I just read an argument which, when represented conceptually, looks something like this:

a means x.
b means y.

In this case, the magic happens around the conceptual and semantic characteristics of “x” and “y”.

What a magical prism an experienced perspective provides.

If you weren’t familiar with the subject matter, then “x” and “y” would simply be different words. And, the article supporting that argument might seem inert or unnecessary.

The more familiar you are with the concept “x”, the better you understand the how the nuances distinguishing “x” and “y” from each other are more like a logical proof for separating the concept “x” because the concept “x*” can be so distinguished from the original concept.

The Nuance Machine™

(Actually, I’d probably call it Themographer™ or The Mental Organ™, or m_organ™.)

Here’s what I imagine:

A way to visualize the terrain of conceptual space described by “x”, “x*”, “a”, and “b”.
A way to visualize any conceptual space, where any conceptual space can be uni- or multi-dimensional.
A way to visualize multiple, concurrent conceptual spaces.
A way to visualize conceptual connections and relationships within, between, and across conceptual spaces.
A way to adjust the visualization of a conceptual space by dialing up or down, so to speak, the number of dimensions in that space.

I liken this to:

The way we represent the multiple, concurrent, multidimensional spaces, or spectra, of visible light with color. Consider the use of color in light of the fact that we generally represent the non-visible spectra with numerical values with the unit for cycles per second.

A bit of advanced themology: We have organs, our eyes, to detect the visible spectrum. At one time we were not aware of the non-visible spectrum. Part of the visible spectrum can damage our tissue – UV light giving us a sun burn. We recently made tools to detect and analyze the non-visible spectra. However, we don’t have any representative language for those non-visible spectra like we do for the visible ones.

In fact, you could remove the adjective “conceptual”. These could be physical spaces, too, like time, space, and the other 6(-ish) dimensions defined in modern physics.

I would use this to:

Visualize schools and patterns of thought, like:

• political ideologies;
• religious ideologies;
• belief systems;
• philosophical ideologies;
• cultural systems and cultures;
• mental frames; and,
• arguments.

To visualize active, dynamic patterns of thought:

• the formation of a judgment;
• decision-making (imagine exploding the black-and-white of causality into the full spectrum!);
• debates;
• the breaking, development, editorial analysis, scholarly analysis, and public reactions to media reports;
• reactions to world events like a disaster or the Olympics;
• the formation, diversification,

To visualize contexts of thought, such as:

• social environments;
• home environments;
• work environments;
• cultural environments;
• political environments.

To visualize the dynamics of relationships, such as:

• power-orientation;
• the stages and states of caring, loving, liking;
• the stages and states of hatred, prejudice, dislike, rejection, jealousy;
• you get the idea…

I want to be able to _see_ that argument. That’s why I ask for  a mark-up language. Because, I want to see it and to be able to show it to other people.