Consider a moment in the past. It could be yesterday, last year, or before you were born. It could have been when you first started reading this paragraph, or moments after our cosmic origins.
*bʰuH- @ 30 May 2023 [1010]
[Description] Consider the following scenario. Things are a certain way, and multiple things could occur. However only one of them can occur. When it does, this eliminates the possibility of the other things occurring. . . . <symmetry breaking>.
[Declaration] I'm curious about scenarios of this type, on many levels of abstraction. One frame, which sits at a relatively high level of abstraction, considers a cognitive agent in such a scenario, and the implications for knowledge of the abstract structure of the scenario for the agent's decision making process. I believe that I, as the author of these words, currently am such an agent, in such a scenario. Furthermore, I believe that spending some time to write words about what such scenarios entail, and what it's like to be an agent in them, will prove fruitful - not only in navigating this particular scenario, but also in navigating such scenarios in general.
[Assertion] <path dependence>, in which it matters in which order different things occur, is a special case of the described scenario.
[Speculation] It's possible to configure one's vocabulary in such a way that all things that could occur do occur, but in such a way that we are bound to a perspective from which only specific sets of occurrences can be accessed. . . . <cognitive relativity>.
*bʰuH- @ 29 May 2023 [1002]
Here concepts *bʰuH-. Concepts can be seeded with a tag, denoted with angle brackets. The working title of this ~page when it was ~created, <linguistic incubator>, is an example of such a tag. Once the concept germinates, the tag *bʰuH-s into a root, such as *bʰuH-. There are many things that can happen after this. The <original telos> is linguistic artefacts, such as words.
<linguistic incubator>
<original telos>
*bʰuH-
*bʰuH- @ 28 May 2023 [1001]
I have some trust that the words written now will gain significance, merely due to the fact that they are the first words to *bʰuH-. I suppose I ought to explain what I mean by that. *bʰuH- is a reconstructed (*) root (-) from Proto-Indo-European, and is the ancestor of various words in Indo-European languages associated with being, growth, and appearance. For example:
In Sanskrit, it gave rise to the verb "bhū-", which means "to become, to be".
In Ancient Greek, it gave rise to the verb "phýō" (φύω), which means "to bring forth, to produce", but can also refer to natural growth.
In Latin, it resulted in the verb "fuī" (the perfect tense of "to be") and "futūrus" (future).
In the Germanic languages, including English, it gave rise to various forms of the verb "to be" and "to build".
My hope is that the words which I publish here, and the thoughts that these words invoke, are bought into existence in way that is inspired by the various descendants of *bʰuH-. I acknowledge that this is ambiguous. If I could request one thing from my readers, it would be patience with ambiguity. I do aim to develop precision and clarity of thought, but this is something that will take time.
*bʰuH- @ 27 May 2023 [1000]