About Themography

Jay A. Morgan maintains the Themography blog about the mapping of themes across mental spaces. The underlying principle is that concepts are connected by thematic transformations, much like shapes are connected by mathematical transformations. I enjoy figuring out the transformations to reveal new perspectives. I enjoy thinking about thinking.

Themography definition

When I took linear algebra in college, we learned and studied mathematical transformations. These are equations that transform one shape into another, a shape in one dimension into another dimension.

Visual examples for some of the activities, like shearing, involve shifting part of a cube. It seemed a natural way to think about things: That solid-looking thing is flexible, but flexing it has a method. It occurred to me that things I’d seen as concrete, immutable, became living as I saw new possibilities with them.

When I took neural networking courses in college, we represented dimensions of thought as vectors. Mathematics was the medium of display, communication, and representation for thought. I still think of thoughts as vectors. Mixing the peanut butter and the chocolate, I realized that linear algebra taught me how to transform vectors, and neural networking taught me to represent thoughts as vectors.

Value of Themography

This understanding of the world as flexible and connected thoughts that are fundamentally related to each other in a common language became a natural, default way to view, appreciate, and question all aspects of my life. It gave me a way to measure how my thoughts differ from, and are similar to others’ thoughts.

In short, making sense of what I figured out in those classes helps me understand and interact with people. It’s a fascinating game.

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