The problem of "knowledge transfer" makes our dependency on language usage risky. Without a defensible orderliness to terminology, language becomes arbitrary, and we don't know if what was sent in a communication is the same as what effectively arrived and, further, may be forwarded. This notebook shows a very basic logic of consistently deciding what to use to communicate.

1. How We State What We Know
From the Ideal to the Actual
An archestra notebook.
© 2014 Malcolm Ryder / archestra research

2. How we state what we know
THINK
MAKE
DYNAMICS
ABSTRACT
THEORY
?
VIRTUAL
CONCRETE
?
?
REAL
?
?
STATES
?
PROPERTIES
Much of our knowledge of experience is described in terms of a path starting with a theory “about”
something and ending with the properties “of” something. Along the way there is attention to distinguishing
what we are talking about, well enough to allow confident contrasts and similarities versus other things. As
seen above, however, there is a lot of territory in between.

3. The “Ideal”
THINK
MAKE
ABSTRACT
THEORY
MODEL
CONCRETE
FUNCTION
EXAMPLE
The “Actual”
This table explains why there are at least four different
ways to distinguish the concept of something, from
thinking of it abstractly to making it concretely.
DYNAMICS
STATES
VIRTUAL
PATTERN
DESIGN
REAL
SPECS
PROPERTIES
In this related table we see the explanation of how
corresponding different descriptions of the presence
of something are distinguished.

4. Representative action for
formulating things
The logic of deriving
descriptions of the
“ideal”…
THINK
MAKE
ABSTRACT
THEORY
MODEL
CONCRETE
FUNCTION
EXAMPLE
The logic of deriving
descriptions of the
“actual”…
Representative form of
things we recognize
Affective instance of
things we experience
DYNAMICS
STATES
VIRTUAL
PATTERN
DESIGN
REAL
SPECS
PROPERTIES
Manageable implementation
of things we recognize

5. Proposition
Proof
THINK
ABSTRACT
MAKE
THEORY
MODEL
PATTERN
CONCRETE
EXAMPLE
VIRTUAL
DESIGN
FUNCTION
DYNAMICS
SPECS
PROPERTIES
THEORY
PATTERN
REAL
FUNCTION
SPECS
STATES
MODEL
DESIGN
EXAMPLE
PROPERTIES
In general, we hold descriptions of the “ideal” and the “actual” accountable to each other. The simplest technique
for doing that is to superimpose the way they make distinctions. The result of doing that means that we wind up
expecting theories to offer patterns; specifications to constrain functions ; designs to express models; examples to
demonstrate properties; etc. Consistent use of terms helps to identify how any expectations are reasonable.

6. © 2014 Malcolm Ryder / archestra research
mryder@malcolmryder.com