where each idea reaches
The Territory
A word names an idea at one point. A being spreads it over the ground its organs cover: its premise, what it is not, what it feeds on, how it works, what it gives, how it travels and how it fails. Every organ sentence of every being is placed here by its meaning alone, so each idea becomes a cloud of seven points or more, and two ideas meet where their clouds touch.
I The map
Each dot is one organ, coloured by what it does; each picture sits at the centre of its being’s organs. Near means alike in meaning; the map has no units. Hover over a dot to read it, and click a picture to see its ground.The map scrolls sideways; tap a picture to see its ground, or choose above.
KernelBoundaryIntakeMechanismOutputDispersalDecaya level’s own organs
II The breadth of each being
How far apart its own organs lie in meaning, the mean distance between every two of them. A wide being holds organs from distant fields; a narrow one says the same thing in each.
III What the ratings say
Before a pair is bred, its embeddings can say how it might go. Likeness alone predicts a blend, so the signals ask for structure. They measure how far apart the two beings stand, how closely the two organs a breeding joins speak to each other (the joint), how much one joint stands out from all the others (the hinge), and how much room lies between them among WordNet’s named ideas. Each was set against the stars the author gave, blind, to the candidates of 21 rated pairs.
| signal | with the best candidate’s stars | with the mean stars |
|---|---|---|
| joint | 0.37 p 0.10 | 0.35 p 0.12 |
| hinge | 0.15 p 0.53 | 0.25 p 0.27 |
| distance | -0.13 p 0.57 | 0.02 p 0.92 |
| room | -0.09 p 0.70 | 0.08 p 0.73 |
| metabolic | 0.11 p 0.64 | 0.02 p 0.94 |
The joint predicts best. Pairs whose joined organs speak to each other bred better candidates (Spearman’s rho 0.37), while how far apart the two beings stand predicted nothing (-0.13). So far the stars favour pairs that meet well at the organs the breeding joins, however near or far the two ideas are as wholes.
Among the 62 rated candidates, those nearer their parents’ midpoint drew a little more stars (rho 0.20), and their likeness to an idea that already has a name made no difference (-0.01). The author’s stars went to ideas grounded in both parents.
None of these reaches significance at this size, so they guide the choice of pairs without deciding it.
❦