But while we may be
able to mouth the words, few of us know why there are three, though that
question speaks to the essence of their meaning.
commonly written as
F=ma
joins the cause (force) to accelerations. Force - the fastening artifact - unites
all accelerated motions in the same standard way. When we see any object in
the real world following a curved path in space or in time, then there is a force
acting on it in the direction of that curvature.
now defines the nature of forces. They are the interactions between objects,
and such interactions are always equal and opposite. This is the "logical" form
of the fastening artifact. We construct forces as the interactions between
objects. Newton's most famous force, the Universal Law of Gravitation, was
designed in exactly this way, as the interaction of gravitational masses.
Newton's laws, which completely dominated physics for more than 200 years
served as archetypes for much of the knowledge build until 1860, are three in
number because: the first defines the natural state, the second the causal
state, and the third the nature of the cause. Every theory of physics - indeed,
every theory - has these three components, though most of the time the first
and sometimes the second are left unstated. Newton brought a clarity to
theorizing that we have rarely seen since.
Plural-Objects Newton's laws, in the form he expressed them were extraordinarily successful
Parts-Relations when the forces were gravitational or like gravity. They were not nearly so
c. 1730-1775
easy to use for calculating the results of collisions. Oh, they explained what
Bach 1685-1750 happens when two objects collide with each other, but computing the actual
Voltaire 1694-1778
Bernoulli 1700-1782 changes in motion was nearly impossible. The forces between two hard
Hartley 1705-1790 colliding objects are extremely complex, changing all the time, and very
Franklin 1706-1790 difficult to measure. D'Alembert, in 1743, introduced a new way to think about
Fielding 1707-1754
Linnaeus 1707-1778 the laws of motion that enabled collision problems to be readily solved.
Euler 1707-1783
Johnson 1709-1784
Hume 1711-1776
He built this new conceptualization on the physics of statics, which as
Rousseau 1712-1778 originated by Archimedes, was all about balance and equality. D'Alembert
Diderot 1713-1772 argued that in an elastic collision - where objects bounce off each other - the
D'Alembert 1717-1783
total momentum before and after the objects collided remain in balance. The
momentum (simply the mass of the object times its speed) was, in
d'Alembert's view, the measure of the motion that a body could transfer. He
concluded that in elastic collisions the motions always transferred so as to
remain in balance. This transfer and balance we study today as the Law of the
Conservation of Momentum. Balances are relations; the fitting together of two
sites so that they are equal or proportional. D'Alembert constructed a relations
fastener - momentum - a direct derivative of Newton's forces and interactions,
but very different. It was a new fastening artifact which connected motions
and allowed him and us to solve a wealth of new problems.
Transformations
Plural-Objects There was another class of problems - also difficult to solve using Newton's
Parts Laws of Motion - of which the swinging pendulum, first studied by Galileo, was
Transformations
c. 1775-1800
an archetype. These motions have forces that, unlike collisions, can be
calculated, but the calculation is very difficult because the accelerations vary
Smith 1723-1790
Kant 1724-1804 continuously and often in complex ways. Joseph Lagrange, in 1789, formulated
Cavendish 1731-1810 another new version of Newton's Laws to deal with such complex motions. He
Haydn 1732-1809 started with what he called living forces and dead forces, what would soon
Priestley 1733-1804
Coulomb 1736-1806 come to be called the energy of a body. Living force - kinetic energy - is a
Lagrange 1736-1813 different measure of the motion of a body and dead force - potential energy -
Gibbon 1737-1894 is another way of describing forces. Energy, this term that we use today in an
Lavoisier 1743-1794
David 1748-1828 almost magical way, is simply a way of describing motions and forces among
Goya 1748-1828 other things so that their quantities have the same units and transform into
Goethe 1749-1832 each other.
Mozart 1756-1801
In which we see a In large measure, what we focus on in intellectual history are the fastening
complete singular period
in full glory. artifacts. They are the great theories, laws, explanations, and models upon
which patterns are based; they are the glues that hold together works of art,
architecture and literature. To help you get a more complete sense of how all
of the elements of the Pattern of Knowledge work together, let me take you
through one of the most fascinating of the periods, when a single line of
powerful attempts to conceptualize the physical universe dominated intellectual
history. The pre-Socratics, the predecessors to Socrates, were a sequence of
philosophers who, unfortunately, we rarely come in contact with. And when we
do, it is most often as academic foils against which modern methods and
concepts of science are compared. In part, this is because we have so little of
their actual works. In part, it is because we have developed a system of
training of our young scientists in the "methods" of science requiring that we
significantly narrow the box we keep science in. And in part, we have not had
any powerful means by which we can understand what they were thinking
about.
By following their fascinating trail we can learn more about the Pattern of
Knowledge and by using the Pattern of Knowledge we can understand them
better. To set the stage - the pre-Socratics were all focused on the same
problem, the search for what the Greeks called the "first principle of all things."
These first principles were the elements of which everything was made. They
were universals, the most important universals. As we turn back more than
2500 years, I hope you will find that these early Greek thinkers were the first
real scientists, doing then what we continue to do today. They created theories
that brought order, meaning, and predictability to the universe. We know very
little about what they actually thought, for these early Greeks lived in an oral
society, and it was not until much later that they widely committed works to
writing, and much of what was written down early was undoubtedly lost or
destroyed. Despite the paucity of actual words, these early "philosophers" were
venerated by later Greeks who understood their great accomplishments. And if
we understand what they did, we too shall find that they deserve our
veneration.
Thales
Water is the "First The first was Thales of Miletus, who must have been a quite extraordinary
Principle" -connections
between parts. human being - the originator of philosophy, the inventor of mathematical
proof, perhaps a predictor of eclipses, and a widely traveled explorer and
businessman. He was also the first person in all of human history to whom we
Connections artifacts are often like Thales' water - glues in which the
mechanism is less important than the union. Water is much like Maxwell's field;
pervading all, an aether connecting the universe. A different kind of glue was
devised by Thales' most important associate and pupil, Anaximander. He said
that all things were joined at birth and for him the connecting universal was at
the origin of all things. He was interested in birth and the source of life. This
version of connections fastener, in which the glue existed and acted at the
origin of the "elements," reappears periodically in knowledge and can often be
very significant. Darwin's On the Origin of Species is a prime example.
Pythagoras
Number and Harmony - Hidden behind the mysticism of his followers and by his great impact on
relations between parts
geometry, we rarely see the profound advance that Pythagoras made in
Singular
Universals
understanding the first principle of all things. He said it was number,
Parts irrevocably linking mathematics to science. For Pythagoras, proper numbers
Relations produced harmony and thus explained the relationships between things. He
c. 550 - 525
used certain numbers to join the planets, creating the first comprehensive
Pythagoras c.540 cosmology. He used number - the ratio of simple whole numbers - to explain
Confucius c.525
Buddha c.525 the relationship of musical notes in chords. And he believed that number was
Psiax Vases c.525 the means by which the elements were joined, because certain numbers
created harmony, balance, and perfection. He found harmony in the simple
ratios of string lengths that produced musical notes and beautiful chords, and
carried that same metaphor into the numbers that represented the planets and
produced the music of the heavenly spheres.
Numbers were certainly universal; Pythagoras believed that they were part of
all things. Mathematics with its wonderful relationships, whose universality
While we tend to discount this anthropomorphic theory, and even the later
Greeks considered him the least significant of these early philosophers,
Empedocles left us with a much clearer notion of what science should be. He
defined the elements as he understood them - earth, air, fire, and water - and
he set the fastening artifacts as clearly distinct from the elements they joined.
Relations phase artifacts are often based on the human relationship metaphors
of love and war or male and female. They produce science in which the
elements are all defined and organized: the taxonomy of living things
developed by Linnaeus, the Periodic Table of the Elements organized by
Mendeleev. Wholistic relations phases add hierarchy to these organizations, as
in Erik Erikson's "Eight Ages of Man," wholistic because it was a complete
sequence and relational because each stage was a balance between positive
and negative development.
Anaxagoras
"Nous" - Mind - In an odd twist, Anaxagoras was born before Empedocles, but was, as Aristotle
transformations of
wholes
described him, "older in years, younger in works than Empedocles." The last of
the profound pre-Socratics, he constructed a new universal that as we could
guess was wholistic and transformational. Like all of the wholistic group, his
"Nous" or "Mind" was a new invention, not an existing element, and it was also
everywhere. "[Mind] is infinite and self-powerful and mixed with nothing, but
The phase we have been living in has these same qualities; we speak of
systems, of fluids, of transformations. Our conceptions are full of such
"mechanisms," wholistic transformations flow through society as well as our
physical world. Today's "new age" interest in holistic medicines, ecology,
recycling, spiritual unity, the occult, energy paths, and even acupuncture
represent just a few examples of our general focus on pervading, transforming
substances that comes with significant ideas in the disciplines like "family
systems" therapy and Big Bang theory. Mind and Big Bang are fascinatingly
similar, they both attempt to explain the origin of the universe. Mind is
external, Big Bang is internal, and of course, Mind is a universal and Big Bang
is an environment, but they both fasten in a great transformation that orders
and organizes the structures of the all of the elements.
More on the fastening Anaxagoras, who lived until about 420 B.C., would have known some of the
artifacts
extraordinary new ideas of Socrates. Born in 469, Socrates looked for his
Plural-Universals
Parts-Connections
universal truths internally, in assiduous questioning and a search for logic
440 - c.390 within. The Sophists and other competing philosophers sought truth in
Socrates c.430 experience, in sensation and perception, or in internal logic. Democratus, born
Democratus c.430 in 460, invented atoms as the "first principle of all things," which he used to
Euripedes c.440 explain sensation and perception. Atoms were within; a plural entity. Realism
Hippocrates c.430
Parthenon c.440 was the hallmark of the first true history written by Thucydides, also born
Protagoras c.440 around 460. And both realism and the internal source of disease distinguished
Thucydides c.420 the first great theory of medicine developed by Hippocrates, again born in that
Dying-Niobid c.440
Hippias c.420 same year. But now we have passed the pre-Socratics and are getting into
plural universals, where there were many more players during each phase
offering exciting and competing first principles. We must, therefore, reluctantly
leave the Greeks and the pre-Socratics whose simple and pure path produced
such an elegant sequence in the Pattern of Knowledge.
