Taxonomy, Proper Nouns and Mortality
I’ve been thinking alot about taxonomy for this blog and a few others. The subject is both fascinating and rewarding. Understanding how people categorize things helps me understand their search terms and what they might search for in a given situation (which I find fascinating). This understanding, in turn, helps me tune my sites and my clients’ sites to better match target search terms (which is rewarding). More importantly it helps us all understand each other (sharing a taxonomy seems to be a big part of sharing language) and create relevant content (which is really rewarding).
Taxonomy
So I’ve decided to just let the category/tag/taxonomy of this blog develop as I write about it. This serves a number of interesting functions. The first being that the more I write the more I learn about myself and what it is that interests me (hmmm blog therapy sounds pretty reckless at best). The second being that, so far, I don’t feel boxed in by a narrowly focused topic; I write about whatever I damned well feel about writing and then develop my taxonomy to suit.
I don’t think I would have been able to see this method of taxonomy without really trying out ol’ Dave Allen’s “Getting Things Done” approach to “priority” (nutshell = there are no priorities and, to paraphrase Yoda “There is only do, and do not”). Trust me when I say that living in a post-priority world is not easy. But it is rewarding in so many ways.
This approach is probably more of a naturalist approach to blogging. Observe and then determine the meaning, as opposed to determining meaning and then observing. The end result is that my inherent navel-gazing itch is constantly scratched by pondering the taxonomic categories and possibilities and meanings of what I have just written. Which can lead to more writing and so on.
Which leads me to a recent taxonomic question I’ve been pondering. You see, I like to write about my toys. My flying-fader automated mixer, my music editing software, etc. But sometimes I when I’m writing about something in specific or in detail I’m also covering something broader in scope. Or, even if I haven’t called out specifically in the text some broader concept, in my own personal taxonomy there is a hidden concept that is relevant. And I feel strongly about splitting toys from concepts. For example, knowing how to use every specific feature of Adobe InDesign CS3 does not make one skilled or talented in typography. InDesign is a toy while typography is a concept.
To go back in time a bit, originally I had a taxonomic system that consisted of “Object/Concept.” It was a joined thing. The slash standing there and criticizing my lack of specificity, my inability to commit or taxonify. It contained tags such as Logic Express, Epistemology, BCF2000, Software and so on. Luckily, I didn’t let that paralize me and instead just let it ride (for the technologists amongst us, though I change the name, the link-slug will remain as “object” because who cares about the code and for SEF it’s just fine I’m sure).
Proper Nouns
And I mulled it all over (for a few weeks, wrote a few more posts, and just let it more or less fester). And I came to the conclusion that, obviously for myself Objects and Concepts are different (and yes I hate capitalizing things too, but wait there’s more). My end thinking is this (it’s good enough for now, if Gmail could be in beta for two years than I’m not killing anyone with this giant declaration): there are “concepts” and there are “Proper Nouns.”
The hard part about making the decision between “concepts” and “Proper Nouns” was in things like IMAP (the article referencing IMAP, at the time of this post, is lost and gone forever dreadful sorry Clementine) and BCF2000. I mean, obviously “epistimelogy” isn’t a proper noun. Without a ™ anyway. So how to decide what is a “concept” and what is a “proper noun”
Mortality
It came down to this: Assuming that Aristotle was right and that some ideas just plain exist regardless of us all thinking of them (i.e. the tree does make noise when it falls whether whether we are ‘here’ to ‘hear’ it)— If you can destroy/delete/obliterate/fade it… it is a proper noun. If it is something which will end, then it is a proper noun. The human race may fail but freedom prevails. Human Race would be a proper noun. Freedom is a concept. Ready for the next generation of Squid Overlords or what-have-you.
Or… Logic Express may be obliterated by disk-rot but the concept of software will prevail. You see how this goes. I am sure I’m re-inventing the wheel. But I’m also baiting you because I want your references to learn more about this method of thinking.
And perhaps there’s cross-cultural thoughts to be learned along the way. The Germanic languages capitalize and thus Proper-Noun every noun. Is this a result of their romantic concern over everything about them? An existential question about the fleetingness of all objects in the universe? What about other languages? These taxonomy questions get sticky in a hurry. I am far out on a limb here with this topic, but you joined me this far so I hope you find it useful or intriguing and I hope you comment below so that I can re-comment and improve this post.
En Summa
Anyway so this is the end of a navel-gazing session, starting with categorizing my own thoughts and expanding out to generalizing the outlook of Germanic-speaking peoples. I do this often. About everything I touch. Maybe you do too. What do you think?