George Spencer-Brown, author of Laws of Form, recently passed away.

I’ve tried to appreciate this work in the past, but couldn’t really get started. I recently ran across the following four terms associated with the work,

• Compensation
  -> (())
• Cancellation
  (()) ->
• Condensation
  ()() -> ()
• Confirmation
  () -> ()()

Compensation and Cancellation are both considered Order, and Condensation and Confirmation are both considered Number. Number and Order are distinguished by Distinction, and the pairs of the two distinctions are distinguished by Direction.

I understand Laws of Form starts with “Draw a distinction.” Perhaps I would say “Draw a distinction, then draw a distinction of that distinction.”

References:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2016/09/13/george-spencer-brown-polymath-who-wrote-the-landmark-maths-book/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._Spencer-Brown

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_of_Form

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distinction_(philosophy)

For further reading:

An Esoteric Guide to Spencer Brown’s Laws of Form #4

Distinction: On Deconstruction

https://www.xenodochy.org/formal/fs_aritx.html

The ‘Form’ of Complexity:

Notes:

Compensation (+2) (Pairs of parentheses)
Cancellation (-2) (Involutory?)
Condensation (-1) (Idempotence)
Confirmation (+1)

[*9.158]

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