Connections Phases
The pattern that we see in the pre-Socratics repeats across the periods of
knowledge. And while each period - with its own unique entity artifact -
produced new knowledge, the fastening artifacts fashioned during each phase
Relations Phases
In relations phases - with emphasis on harmony, balance, and human relation -
we find the work of Archimedes on the principles of statics, balancing forces in
levers and the other simple machines; the conservation of momentum by
d'Alembert, the cascading affairs of a Henry Fielding novel, the hierarchical
relationships of Auguste Compte's conception of knowledge, and, of course,
the relationships between observers and the laws of motion in Einstein's
"Special Theory of Relativity." The relations phase templates range between
mechanical balance and the sexual relation between men and women. We see
a great range of knowledges constructed during these phases with a variety of
physical metaphors from which to draw.
Transformations Phases
I love the connections between those philosophers whom we find perhaps the
most compelling and yet mysterious: Plato, Dante, Kant, Einstein and
Wittgenstein. They all sought that powerful invariant in a world of
transformation (Einstein's Special Relativity was developed in a relations phase,
his General Theory was developed during the next phase, parts-
transformations.). As you peruse the Pattern of Knowledge as I hope you will,
adding inventors you know and making new connections, be warned that
humans are complex, that most knowledge was developed over substantial
incubation periods and thus may have elements and remnants of a variety of
phases in it. Interpreting a single piece of knowledge my not be easy and may
be subject to question. But overall, the pattern is well defined, and it can serve
as an aide to interpreting and teaching knowledge. It may also enable a better
understanding of both the act of invention and the motivation of the inventor.
How to think I believe that what you now have in your hands is a theory of knowledge. It starts
about a theory of
knowledge? with the most fundamental idea; that knowledge is constructed of artifacts. People
construct and choose artifacts based on uniqueness. We pay special attention to
the important artifacts, assuring that they are generally unique; for we believe
that unique artifacts, both physical and conceptual, are precious. Uniqueness gives
us a flexible way of differentiating, handling, and organizing the vast realms of
experience that we face; a way to choose what we must focus on and to construct
artifacts and patterns of artifacts for holding our experience.
There are only three different ways that an artifact can be unique; by being
different and thus distinct from other artifacts, by being the same across other
artifacts, or by matching and mating other artifacts. These three forms of
uniqueness define the three fundamental tools and, therefore, the three elements
of thought and knowledge. We produce entities - our names and definitions - by
differentiating. We fashion sites - our categories and classes, our concepts and
generalizations - by collecting entities based on their sameness. And finally, we
make fasteners - our theories and explanations - to link different sites by
matching.
We constructed this theory and then connected these unique artifacts to the
Pattern of Knowledge to see whether these abstractions, which we derived from
uniqueness, fit our legacy of intellectual history by explaining its periods, phases,
and sequence. The fit seems exact and strongly suggests that all of the knowledge
we create is explained by this theory. This is what a theory of knowledge looks
like: a simple, purely logical argument which provides a template for constructing
a pattern that then holds and connects experience in epistemology, intellectual
history, natural language, and mathematics.
Coulomb replaced the masses (m) by the charges (q) and the constant of
Gravitation (G) by a constant for electricity (k). The force of electricity, like the
force of gravity, varied as the square of the distance, indicating that it spread out
in straight lines. Coulomb carefully constructed an electric balance to assure that
this law fit the experimental data. Other than being either attractive or repulsive,
this force was very Newtonian.
Magnetic forces proved to be much more complicated. Magnets always come with
two poles locked together. The force between magnets does not spread out in
straight lines. And to make matters worse, by Maxwell's time, the magnetic force
was known to be produced by electricity. What was clear was that a new force,
the magnetic force, was generated when an electric object moved - a very un-
Newtonian notion. Andre Marie Ampere, in 1818, formulated a law describing the
force between two parallel wires carrying electricity.
It was a mutation of Newtonian laws; the force varied as the distance (d)
between the wires and not the square of the distance. And while the force was
proportional to the currents (I) in both wires, it was also a function of the length
of the wire (l). Things were getting messy.
More than 75 years of attempts by world class physicists had produced these and
other laws of electricity and magnetism under the Newtonian umbrella. Each was
descriptive, based on a familiar pattern and not on a fundamental element. Each
was very different and generally unrelated to the others in its form, in the way it
looked, and in the way it worked. The result was complex and ugly.
The Electromagnetic Field
Maxwell opened his great paper "A Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field"
published in the fall of 1864:
The cross product is a vector that we call the "curl." Like its name implies, this
field is always changing direction, turning or curling around its source. Returning
to our wind metaphor, if we blow from our mouths, we create a source and that
wind goes straight out, diverging and weakening as it gets further from our face.
Wind in nature, however, is always curling, rotating clockwise around highs and
counterclockwise around lows. We see it in dust devils, tornadoes and on a larger
scale in the satellite images of cloud formations and of hurricanes.
And 2 kinds of
fields:
There are two kinds of fields in electromagnetism, the Electric (E), and the
Electric Magnetic (B), (M is an already overused symbol in physics). Here, then, are the
1. The first equation connects a diverging electric field radiating in space with
an electric charge. It restates Coulomb's Law.
2. The second defines a diverging magnetic field, which would be the result of
a magnetic "charge." But none has ever been found and thus the magnetic
divergence is set equal to zero.
3. The third links a circulating magnetic field, curling through space, with an
electric field changing with time (an electric current). It expands Ampere's
Law.
4. And the fourth ties a circulating electric field which would produce a
current in a loop of wire, with a magnetic field changing with time (a moving
magnet). It is Faraday's Law.
This is a Theory
It is a logical This is what a theory looks like. It is a logical system (the left side of Maxwell's
construction by Equations) - defined in this case by the unique mathematics of a new element, the
which a fastening
artifact defines
environment; which creates and connects a set of logical sites. When these
and connects fastening artifact sites are linked to the empirical sites - the patterns of
sites, to which the experience, then the theory encompasses and connects our experience. When that
sites and entities
of experience can
happens, the empirical sites become connected, fastened into a new unity, which
be linked. now brings uniqueness to our knowledge liberating us from the arbitrariness of the
experiential names for the sites and the pretense of their links. It is a very
powerful thing. We suddenly have a logical understanding, a model for our
experience drawn together by simplicity and the power of human thought. It is a
fastening artifact, the electromagnetic field, which has four dynamic forms that
now join together the experiential patterns. Each form of the fastening artifact is
connected to an empirical site (a well-defined collection of experience as described
in each law). And the fastening artifact, in its full glory, now links all of these
descriptive sites together into a unified picture.
There are three and only three forms of uniqueness: difference, sameness,
matching. With these three forms we construct the three elements of knowledge
and only three: entities based on difference, sites based on sameness, and
fasteners based on matching. We can further differentiate these elements based
on uniqueness: the entities into singular and plural (difference and sameness), the
sites into parts and wholes (difference and sameness), and the fasteners into
connections, relations, and transformations (difference, matching, sameness). We
build knowledge by starting with a unique entity, a template and tool
fundamentally different from any other: a symbol, a universal, an object, an
environment, and now an artifact. We fashion with it our individual entities, from
which we choose a few unique ones to become sites that group and collect the
others, and finally, from a unique site we build a fastener that connects the other
sites together. This is how we construct knowledge. And when we lay out all of
the possible forms, they build the structure of the Pattern of Knowledge.
I hope that you now find that all of those mysterious symbols in Maxwell's
Equations were worth following. For without seeing them, it is difficult to really
understand how simple and yet powerful a great theory can be, and how we build
them. I apologize to those physicists who may complain that I have left out some
of the fine detail. There is a bit more pattern that in this short work, I have
deleted. But the essence is here and I hope that you can see why Einstein loved it
so; and why, though a full understanding and more importantly a useful
application of a theory may be complicated, its basic elements are so very simple.
Without a theory the way we name and unify a pattern of knowledge is quite
arbitrary. I had all of the elements of the Pattern of Knowledge by the mid-1970's,
but I did not publish. The names I used for each of the forms were arbitrary; they
came from the best description of the empirical content and did not represent any
theoretical-logical meaning. I did not publish because I did not want the wrong
names, the mislabeling of these ideas, and so I struggled with the theory to get
the names right. When we create sites outside of theory, we get interesting names
like those which label Quarks - color, flavor, up, down. Without theory we make
up names and hope that they illuminate. Without theory we cannot change our
vision of experience. Without theory we do not extend our ideas.
This started it all Before we start to follow our theory of knowledge into new and uncharted
for me.
territory, let us linger for just a moment longer at the wonder of Maxwell. In my
favorite passage in all of the literature of physics and the one that more than any
other single thing enabled me to understand the great leap of Maxwell and the
others in the 1860's, Einstein describes the genius of Maxwell's contribution.
Unique Artifacts Thanks to Jean Piaget, we know a lot about how children construct knowledge.
apply to children as
well as to adults and His stages of development of knowledge are well documented in children across
explains the stages a wide variety of societies and cultures. The sensori-motor stage runs from birth
of Piaget. to 2, at which point most children begin to speak in sentences and become pre-
operational. At about 6 years of age, children become concrete operational and
are able to apply and use standard operations on symbols and conventional
classification. Lastly, between 12 and 14, children become formal operational
and start to use logic, abstract metaphor, and formal reasoning. If we look at
the new things children do at the onset of each of these stages with the
Concrete Operations
Concrete operations At the onset of concrete operations, children's learning explodes suddenly. They
uses plural symbols -
empire knowledge "get" reading, going from words to sentences nearly overnight; they learn do
meets 6 year-olds mathematics, count to any numbers, add and subtract, tell time, follow
calendars, understand sophisticated classification, play their own and adult
games with complex rules, and work together in large organized groups on
major projects. They even draw with standard methods, often that they invent,
and they draw full-featured human faces and figures in profile or frontal poses.
