The Rosetta Stone of Arthur M. Young

In his book “The Geometry of Meaning”, Arthur M. Young developed a system which he called his “Rosetta Stone” because he claimed that it associated mental attributes to some physical measurements, giving a kind of map to mind-body dualism. In the above diagram the expressions and names of these twelve objective values or physical units are shown. Examine the list below to see the twelve subjective values or mental attributes (shown in parentheses) that Young ascribed to them.

I’ve rearranged the sequence of these somewhat because I don’t quite understand the reasons for the organization Young gave them. I’ve also relabeled the units using the more standard derivative notation L’ = dL/dT, L” = d^2 L/ dT^2, etc. His notation is given at the end of each line below in parentheses for comparison (essentially he removes the d’s from the derivatives, writing dL/dT as L/T, which seems confusing to me when then multiplied by L).

Given the measurement Position or Length (L), Moment is Mass (M) times Position giving ML, and Moment of Inertia is Moment (ML) times Position giving ML^2. Velocity (L’), Acceleration (L”), and Control (L”’) have similarly related pairs of values by multiplying each by M and by ML. This gives four sets of similar expressions differing by their common derivative. I should have probably named the 1st set to be 0th, 2nd set to be 1st, 3rd set to be 2nd, and 4th set to be 3rd after the order of the common derivative.

  • Position (Observation): L
  • Moment (Significance): ML
  • Moment of Inertia (Faith): ML^2
  • Velocity (Change): L′ (L/T)
  • Momentum (Transformation): ML′ (ML/T)
  • Action (Impulse): MLL′ (ML^2/T)
  • Acceleration (Spontaneous act): L” (L/T^2)
  • Force (Being): ML” (ML/T^2)
  • Work (Fact): MLL” (ML^2/T^2)
  • Control (Control): L′′′ (L/T^3)
  • Mass Control (Establishment): ML′′′ (ML/T^3)
  • Power (Knowledge): MLL′′′ (ML^2/T^3)

How does Young justify associating, for example, the mental attribute “Faith” with the physical unit “Moment of Inertia”? It seems to have something to do with his original cyclic order of these twelve measurements and the associations he gives them to the Astrological Signs of the Zodiac. This mapping is not shown but can easily be found in the links below.

Further Reading:

Arthur M. Young / The Geometry of Meaning

http://www.arthuryoung.com/

http://mindfire.ca/The%20Geometry%20of%20Meaning/Chapter%20Five%20-%20%20The%20Rosetta%20Stone%20of%20Meaning.htm

http://kairos.laetusinpraesens.org/meaning_1_h_15

The only early entry in my blog without a leading figure (and poor tables as well):

https://equivalentexchange.blog/2011/01/02/arthur-m-young%e2%80%99s-fourfold-theory-of-process/

[*7.78, *7.79, *8.2, *11.38]

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2 thoughts on “The Rosetta Stone of Arthur M. Young”

  1. “How does Young justify associating, for example, the mental attribute “Faith” with the physical unit “Moment of Inertia”? It seems to have something to do with his original cyclic order of these twelve measurements and the associations he gives them to the Astrological Signs of the Zodiac.”

    I think it wasn’t a ‘justification’ as much as an observation of correspondences, a noting of deep ‘analogies’ between the meaning of the zodiacal signs and the 12 measure formulae.. so ‘Faith’ (Pisces) is what keeps us going in the absence of any ‘external’ support, and inertia is what keeps something going in the absence of external forces (a body’s tendency to remain at rest or motion). The Zodiac itself contains three ‘fourfolds’ (and also four ‘threefolds’ also discussed in The Geometry of Meaning)… So Pisces/Faith, leading to a ‘Cardinal’ response and a ‘Fixed’) result.
    The Mutable fourfold is Sagittarius (Mutable Fire), Pisces (Mutable Water), Gemini (Mutable Air) and Virgo (Mutable Earth).
    So ‘Faith’ (Pisces) when acted upon by Change (Cancer, which is Cardinal Water, or Velocity), yields Transfromation (Scorpio, Fixed Water, or Momentum)… That is the Stimulus/Response/Result cycle for the Water elements (and there are three others, for the Air, Fire, and Earth fourfolds…)
    It all ‘fits’ very neatly.

    Your blog is fascinatiing, but mostly beyond my comprehension.

    Ranjan

  2. Concerning the rosetta stone of meaning and Arthur Young. in his book he claims the priority of the threefold to the fourfold. So , we become the twelvefold by stating, as Young does that every element of the threefold has the four aspects. So every threefold relation carries twelve aspects of meaning. By studying sensemaking – how people make sense of reality – eg through telling stories we can help clarify the meaning of these stories by asking questions to the narrato related to each of these twelve aspects. I thing this is another way of looking at the rosetta stone, not from a physical point of view as Young did, but from a social or sociological point of view. Does this make sense to anyone?

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