ontum
- thread on twitter
- ontum = a unit of ontology
- plural = onta
- Examples:
- Basic Sensory Examples:
- individual sense cells have their ontum baked in, eg a cone cell detects certain light wavelengths
- one level up there's an ontum of PINK 🌸 = {blue, red, no green}
- a few levels further is an ontum of PINK as a *concept* with associations to gender or panther
- Motor examples:
- lowest level: an individual muscle cell tensing
- 2nd level: the overall position of a finger
- 3rd level: the hand in the shape of a G chord on this particular instrument (much higher is the concept of G across 🎸🎹)
- 4th level: transition between G & C
- More examples:
- air with a skunky smell
- "skunk" as a species
- "cannabis sativa" as a species
- "stoned/high" as a state of mind someone could have
- "bloodshot eyes" as a perception
- "how high am I?"
- THC
- Yet more examples (these are just pointers; diff between ppl)
- money
- my money
- my income
- rich
- "the rich"
- value
- GDP
- the thing GDP is a proxy for
- capitalism
- $GME
- billionaire
- Changing onta
- For a given ontum, if you can pay attention to it (many are subconscious) then you may be able to set the reference level to something else
- eg "I should have more money"
- but it's hard to deliberately create/change/destroy a given ontum, at least at very high and very low levels.
- In between, not hard to eg find out about a new food you like.
- However, ones' onta do evolve. Your ontum that the word "love" points at is probably different than it was when you were 10 years old, and when you were 5 years old you may not have had any particular ontum that would be roughly in the vein of what most people would point at with the word "sex".
5 linked references
October 6th, 2021
notes on Book/Making Sense of Behavior › > This picture of the right path isn’t like a prediction;… › This is again such an intriguing contrast with the langua…
- like, arguably there still needs to be some sort of ontum for it, there's just no reference level at a given moment I guess?
- but that's interesting and points at an important contrast between PCT and PP, where in PP "prediction" is used both for the "is" reference level of pure non-controlling perception and for the "ought" reference level of controlling-perception
travel metaphor
- With other onta this is much less visible.