These knowledges match those of the empires. It is uncanny how close the
resemblance is. The inventions are the same!
The inventions are the same because the tools are the same - both concrete
operational children and "empire" adults use plural symbols to construct
knowledge, symbols based on sameness. We can teach concrete operational
children to read and write because they can use a few symbols, common
elements, to represent all words. They invent well-defined representations in
their drawings because these are visual underlying symbols that remain the
same throughout a wide variety of pictures. They can do mathematics because
they can use number and operation, categorical symbols, and see these same
elements as common to anything that is countable. And they can play rule-
based games because games are built on symbols, fastened by rules which are
entirely independent of the players. A quarterback is a position and a type of
player, and an touchdown is a well defined rule for the interaction of these
players. We could, in fact, call concrete operations the game phase. Concrete
Operations is the use of rules on symbols. To have rules, symbols must be
constructed on sameness; they must represent a class or category. Thus the
knowledge constructed or learned by 6 to 12-year-old children and by the
empires appears, and is, fundamentally the same.
Formal Operations
Formal operations is Formal operational children search for truths; construct proofs, attempt to build
singular universals -
Greek knowledge logical systems, use variables, and start to argue formally and universally. Their
and 13 year-olds entry into formal operations is accompanied by explosive growth. They change
before our eyes both physically and mentally; suddenly making arguments and
explanations that are adult-like abstractions; they enter into conversations about
religion, society, evolution, politics, and all manner of philosophical subjects.
They can make and follow a long, logical argument. They can learn to solve
logical puzzles, and they can use variables. We can teach them to prove
geometric theorems, to be critics of essays, and to understand abstract
metaphors. Their inventions, their interests, and their reactions are very much
like those of the early Polis Greeks. They are formal operational, they use
universals instead of symbols, seeking truths and logical meaning.
Pre-Operations
Pre-operations is We do not find it at all odd that developmental psychologists call the pre-
singular symbols -
tribal knowledge and
operational period "the magic years." Most children burst into language between
2 year-olds. two and two-and-a-half-years; jumping, nearly overnight, from using just a
handful of individual words to speaking in sentences with rapidly expanding
vocabularies. They tell stories, develop rituals, believe in magic, make up names,
fashion fantasies, recognize traffic signs, become fascinated with familial
relationship and kinship systems, and create elaborate magical formulas and
mythical explanation for all sorts of things. They construct stories and
explanations that are "magic" and ignore the constraints of the real world. They
personify objects and natural forces, telling us "the thunder is angry." They
confound fantasy and reality, cause and effect (the clouds make the wind). And
they invent names out actions. Their magic orientation, their new capabilities,
and their inventions- including their art - look just like those of the tribal
societies. They are using symbols for the first time, and whether their symbols
are borrowed or invented, they are recreating the world. While their language
certainly has a mimicry component, must of their syntax is of their own
invention. Their creations and actions and those of tribal peoples are very similar
in form and in kind. They even like to dress-up, decorate, engage in socio-
dramatic play, and tell action stories.
Children seem to have natural mental maturations at Piaget's key ages, and if
their society has enabling entities, they naturally jump to the next step. Indeed,
if we were to analyze the development of knowledge in children more carefully,
we would actually find the same pattern of phases we found in historical
knowledge. These are not fully delineated in Piaget's work, but they are not
difficult to articulate when we look at how and what we teach children at each
grade level or at how they behave before formal schooling.
Sensori-Motor
The Sensori-motor I did leave out the definition of a phase that exists in children but does not have
stage is pre-symbolic
and does not have a a counterpart in the Pattern of Knowledge. Sensori-motor is the stage from just
comparable phase in after birth to about 2 years of age and the one Piaget initially studied. It is the
the Pattern of stage before formal language, where words are things and drawings are
Knowledge.
scribbles. It must represent a different entity, one that I call signals. A symbol is
a name for an experience, a signal is that experience: hunger, thirst, fear, joy.
It may come from the external world to be dealt with or it may emanate from
inside the organism as an expression. For most children up to 2 years-of-age,
words are such signals, as is crying or laughing or making signs with their
hands. Their art works are signals, like so many of their physical actions. This
entity was undoubtedly used by our pre-symbolic ancestors, and likely underlies
learned animal behavior in chimps, dogs, horses, and other species. While
signals, particularly shared signals can be complex; they are limited in number
because each represents a single action or sequence of actions. Trained
primates seem to be limited to about 250 signals. Though a new entity, it
follows the same sequence of phases as the other entities - phases that can,
with minor variations, be connected to Piaget's stages of sensori-motor
development.
Unique Psychology, established a little over 100 years ago as a separate discipline, rapidly
Artifacts
applies to grew beyond its initial study of the way individuals behaved in different physical
thought as environments. It quickly accrued cognitive development, abnormal behavior, and
well as to learning theory, which had been elements of either philosophy or medicine during
epistemology.
its first two decades, and it has continued to add interesting parts of other
disciplines, like linguistics from the humanities, or build new disciplines like
cybernetics. Psychology has been the vibrant discipline of the 20th century. Today
we learn about thinking in courses mixing behavioral psychology, the learning
process, human development, the nature of language, and advanced programming
and the visual display of information. We do not learn about thought in connection
with knowledge. And while Piaget and his followers may describe themselves as
epistemologists, they do not connect the study of thinking and intellectual history.
Detached from philosophy, cognition severed its ties to knowledge.
And there it remains today, thought and knowledge in separate realms, considered
to be completely different, studied in different disciplines, and virtually unrelated.
Obviously this cannot be the case. Perhaps it is time to extract knowledge from
philosophy and thought from psychology; to bring them together into a new
discipline. While this short work is not the place to indulge in a thorough analysis of
thought and its connection to knowledge; we should, before we conclude, look at a
few familiar elements of cognition and their obvious connection with unique artifacts
and thus with knowledge as a means to illuminate both. I am convinced that there
should be no fundamental separation between thought and knowledge - that the
way we construct artifacts and the artifacts we construct are fundamentally
connected.
Thought
I know of no comparable pattern of thought in adults to Piaget's stages. The closest
thing to even a list is Benjamin Bloom's Taxonomy of Cognitive Objectives developed
by a committee of educators and scholars headed by Bloom and published in 1956.
Bloom listed six stages of thought- knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis,
synthesis, evaluation- a comprehensive hierarchy, as we would expect from a
pattern developed in a wholistic relations phase. The last three of his objectives,
Analysis, Synthesis, Evaluation, were drummed into our teacher heads as the most
important aspect of what we were to do with kids, the higher order thinking skills!
Much of the focus of today's educational curricular reform can be traced to this
Taxonomy. And while, it is not at all clear that the Bloom Taxonomy is a complete
description of the tools we use to think, it provide us with a much needed and well-
established pattern that we can work with. We will start with the higher order skills,
and return to look at the complete pattern which has, I find, an interesting structure.
Twilight is a good time for us to see how the world looks to babies and to see how
we come to analyze a section of experience for the first time. If there is just that
right level of darkness after it has gotten just dark enough for our color cones to no
longer work well and while there is just enough light to enable us to still discern
shapes if we work at it. And if we are in a new place, perhaps driving down a
highway or waking in a strange room in the middle of the night. And if we are
suddenly brought to attend and look out at that world, we catch a glimpse of
unrecognizable experience. We suddenly do not know what we are looking at.
Everything seems strange.
We start to stare at things, to try to make out shapes. We look for edges; we search
for differences to start building shapes. We cut out a form here, and then another
there, looking for something we recognize. Once we have constructed a few of these
entities by difference, we usually know where we are and the rest of the vaporous
shapes fall into a pattern. But it is in that first few seconds that we can see our
minds at work. We can see how the infant begins to shape their world. And we can
see what we do when we analyze anything. We look for edges, for discontinuities,
for differences, and we begin to construct artifacts from that experience by cutting it
up. Thus analysis is the thinking process we use to create entities, the basic artifacts
fashioned by difference.
Synthesis Bloom describes synthesis with words like - arrange, assemble, categorize, organize,
plan - the act of putting things together. To synthesize is to find sameness, to collect
common artifacts, to build patterns, even taxonomies. It is the opposite of analysis
just as sameness is the opposite of difference. Here are the two form of uniqueness
- difference and sameness- playing such a fundamental role in cognition.
Taxonomy Uniqueness
---------- Singular
Knowledge Difference
Comprehension Sameness
Application Matching
---------- Plural
Analysis Difference
Synthesis Sameness
Evaluation Matching
The first group applies to singular experiences and the second to plural
experiences. Thus the second group of stages appear to us to be much higher
order thinking skills because they apply to much more complex ideas. With good
reason we reserve teaching them to our middle school students and above. And
with good reason the forward pedagogical thinkers emphasize them in a
curriculum that has too often, simplistically, focused on the most minuscule parts
in an attempt to make evaluation easy. But when we look at both sets from the
standpoint of Unique Artifacts, we see them as the same, the tools to construct
artifacts based on difference, sameness, and matching. These are clearly the
essential tools of cognition. They are intimately connected to entities, sites, and
fasteners. Knowledge and analysis construct entities. Comprehension and
synthesis construct sites. Application and evaluation construct fasteners. They are
the same because thought like knowledge is the fashioning of unique artifacts.
Simplicity
The odd This wonderful old Shaker song seems so at odds with the real world, much as the
dichotomy
Shaker's themselves were with the rest of 19thcentury America. The world is
complex, broad, and multifaceted. We expect theories to be complicated and large.
Our disciplines are driven by great organizations - numerous practitioners jointly
sign new works, large scale funding is required to advance the state of the art, and
we have the belief that significant new knowledge will come out of massive
collaborations, “Manhattan Projects." And while we may yearn for simpler times, as
did the Shakers, we are generally unshaken in our belief in the complexity of our
world.
Yet there are a few bits and pieces which should cause us to pause. When we listen
to those who worked with the great thinkers, Einstein, Bohr, Fermi, we are told of
their most special qualities, the ability to ask simple questions. We love the child-
like nature of Picasso, of Richard Feynman, of Linus Pauling. And when we describe
people as child-like we are most often describing their essential simplicity. It does
seem odd that often the deepest quality of great inventors should be described in
these ways. Just maybe, that old Shaker prayer really does express something truly
profound.
Simplicity- An We can get a better sense of this by looking at our most prominent physical
Auto Example
artifacts, automobiles. The Model A Ford, introduced in 1928, was wonderfully
simple, indeed it was much simpler and easier to use than its predecessor the
Model T. Perhaps the first truly modern car - it was manufacturable, had all of the
same components as today's cars, and was designed to be cheap and easy to
assemble. When we try to restore one, we see all of the parts that are still
fundamental to today's cars. Compared to our automobiles, its parts were much
simpler, but it was actually more complex to construct. Despite the great strides we
have made in the sophistication of our automobiles, we have actually made them
simpler to put together. The roof of the Model A was fabric, covering metal cross
bars, screwed, clipped, nailed, and hooked into the body. Compared to a modern
car with a single stamped welded roof, it was very complex with many parts.
Starting my son's Model A requires turning on the gas valve, setting the spark
advance, the choke, and the idle speed, pumping the gas petal, turning on the key,
holding in the clutch, and pressing the starter button with your foot. Starting my
We no longer make a separate body and frame (chassis) of a car, but instead mold
them together in giant presses of the same steel. We no longer make the
floorboards of the car from multiple pieces of plywood carefully cut to shape, but of
a single sheet of molded steel. The parts of a modern car are certainly much more
sophisticated than those of the Model A, they are no longer machinable or fixable
by a home mechanic, but the overall construction is actually simpler. The
automobile companies make it easier and cheaper to put together.
The history of the automobile is a mirror of the history of knowledge. The first
horseless carriages were very simple affairs, equivalent to a golf cart. As they
became automobiles, they grew more and more complex with new parts added
year after year, lights, brakes, doors, locks, transmissions, reverse, electric starters,
fuel pumps, heaters, automatic transmissions, and on and on. At first, each of these
new parts was just added on, effectively bolted onto the machine. Thus the trunk
was actually a wooden "truck" that could be found in any home, strapped to the
rear of the car. Then came an integration, when separate parts were collected into
a new part or anew whole. The car looked different, worked differently, and was
manufactured in a new way. The Model A was such a car. The pattern follows an
increasing complex collection being replaced by more complex and sophisticated
elements and more highly integrated wholes. The automobile industry has just been
through another such cycle, today producing a car that is much better built and
much more satisfying to drive then those of the 1970's and '80's.
Simplicity and It is the same with conceptual artifacts and the Pattern of Knowledge. We start
Knowledge
simply; build complexity taking in more and more parts and more and more
experience. The sites and fasteners become complicated. We then invent new
fundamental elements greatly simplifying the sites and fasteners.
Simplicity is the This is exactly what happens when a new element of knowledge is invented. It can
answer to an
interesting hold much more, and it can contain a much wider variety of experience. It enables
question about us to greatly simplify our constructions, the building of other artifacts. Simplicity is
the elements of the answer to an important question. Why do so many, but not all, of the greatest
knowledge.
ideas appear at the biggest changes in the "Pattern of Knowledge?" Why did the
revolutions of the 7th century, of the 1500's and the 1860's produce so many new
and fundamental works? It is because such new fundamental elements enable great
simplifications in our knowledges.
The new element is more powerful, more sophisticated, capable of holding much
more. And the fasteners are so much simpler. It makes our world look simple and
understandable. Once such an element is fashioned, it creates the potential for such
vast simplification that it opens the floodgates to invention and with lightning speed
passes from discipline to discipline.
Parsimony
Uniqueness The search for simplicity is fundamental to the work of our scientists and
implies rarity, philosophers. It is described as parsimony. The quest for parsimony seems to be at
which explains the heart of the invention of knowledge by its greatest inventors. Over and over
why parsimony is
so important in again they have told us that they follow Ockham's Razor, the fewer the propositions
knowledge. and the simpler the foundations, the closer knowledge comes to the "truth." Nearly
unanimously they viewed their task as the creation of unity using the fewest
assumptions.
Fastening artifacts are very precious. We invest great effort and energy into them.
We reorganize our cognitive world based on them. We concentrate research on
them. We extend them, building an entire scaffolding of knowledge upon them. And
we teach them to our children with proper diligence. We humans are knowledge
conservative; we do not change our knowledge or belief systems readily - it takes
too much effort. It is thus very important that the fastening artifacts we choose be
unique, that we will not have to reorder our knowledges, particularly our
fundamental concepts, very often. Therefore, we search for parsimony as a
powerful vector to uniqueness. It is this drive for uniqueness that motivates the
search for the fewest and the simplest set of assumptions upon which to build
works. This demand for uniqueness underlies the greatest of our theories, the best
of our art works, as well as the most beautiful of our physical artifacts.
We often confuse and denigrate the abstract, when we are given a generalization
as an explanation. It is common for people to say - "It is the environment. “It is
human nature." - and for us to feel that we have been told nothing useful. This is
no more mysterious than the difference between a complete physical artifact and
one that is just beginning to take shape. The unfinished project may appear
wonderful to the artisan, because their finished vision is clear. But for the rest of us
that vision must be fully constructed. So it is, for the artifacts of our imaginations.
They must be fully constructed for us to appreciate and accept them. Thus a broad
generalization is not necessarily an abstract artifact, unless it is complete.
Abstraction explains the differences between the artifacts developed by children and
adults, even when they are based on the same unique entities. The adult's artifacts,
generally richer in experience, are more abstract than the child's. They are thus
more unique and more powerful. While superficially the artifacts seem the same,
upon closer examination they will show substantial differences in abstraction. As our
minds grow stronger and our experience increases, we seek artifacts that are more
abstract for they are more unique as vessels for larger quantities of experience.
Now, finally, we return to those artifacts that started our quest, the unique entities
(symbols, universals, objects, environments, and now artifacts). These elements of
knowledge are also the greatest abstractions that we have. And it is of great
interest that our most powerful abstractions should only come in these few forms.
At its most fundamental, abstraction must then not continuous. It must have
discrete levels. We build abstraction on the broadest scale in large and singular
steps. Symbols, universals, objects, environments, and now artifacts are the most
abstract and the most unique ideas that we have. Each is the next largest idea that
encompasses the previous one. We can make environments bigger and bigger,
more and more abstract; but if we are to construct an element that is different, that
enables simplification and not just greater abstraction; then our invention jumps a
significant level of abstraction. Each of these Unique Elements is fundamentally
Here we come to a crucial point. There are two great engines driving thought,
simplification and abstraction. We seek to construct ideas that are simpler and thus
more unique. And we seek to construct ideas that are more abstract and thus more
unique. Artifacts are unique when they are different and when they are the same.
When we seek simplicity we are searching for difference. When we seek abstraction
we are looking for sameness. The essential tools for the construction of knowledge,
sameness and difference are also the essential tools that drive thought. To simplify
is to group together, to fashion sameness in our artifacts. To abstract is to
differentiate, to separate, to define a difference from other artifacts.
This combination of simplification and abstraction is the basis for the unique
entities. Each is more abstract that the previous one. Each produces a great
simplification. Without simplification, abstraction only leads to complexity. And
without abstraction, simplification leads to triviality. These ideas are the heart of
thought because they are the fundamental unique elements of thought in the
construction of singular artifacts.
Incredible as this may seem, it provides us with an explanation for the unique
entities. We commonly think of concrete to abstract as a continuum, but when
artifacts are most fundamental, their abstractness comes in very discrete packages.
Abstraction also helps us to understand the shifts in the unique entities from
symbols, to universals, to objects, to environments, and now to artifacts in the
Pattern of Knowledge. The sequence is growth in abstractness of our fundamental
elements. Each is the next level of uniquely abstract entity. Each element allows a
new level of abstraction, a new unique step in the capacity of our artifacts to hold
experience. And each brings with it a new level of unity.
And here, finally, we return to the beginning of this work, where we found the
fundamental elements that produced the great periods of knowledge. These
elements - Symbols, Universals, Objects, Environments, and now Artifacts- are the
basis for knowledge, the templates upon which we design the artifacts we use, the
forms for the entities and thus the forms for all of the artifacts. They are the very
essence of our knowledge, the most fundamental building blocks. We have already
said that each is unique, fundamentally different from the others. And now we can
say why.
Each new element is unique because it is different from the one that came before
it. Each element is unique because it is a union of the one that came before it,
collecting all of those that came before it as the same. Each is unique because it is
different, fundamentally different from those that came before it.
Thus we can fashion ever increasingly complex environments, adding more and
more, larger and larger environments together, but we fail to produce increased
uniqueness or even increased abstraction. For to create fundamentally new
uniqueness we have to construct a new kind of artifact, a new element. It must be
different from those that came before and yet include them. Such are the unique
elements.
Now, since we have made one, why can't we construct others? We have the
formula! We have the formula - but unlike singular, plural, parts, wholes, and
We can thus predict the pattern of knowledge in broad brush for the artifact period,
but we cannot construct it out of sequence. And we shall have to wait until this
period is complete before we will find what it is that will govern the knowledge
building of the next. We need not at all fear that we can see the end of our
construction of knowledge. Indeed it is just beginning. And it remains, as it has
always been, an act of profound and wonderful invention.
I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to
have been only like a small boy playing on the seashore, diverting
myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell
than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered
before me.
(Isaac Newton c.1727)
This is an Powerful theories always produce wonderful surprises; connections not expected
extraordinary
result, totally and often far from the main thrust of the theories themselves. This is because
unexpected, and theories and explanations bring more order and broader connections than the
potentially of original patterns these constructions sought to unify. Sometimes, like the
great import.
connection between light, electricity and magnetism in Maxwell's theory of the
Electromagnetic Field, these surprises are almost immediately apparent.
Sometimes they lay hidden and emerge slowly, as did the Black Hole hypothesis
from Einstein's General Theory of Relativity. For me, the Unique Artifacts theory
produced a startling surprise - a connection between science and art.
The realms of science and art have been separated since the Greek revolution- the
one logical and dedicated to the search for universal truths; the other mysterious,
affective, and dedicated to the search for beauty. Science has traditionally been
viewed as objective, representing the rules of the external world, while art has
been personal, portraying the individual artist’s perspective on a reality full of
emotional overtones. And while all art can be said to replicate reality, even the
most "realistic" represents a personal vision of that reality. Today, science seems
to be getting more logical and rigid in its attempt to form its consensus on the way
the world works. At the same time, the arts seem to be moving further and further
away from what we think of as reality in their search in "abstraction” for collective
visions. Of course, there have been attempts to make art scientific; like the works
of George Seurat, Alexander Calder, and M. C. Escher. And the sciences may from
It seems odd, when we really consider it, that so much time and energy should
have gone into decoration. If evolution is only about survival and procreation, then
what is the value of all of this decoration? Why, if we are fighting "tooth and claw"
for food and shelter, do we have an aesthetic sense that we work so hard on? I
even believe, that while the cause and effect can be argued, the most successful
tribal peoples were those that produced the finest decoration. They seem to have
often been the most powerful, the most prosperous, the most inventive, and
generally the dominant societies. We are so taken with both the quality and the
quantity of decoration that we consistently credit it to religious purposes. But the
pervasiveness of decoration - the connection between fine art and successful
survival, and the huge investment that humans have put into aesthetic activity -
certainly suggests that there is much more to our interest in beauty than we
generally acknowledge. It must be a matter of survival!
Inventing Theories
Why is it that we The literature on scientific invention is filled with both autobiographical comments
know, nearly
instantly, when and first hand reports of the process of invention. The common and striking aspect
an idea is right? of these reports could be called "instant knowing." Most discoverers tell us that
they knew they were right almost immediately. They had been on a long search
when suddenly - whether walking in a field, sitting under an apple tree, waking
from a dream, or experiencing a revelation while stepping off a streetcar - they
saw the idea, the theory, the model, and instantly knew it was right.
It is our aesthetic sense that is the basis for our intuition, and it is that sense
which seems to choose those artifacts we will attend to. Perhaps that is why we
have two sides to our brains: the serial, logical, linguistic, left side, and the artistic,
aesthetic, right side. I imagine that the left side is constantly inventing new
artifacts or bringing new artifacts in from the outside world, while the right side is
watching, screening, using its sense of beauty to find those artifacts that are
unique, different, the same, or matching, and grabbing those for our attention.
Our minds have to be able to spot uniqueness quickly, to value it, and to discern
what is unique and rare from what is arbitrary and common. I believe that we do
so based on aesthetics.
The Search for Beauty - The Connection Between Art and Science
Uniqueness is How do we know when an artifact is unique? We know by how beautiful it is!
beauty - we judge
it by aesthetic
Whether we are creating physical artifacts in the arts or conceptual artifacts in the
principles. sciences, we are doing exactly the same thing; we are searching for uniqueness in
the artifacts we fashion, and we know that uniqueness by its aesthetic qualities.
Certainly we test out that uniqueness later, but we always make our first
judgments of a new artifact by its beauty. The arts and the sciences are both the
same form of human construction; one is physical, the other conceptual. Both
build artifacts in exactly the same way. Both require the aesthetic sense of beauty
for us to determine the uniqueness of the artifacts.
That is why people decorate. That is why we hold the arts in such high esteem.
That is why we talk about scientific creation in artistic language. That is what
underlies our humanness. We know uniqueness by beauty, and we are constantly
striving for uniqueness in all areas of our lives and thus for beauty in all areas. It
does not matter whether we are painting a cave wall or developing a new theory
of physics, we are looking for and fashioning unique artifacts, and we are using
our aesthetic sense, our sense of beauty. We care about art because we care
about uniqueness. We fashion beautiful things because that is the best way we
have of organizing our experience. We decorate because the people with the best-
developed aesthetic sense will be the ones who can think most clearly, invent the
Perhaps we should be spending a great deal more time developing aesthetic sense
in our schools for this may lead not only to better invention, but to better
understanding of invention.
How does the You may find unique artifacts as defined in this theory of knowledge to be an
unique artifact
produce incomplete explanation. What drives knowledge, what causes it to transform? It is not
knowledge? What easy to move from transformation phase during which we create strong fastening
is its mechanism? mechanisms to connections phases in which our fasteners are weak. Newton faced a
I have no answer.
I don't believe similar difficulty with gravity, eventually proclaiming: "I do not frame hypotheses!"
there is one. Gravity was simply the interaction between objects; it did not have a "mechanism.” I
see uniqueness in the same way. I cannot say what drives the development of new
knowledge, what causes knowledge to transform. I do not know what the mechanism is
that makes us construct a new entity artifact or that makes an inventor move to a new
phase. This issue of transformation was at the heart of the work of Piaget in his last
years when he built his theory of "Genetic Epistemology." I sought such a mechanism
for uniqueness for many years without success, slowly breaking the hold of wholistic
transformations and environment on my thinking. It is an odd thing that we learn to do,
for slowly we will come to no longer ask this kind of question. We will come to accept
the power of this new fastening artifact and no longer require the strong mechanism.
We will be looking to explain why a particular theory exists and not what caused it to
occur.
There is no We do have significant historical reason to not frame a mechanism. When Darwin
mechanism for
the hypothesized Natural Selection, he did not frame a mechanism. He could not explain
transformation of the mechanism of variation, and it was only when he finally broke ties with object
knowledge. It is transformations and the search for such a mechanism that he could complete the On
all a matter of
individual the Origin of Species. Maxwell spent several years searching for a mechanism; a
invention. system, a mechanical process by which the fields actually "worked." In a 1861 paper he
proposed a medium full of mechanical parts - rollers and balls - to carry and explain the
actions of electric and magnetic forces. The vestige of these ideas remained in his
"aether," adding little value to his theory and engendering fruitless searches and
theoretical confusion until Einstein sent it to its final rest. As you invent with these new
The same is true for symmetry. No idea today has more widespread use in modern
physics, and a number of patterns based on mathematical symmetries have been
successful in predicting sub-atomic particles and even new quarks. But we have not yet
seen a powerful theory based on symmetry. We use symmetry, but we do not have a
fundamental conception of symmetry or its requirement in the physical world. While
both symmetry and conservation have long histories and a variety of interpretations,
they are vital today because they are both forms of invariance under transformation.
The "Standard Model" which describes the physics of quarks and subatomic particle, is
based on such invariance.
Yet these are powerful artifacts whose uniqueness may be shorn of invariance under
transformation form. Perhaps we can find in the forms of uniqueness, difference,
sameness, and matching, the basis for symmetry and conservation, just as we did the
basis for the elements of knowledge. And that new elements of physics, either derived
from symmetry and conservation or other unique artifacts, may then become the basis
for a new theory and Einstein's dream of uniting of Relativity and Quantum Mechanics.
Evolution and Having a deep love of Darwin, I have naturally played with the direction of evolutionary
Biology
theory. In this area, too, I believe that we can make some great strides, creating
What was it about Triceratops or Homoerectus that established their long existence and
stable configuration? What was it about the evolution of the horse that produced nearly
continuous change until the modern horse stabilized? It was not just a stable
environment, for the environmental variations existed and continue to exist. I believe
that there is something stable, unique about these forms, totally separate from
environment that represents them as a stable and long existing species. When we
understand this uniqueness, then we shall understand a great deal more about the
evolution of the species.
Art In the visual arts, it certainly seems as if every possible visual style that could be done
has been done. Modern art runs the entire gamut from realism to abstractionism. Many
artists today are searching for new styles in new media, believing that painting has
come to the end of possible styles. But again and again in the history of art it seemed
as if the greatest work had already been done. I see no reason why the same is not
true today, and that new styles of both two and three dimensional works will come in
both new media and old.
I do not know where it will be found, but unique artifacts suggests many artistic
possibilities in the exploration of uniqueness. That is the realm of art, and I am sure
that there is great depth to which it can be explored. For the true aim of art is the
representation of uniqueness, and now we will see what artists do without constraint in
such a search. I only wish that my imagination were good enough to picture such new
works.
The Future
Fear not, we still We do not have to be afraid that with such a theory of knowledge, our future is
cannot predict the
future with preordained. We cannot know or invent artifacts beyond the entity we are in or that we
anything but a will be moving into. I know of not a single instance in all of the history of knowledge
broad brush. where an inventor of new knowledge jumped a phase. Not a single one! That is
powerful evidence that we cannot invent knowledge based on the tools of a future
phase. I also have no reason to believe that, just because we now have a clear
understanding of the sequence of the development of knowledge, we have the ability to
change this. Knowledge is far too difficult to create even with a toolkit we know well,
for any of us to imagine becoming facile with a very advanced set, inventing the distant
future.
How is it that
While I do not frame hypotheses about what drives the change of these tools and
these revolutions
in the disciplines phases of knowledge, I do believe I understand: why major shifts in the tools produce
are clustered so new knowledges across disciplines; why changes in fastening artifacts so quickly
closely together?
pervade all of the disciplines; why there are revolutions in knowledge. Do they just float
The answer lies in
the nature of in the atmosphere? No! I try hard not to use the environments artifact, though I am not
Inventors are people in search of uniqueness. They are always looking for the
connection, the suggestion, the insight, the model that will allow them to fashion the
entities, sites, and fasteners that bring us definition, pattern, and meaning. These
pioneers are constantly searching inside and outside of their disciplines for new
metaphors, new patterns, new links. They cast their eyes on everything, scrutinizing a
wide variety of inventions, hoping that something or someone will provide a trigger, a
clue.
Within a period or a phase, the tools are well known; the metaphors and patterns well
established, and most new knowledge is just their application, the fashioning of the
right artifacts. Like wonderful physical artifacts, some new conceptual artifacts are very
distinctive and others are just well constructed. We can see this in the arts; some
painters will do fine works within a well established genre, and some will seek to
reframe, to find a new way of using the tools that they have, to establish a new art
form. Within a phase we all use the same tools. Some of us create works that are very
different, using the tools in a new way, and some of us create works that are beautiful
and well formed, but their use of the tools does not break virgin soil. When we enter a
new phase and even more so when we enter a new period, we must look for ideas that
are really different, that are breakthroughs of the imagination. So others and I may use
this theory of knowledge to speculate on the future of the disciplines, but our ideas will
not be breakthroughs, they will not have that extraordinary uniqueness that separates
the defining fundamentally new artifacts from the works of good craftsmanship. And
while I may speculate about the Unique Artifacts period of knowledge, I do not pretend
to invent it in other disciplines. I offer my poor notions only to provide a few signposts
to those who will really map the future.
Our greatest As we venture into the artifacts period, everything will be new. Inventions made with
thrills come from
learning and this unique entity and with these tools, will be fresh and wonderful. The thrill and
inventing. Join me excitement of human construction, when everything is new and open, cannot be
as we begin the matched. It provides the drive and the courage to venture into uncharted territory. We
artifacts period
and reinvent our
will need to have some patience with these inventors, for they may not yet be able to
world. argue with the conviction and sophistication of those that fish the old waters. New,
really new, ideas take time to develop and a good deal of getting used to. It takes some
practice to understand what new tools can do and what fundamentally new artifacts
mean. I invite you to join me in this wild and thrilling adventure. For to learn and to
invent are the most magical and profound of all human activities - the greatest soaring
of the human spirit.
Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species, A Facsimile of the First Edition, Harvard University Press, 1966
THE THEORY
Uniqueness
Max Wertheimer, Productive Thinking, 1945, excerpt in Treasure of Knowledge, P.1214
This is a Theory
Albert Einstein, Physics and Reality
Invention by Adults
Gerald Holton, in Holton P. 82
Bardige, Betty - My wife has been my chief confidant in this work, as in all things. She has always
understood it, always encouraged me in it, continuously helped with its ideas, and performed the
unrewarding task of trying to edit and make understandable its writing.
Bardige, Kori, Brenan, Arran - My oldest children, Kori and Brenan, have felt a wonderful
proprietary sense for this work which has only taken their father's time away from them, and have
edited it to be sure that he was not to be embarrassed. In that, they have added a great deal to
my view of my audience. And my youngest, Arran, has asked questions for which I continue to try
to find answers.
Callahan, Richard "Chip" - Helped me get serious about getting this thing finished, doing research.
Chicago, The University of - As I look at why I took this path, I must give substantial credit to an
education that taught me to read and love original sources and great ideas. I spent a great deal of
time with original works that are not listed here to try to understand the author's language and
view of their invention. Without this education, I doubt that I would have been willing to take on
such a task; and without the analysis I was taught, I doubt that I would have succeeded in finding
their central ideas. Most of the works listed in the Pattern of Knowledge I have studied first-hand.
Cornford, F.M. - Before and After Socrates, Cambridge University Press 1932, and From
Religion to Philosophy, Harper Torchbooks, 1957 - Once I found Cornford, I tried to find
every book he wrote in the used bookstores to help me clarify the Greeks.
Darwin, Charles - On the Origin of Species. I have returned often to Darwin as a source of
inspiration including his unpublished papers on evolution written in 1842 and 1845. And I do not
felt so bad that this project has taken so long to reach others when I think of him.
Einstein, Albert - Many works including: "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies" 1905 and The
Evolution of Physics with Leopold Infeld.
Erikson, Erik - Childhood and Society, W. W. Norton, 1950 - During my sophomore year I read
two books - Childhood and Society and The Republic - which had great influence on me.
Kline, Morris - Mathematical Thought from Ancient to Modern Times, Oxford University
Press, 1972 - There are a lot of books on the history of mathematics and I have been through a
share of them. I believe this one to be the most valuable and my reference source.
Klopfer, Leo - Professor of Science Education at The University of Pittsburgh - I started this trek as
a graduate student studying under Leo at the School of Education at Chicago. His love of the
history of science, his gentle prodding, and his guidance on a difficult and obscure Masters paper
were a powerful influence. I certainly teach as he taught to me.
Kuhn, Thomas - The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, University of Chicago Press, 1962 - I
went to school to learn to teach science when the works of Kuhn, Piaget, and Erikson were being
discovered and rediscovered. I was quite taken by them. And certainly all were inspirations for
what was initially a stage theory of the development of knowledge.
Maxwell, James Clerk - The Scientific Papers of James Clerk Maxwell, ed. W.D. Niven, Dover,
1965. It was my desire to communicate the brilliance and beauty of the knowledge this wonderful
man created along with that of Einstein which was the wellspring for this work.
Nahm, Milton - Selections from Early Greek Philosophy, F. S. Crofts, 1940 -This little volume
is the source for all of the Pre-Socratic quotations in this work.
Owen, George, E. - The Universe of the Mind, The Johns Hopkins Press, 1971 - I have returned
again and again to this work to help me understand the physics and the sequence of ideas in its
history. The "Players in the Order of Their Appearance" appendix is of special value when you are
trying to collect and connect all of the people, their works, and good dates for each.
Piaget, Jean - The easiest access is in Ginsburg and Opper, Piaget's Theory of Intellectual
Development, Prentice Hall, 1969.
Sambursky, Shmuel - Physical Thought form the Presocratics to the Quantum Physicists,
Pica Press, 1974 has been a rich trove of original source material.
I would hope, if this pattern proves useful, that it will be filled in. I can imagine
that each of the disciplines would create their own version. And I would love to
see the debate on which inventions deserve to be listed in the first rank of
knowledge, which have been the breakthroughs, and which have been the ones
that produced fundamentally new ways of thinking about a subject.
When I first started to build the Pattern, I found that the birth dates of the
inventors were the most reliable means to mark the phases of knowledge. Often
the dates of the inventions themselves are hard to find and publication dates can
obscure discoveries. Over time I have been able to get more and more dates of
invention and publication, but I continue to find that the birth dates are the most
valuable markers and have set up the Pattern based on them. Each phase is
sorted by birth date
As you look through the Pattern as it is filled in here, you will note a glaring
reality. There are almost no women listed among the inventors. In the
intellectual history of our planet, there are few instances of women among the
first ranks of inventors of our knowledges in our disciplines. It is not for me,
here, to speculate on the reasons; suffice it to say, it is my hope that we shall
find in the inventions of the Artifacts Period a rightful share of the works of
women and others who have previously been underrepresented. Invention is
what differentiates us from all other species, and we should all share in its
wonder and its fun. We should all be able to leave our marks at whatever height
we dare to climb.
Manet – “Luncheon on
the Grass” (1863)
language inventories c.3000 Black Figure c.600 Parthenon 448-432 Carolingian script c800 Church of St. c.1062 Thomas Acquinas 1225-1274 Copernicus 1473-1543 Leibniz 1646-1716 Pasteur 1822-1895 Conrad 1857-1924
stone buildings c.3000 Doric Order c.600 Protagoras 480-411 Coinage c800 free-standing-statue c.1050 "Parzival" c.1250 Michelangelo 1475-1564 Bernoulli 1654-1705 Tolstoy 1828-1910 Planck 1858-1947
c3000
c1050
c1250
1498
1686
1859
1900
c600
c440
stone sculptures c.3000 Archaic Art c.600 Thucydides 460-404 Bureaucracy c800 Romanesque art c.1050 More 1478-1535 Halley 1656-1742 Maxwell 1831-1879 Bergson 1859-1941
money c.3000 Kouros c.600 Dying Niobid 450-440 Legal Codes c800 College of Cardinals 1059 Luther 1483-1553 Defoe 1660-1731 Dedekind 1831-1916 Dewey 1859-1952
ziggurats c.3000 Aesop 619-564 Hippias 460-? 1001 Nights c800 Bayeau Tapestry c.1073-1083 Paracelsus 1493-1541 Swift 1667-1743 Manet 1832-1883 Hilbert 1862-1943
bronze tools c.3000 Lao-Tse 604-517 Bramante c.1444- Watteau 1684-1721 Carroll 1832-1898 Curie 1867-1934
Deuteronomy 638-609 Raphael fl.1510 Berkeley 1685-1753 Ruskin 1840-1917 Matisse 1869-1954
Zoroaster 660-583 Rodin 1840-1917 Wright 1869-1959
Wagner 1813-1883 Russell 1872-1970
totemism Zoser-Step- c.2650 Pythagoras 569-500 Lysippus fl.370 Anselm 1033-1109 Meister Eckhart c.1270- Tartaglia 1500-1557 Bach 1685-1750 Brahms 1833-1897 Minkowski 1864-1909
kinship/clans pyramids at Giza c.2500 Confucius 551-479 Plato (early) 429-347 Rashi 1040-1105 Pisano fl.1258-78 Calvin 1509-1553 Voltaire 1694-1778 Whistler 1834-1903 Kandinsky 1866-1944
Hammurabi c.1750 Buddha 563-483 Archtas 428-347 Crusades 1095-> Versalius 1514-1564 Bernoulli 1700-1782 Mendeleev 1834-1907 Wright 1869-1959
symbolic cuneiform Psiax Vases c.525 Theaeteus 415-369 Scholasticism 1100-> Tintorello 1518-1594 Hartley 1705-1790 Degas 1834-1917 Rutherford 1871-1937
husband&wife- c.2600 Eudoxus 408-355 troubadours c.1100 P. Bruegel 1525-1569 Franklin 1706-1790 Twain 1835-1910 Mondrian 1872-1944
Relations
PARTS
c1075
c1300
c1540
c1740
c2500
1869
1905
c525
c400
Linnaeus 1707-1778 Renoir 1841-1919 Watson 1878-1958
Euler 1707-1783 Boltzman 1844-1906 Einstein 1879-1955
Johnson 1709-1784 Picasso 1881-1973
Hume 1711-1776 Eddington 1882-1944
Rousseau 1712-1778 Santayana 1863-1952
Diderot 1713-1772 Malinowski 1884-1942
D'Alembert 1717-1783 Bohr 1885-1962
initiation rights carved temples c.1500 Heraclitus fl.500 Plato (late) 429-347 Dante 1265-1321 Montaigne 1533-1592 Smith 1723-1790 Rodin 1840-1917 Proust 1871-1929
pottery Hatshepsut Temple c.1480 Dying Warrior c.490 Mausolus c.359 Giotto 1275-1337 Elizabeth 1533-1603 Kant 1724-1804 Klein 1849-1925 Buber 1878-1965
Herakles c.490 Mausoleum c.359- Boccaccio 1313-1375 Gilbert 1540-1603 Cavendish 1731-1810 Einstein 1879-1955
Transformations
Kore (Chios?) c.520 Temple of Athena c.360 Vieta 1540-1603 Priestley 1733-1804 Joyce 1882-1941
El Greco 1541-1601 Coulomb 1736-1806 Kafka 1883-1924
Brahe 1546-1601 Lagrange 1736-1813 Le Courbusier 1886-1965
c1310
c1580
c1775
c1875
c1500
1914
c500
c370
priests Praxiteles c.390- Age of Chivalry c1100 Chaucer 1343-1400 Kepler 1571-1630 Fourier 1768-1830 Zola 1840-1902 Chadwick 1891-1974
chiefdoms Zeno the Stoic c.330-? Portrait of Physician c.1160 Rubins 1577-1640 Beethoven 1770-1827 Neitzsche 1844-1900 Vygotsky 1896-1934
c1365
c1137
c1350
c1610
c1800
1883
1927
c480
c350
Anasazi Geoffrey-Monmouth ? -1154 Donne 1573-1631 Hegel 1770-1831 Boltzman 1844-1906 Calder 1898-1976
farming Harvey 1578-1651 Owen 1771-1858 Edison 1847-1913 Dirac 1902-1984
towns Grotius 1583-1645 Young 1773-1829 Bell 1847-1922 Fermi 1901-1954
Poisson 1584-1665 Ampere 1775-1836 Eastman 1854-1932 Godel 1906-1978
Hobbes 1588-1679 Gauss 1777-1855 Yukawa 1907-1981
Oersted 1777-1858 Bourbaki fl.1938
Ingre 1780-1851 Wilder 1897-1975
Trobriand trade Moses c.1200 Empedocles c.494-434 Archimedes 287-212 Maimonides 1135-1204 Brunelleshi 1379-1446 Desargues 1593-1662 Schopenhauer 1788-1860 Gibbs 1839-1903 Pasternak 1890-1960
animal 10 commandments c.1100 Diogonies Eratosthenes 276-195 St. Francis of Assisi 1182-1226 Van Eyck 1385-1441 Poussin c1593-1665 Gericult 1791-1824 W. James 1842-1910 Weiner 1894-1964
trading alphabetic writing c.1000 Apollonius 262-200 University of Paris c.1200 Donatello 1386-1446 Descartes 1596-1650 Faraday 1791-1867 H. James 1843-1916 Erikson 1902-1994
early towns large scale trading Aristarchus c.310- Magna Carta 1215 Fra Angelico 1387-1458 Bernini 1598-1680 Carnot 1796-1832 Cantor 1845-1918 Orwell 1903-1950
WHOLES
Stonehenge Christ 4B.C.- St. Dominic 1170-1221 Joan of Arc fl1431 Cromwell 1599-1658 Schubert 1797-1828 Gauguin 1848-1903 Von-Neumann 1903-1957
Relations
kinship Pantheon 25A.D. Master-Flemalle fl1425-28 Fermat 1601-1665 Compte 1798-1857 Michelson 1852-1931 Skinner 1904-1989
cc1180
c1420
c1640
c1830
c1885
c1200
1948
c470
c250
Lucretius 96-52 Gutenburg 1400- Torricelli 1608-1648 Delacroix 1798-1863 Hertz 1857-1894 Pauling 1907-1994
Virgil 70-19 Hugo 1802-1885 Sullivan 1858-1917 Levi-Strauss 1908-1987
Horace 65-8 Berlioz 1803-1869 Seurat 1859-1891 Pollock 1912-1956
Livy 59- Tocqueville 1805-1859 Debussey 1862-1918 Crick 1916-
Ovid 43- Hamilton 1805-1865 Hilbert 1862-1943 Chomsky 1928-
Galois 1811-1832 Lautrec 1864-1901 Watson 1928-
Kierkegaard 1813-1855 Feynman 1928-1992
farming Homer fl750-700 Anaxagoras c.500-428 Ptolemy 100-168 Fibonacci 1175-1250 della Francesco 1410-1492 Rembrandt 1606-1669 Dickens 1812-1870 Becqueral 1832-1908 Piaget 1896-1980
wheel pottery Hebrew Prophets fl700 Sophocles 496-406 Column of Trajan 106-113 Grosseteste 1175-1253 Castagno 1423-? Milton 1608-1674 Mayer 1814-1878 Lie 1842-1909 Michener 1907-
metal working coinage c700-650 Zeno 495-435 Plotinus 205-270 Frederich II 1198-1250 Bosch 1450-1516 Colbert 1619-1683 Boole 1815-1864 Roentgen 1845-1923 Solzhenitsyn 1918-
Transformations
pictographs Herodotus 485-425 Augustine 354-430 Henry II 1154-1189 Bottocelli c1480 Pascal 1623-1662 Thoreau 1817-1862 Van Gogh 1853-1890 Kuhn 1922-1997
bronze Galen c.130- Chartre Cathedral c.1194 Lorenzo DiMedici 1449-1492 Boyle 1627-1691 Bronte 1818-1848 Lorentz 1853-1928 Gell-Mann 1929-
c1230
c1480
c1650
c1890
c1963
c750
c460
1848
c150
Diophantus c.250 Savonarola 1452-1498 Vermeer 1632-1675 Marx 1818-1883 Wilde 1854-1900 Doctorov 1931-
Gospel c.100 Spinoza 1632-1677 Joule 1818-1889 Poincare 1854-1912 Vonnegut 1922-
Arch-Constantine 312-315 Hooke 1635-1703 Courbet 1819-1877 Thomson 1856-1940 Gould 1941-
Pappus c.350 Melville 1819-1899 Conrad 1857-1924 Hawking 1942-
Simplicius ?-529 Clausius 1822-1888 Durkheim 1858-1917
Kelvin 1824-1907 Checkov 1860-1904
Riemann 1826-1866 Kipling 1865-1936
The Invention of Knowledge by Art Bardige Copyright 1995,1999
The Pattern of Knowledge
Start c40,000 c3000 c600 c440 c400 AD c800 c1050 1250 1498 1686 1859 1900 1995
SYMBOLS UNIVERSALS SYMBOLS UNIVERSALS OBJECTS ENVIRONMENTS ARTIFACTS
Singular Plural Singular Plural Singular Plural Singular Plural Singular Plural Singular Plural Singular
tools arithmetic c.3000 Thales 624-546 Socrates 469-399 Alcuin 735-? Romanesque c.1050 Roger Bacon 1214-1294 DaVinci 1452-1519 Huygens 1629-1695 Darwin 1809-1882 Pavlov 1849-1936 Unique 1995
tombs hieroglyphic writing c.3000 Anaximander 611-547 Democratus 460-360 Charlemagne r768-814 city-towns c.1050 Parliament 1268 Erasmus 1466-1536 Locke 1632-1704 Dickens 1812-1870 Poincare 1854-1912 Artifacts
cave painting cities c.3000 Solon c.640-? Euripedes 485-406 Aachen Chapel 792-805 guilds c.1050 St.Urban c.1261- Machiavelli 1469-1527 Leeuwenhoek 1632-1723 Victoria 1819-1901 Freud 1854-1939
bone marking calendars c.3000 Polis c.600 Hippocrates 460-377 Holy-Roman-Empire c800 Pope Gregory 1073 Albertus Magnus 1193-1280 Durer 1471-1525 Newton 1642-1727 Mendel 1822-1884 Shaw 1856-1950
Connections
language inventories c.3000 Black Figure c.600 Parthenon 448-432 Carolingian script c800 Church of St. c.1062 Thomas Acquinas 1225-1274 Copernicus 1473-1543 Leibniz 1646-1716 Pasteur 1822-1895 Conrad 1857-1924
stone buildings c.3000 Doric Order c.600 Protagoras 480-411 Coinage c800 free-standing-statue c.1050 "Parzival" c.1250 Michelangelo 1475-1564 Bernoulli 1654-1705 Tolstoy 1828-1910 Planck 1858-1947
c3000
c1050
c1250
c600
c440
1498
1686
1859
1900
1859
stone sculptures c.3000 Archaic Art c.600 Thucydides 460-404 Bureaucracy c800 Romanesque art c.1050 More 1478-1535 Halley 1656-1742 Maxwell 1831-1879 Bergson 1859-1941
money c.3000 Kouros c.600 Dying Niobid 450-440 Legal Codes c800 College of Cardinals 1059 Luther 1483-1553 Defoe 1660-1731 Dedekind 1831-1916 Dewey 1859-1952
ziggurats c.3000 Aesop 619-564 Hippias 460-? 1001 Nights c800 Bayeau Tapestry c.1073-1083 Paracelsus 1493-1541 Swift 1667-1743 Manet 1832-1883 Hilbert 1862-1943
bronze tools c.3000 Lao-Tse 604-517 Bramante c.1444- Watteau 1684-1721 Carroll 1832-1898 Curie 1867-1934
Deuteronomy 638-609 Raphael fl.1510 Berkeley 1685-1753 Ruskin 1840-1917 Matisse 1869-1954
Zoroaster 660-583 Rodin 1840-1917 Wright 1869-1959
Wagner 1813-1883 Russell 1872-1970
totemism Zoser-Step- c.2650 Pythagoras 569-500 Lysippus fl.370 Anselm 1033-1109 Meister Eckhart c.1270- Tartaglia 1500-1557 Bach 1685-1750 Brahms 1833-1897 Minkowski 1864-1909
kinship/clans pyramids at Giza c.2500 Confucius 551-479 Plato (early) 429-347 Rashi 1040-1105 Pisano fl.1258-78 Calvin 1509-1553 Voltaire 1694-1778 Whistler 1834-1903 Kandinsky 1866-1944
Hammurabi c.1750 Buddha 563-483 Archtas 428-347 Crusades 1095-> Versalius 1514-1564 Bernoulli 1700-1782 Mendeleev 1834-1907 Wright 1869-1959
symbolic cuneiform Psiax Vases c.525 Theaeteus 415-369 Scholasticism 1100-> Tintorello 1518-1594 Hartley 1705-1790 Degas 1834-1917 Rutherford 1871-1937
husband&wife- c.2600 Eudoxus 408-355 troubadours c.1100 P. Bruegel 1525-1569 Franklin 1706-1790 Twain 1835-1910 Mondrian 1872-1944
Relations
PARTS
c1075
c1300
c1540
c1740
c2500
c525
c400
1869
1905
1869
Linnaeus 1707-1778 Renoir 1841-1919 Watson 1878-1958
Euler 1707-1783 Boltzman 1844-1906 Einstein 1879-1955
Johnson 1709-1784 Picasso 1881-1973
Hume 1711-1776 Eddington 1882-1944
Rousseau 1712-1778 Santayana 1863-1952
Diderot 1713-1772 Malinowski 1884-1942
D'Alembert 1717-1783 Bohr 1885-1962
initiation rights carved temples c.1500 Heraclitus fl.500 Plato (late) 429-347 Dante 1265-1321 Montaigne 1533-1592 Smith 1723-1790 Rodin 1840-1917 Proust 1871-1929
pottery Hatshepsut Temple c.1480 Dying Warrior c.490 Mausolus c.359 Giotto 1275-1337 Elizabeth 1533-1603 Kant 1724-1804 Klein 1849-1925 Buber 1878-1965
Herakles c.490 Mausoleum c.359- Boccaccio 1313-1375 Gilbert 1540-1603 Cavendish 1731-1810 Einstein 1879-1955
Transformations
Kore (Chios?) c.520 Temple of Athena c.360 Vieta 1540-1603 Priestley 1733-1804 Joyce 1882-1941
El Greco 1541-1601 Coulomb 1736-1806 Kafka 1883-1924
Brahe 1546-1601 Lagrange 1736-1813 Le Courbusier 1886-1965
c1310
c1580
c1775
c1875
c1875
c1500
c500
c370
1914
Cervantes 1547-1616 Haydn 1737-1809 Schroedinger 1887-1961
Stevin 1548-1620 Gibbon 1737-1894 Heidegger 1889-1976
Napier 1550-1617 Lavoisier 1743-1794 Fitzgerald 1896-1940
Shakespeare 1564-1616 David 1748-1828 Piaget 1896-1980
Goya 1748-1828 Heisenberg 1901-1976
Goethe 1749-1832 Bauhaus 1918-1932
Mozart 1756-1801
Singular Plural Singular Plural Singular Plural Singular Plural Singular Plural Singular Plural Singular
shamans Akhenaten c.1365 Parmenides c.520-450 Aristotle 384-322 Tribal Feudal Manor c.900 Abelard 1079-1142 Ockham 1295-1347 Bacon 1561-1626 LaPlace 1749-1827 Mach 1838-1916 Wertheimer 1880-1943
kings Assyrians Classical Art Epicuras 342-270 Europe Abbot Suger 1081-1151 Petrarch 1304-1374 Galileo 1564-1642 Rumsford 1753-1814 Gibbs 1839-1903 Keynes 1883-1946
gods great empires Red Figure Euclid 330-275 Gothic Architecture c.1137 Oresmi 1323-1382 Caravagio 1573-1610 Malthus 1766-1834 Cezanne 1839-1906 Weyl 1885-1955
Black Elk Aeschylus 525-456 Library-Alexandria c.300 Church-of-St.-Denis 1140-1144 Buridan c1300-1385 Monteverdi 1567-1643 Dalton 1766-1844 Peirce 1839-1914 Wittgenstein 1889-1951
Connections
priests Praxiteles c.390- Age of Chivalry c1100 Chaucer 1343-1400 Kepler 1571-1630 Fourier 1768-1830 Zola 1840-1902 Chadwick 1891-1974
chiefdoms Zeno the Stoic c.330-? Portrait of Physician c.1160 Rubins 1577-1640 Beethoven 1770-1827 Neitzsche 1844-1900 Vygotsky 1896-1934
c1365
c1137
c1350
c1610
c1800
c480
c350
1883
1927
1883
Anasazi Geoffrey-Monmouth ? -1154 Donne 1573-1631 Hegel 1770-1831 Boltzman 1844-1906 Calder 1898-1976
farming Harvey 1578-1651 Owen 1771-1858 Edison 1847-1913 Dirac 1902-1984
towns Grotius 1583-1645 Young 1773-1829 Bell 1847-1922 Fermi 1901-1954
Poisson 1584-1665 Ampere 1775-1836 Eastman 1854-1932 Godel 1906-1978
Hobbes 1588-1679 Gauss 1777-1855 Yukawa 1907-1981
Oersted 1777-1858 Bourbaki fl.1938
Ingre 1780-1851 Wilder 1897-1975
Trobriand trade Moses c.1200 Empedocles c.494-434 Archimedes 287-212 Maimonides 1135-1204 Brunelleshi 1379-1446 Desargues 1593-1662 Schopenhauer 1788-1860 Gibbs 1839-1903 Pasternak 1890-1960
animal 10 commandments c.1100 Diogonies Eratosthenes 276-195 St. Francis of Assisi 1182-1226 Van Eyck 1385-1441 Poussin c1593-1665 Gericult 1791-1824 W. James 1842-1910 Weiner 1894-1964
trading alphabetic writing c.1000 Apollonius 262-200 University of Paris c.1200 Donatello 1386-1446 Descartes 1596-1650 Faraday 1791-1867 H. James 1843-1916 Erikson 1902-1994
early towns large scale trading Aristarchus c.310- Magna Carta 1215 Fra Angelico 1387-1458 Bernini 1598-1680 Carnot 1796-1832 Cantor 1845-1918 Orwell 1903-1950
WHOLES
Stonehenge Christ 4B.C.- St. Dominic 1170-1221 Joan of Arc fl1431 Cromwell 1599-1658 Schubert 1797-1828 Gauguin 1848-1903 Von-Neumann 1903-1957
Relations
cc1180
kinship Pantheon 25A.D. Master-Flemalle fl1425-28 Fermat 1601-1665 Compte 1798-1857 Michelson 1852-1931 Skinner 1904-1989
c1420
c1640
c1830
c1885
c1885
c1200
c470
c250
1948
Lucretius 96-52 Gutenburg 1400- Torricelli 1608-1648 Delacroix 1798-1863 Hertz 1857-1894 Pauling 1907-1994
Virgil 70-19 Hugo 1802-1885 Sullivan 1858-1917 Levi-Strauss 1908-1987
Horace 65-8 Berlioz 1803-1869 Seurat 1859-1891 Pollock 1912-1956
Livy 59- Tocqueville 1805-1859 Debussey 1862-1918 Crick 1916-
Ovid 43- Hamilton 1805-1865 Hilbert 1862-1943 Chomsky 1928-
Galois 1811-1832 Lautrec 1864-1901 Watson 1928-
Kierkegaard 1813-1855 Feynman 1928-1992
farming Homer fl750-700 Anaxagoras c.500-428 Ptolemy 100-168 Fibonacci 1175-1250 della Francesco 1410-1492 Rembrandt 1606-1669 Dickens 1812-1870 Becqueral 1832-1908 Piaget 1896-1980
wheel pottery Hebrew Prophets fl700 Sophocles 496-406 Column of Trajan 106-113 Grosseteste 1175-1253 Castagno 1423-? Milton 1608-1674 Mayer 1814-1878 Lie 1842-1909 Michener 1907-
metal working coinage c700-650 Zeno 495-435 Plotinus 205-270 Frederich II 1198-1250 Bosch 1450-1516 Colbert 1619-1683 Boole 1815-1864 Roentgen 1845-1923 Solzhenitsyn 1918-
Transformations
pictographs Herodotus 485-425 Augustine 354-430 Henry II 1154-1189 Bottocelli c1480 Pascal 1623-1662 Thoreau 1817-1862 Van Gogh 1853-1890 Kuhn 1922-1997
bronze Galen c.130- Chartre Cathedral c.1194 Lorenzo DiMedici 1449-1492 Boyle 1627-1691 Bronte 1818-1848 Lorentz 1853-1928 Gell-Mann 1929-
c1230
c1480
c1650
c1890
c1963
c1890
c750
c460
c150
1848
Diophantus c.250 Savonarola 1452-1498 Vermeer 1632-1675 Marx 1818-1883 Wilde 1854-1900 Doctorov 1931-
Gospel c.100 Spinoza 1632-1677 Joule 1818-1889 Poincare 1854-1912 Vonnegut 1922-
Arch-Constantine 312-315 Hooke 1635-1703 Courbet 1819-1877 Thomson 1856-1940 Gould 1941-
Pappus c.350 Melville 1819-1899 Conrad 1857-1924 Hawking 1942-
Simplicius ?-529 Clausius 1822-1888 Durkheim 1858-1917
Kelvin 1824-1907 Checkov 1860-1904
Riemann 1826-1866 Kipling 1865-1936
The Invention of Knowledge by Art Bardige Copyright 1995,1999