Touchstones of reality & our mental framework
I have recently had reason to dwell upon how I think about things. Specifically, questions of metaphysics and the like. (In physics my mind has been formed by years of schooling and training specifically to that end, and while I find ideas and techniques there to be extendable by analogy to the rest of my thought watching my mind analyze a physics problem seems mostly too specialized and trained to be of much use to extract useful information concerning the rest of my thought process.) I have come to the conclusion that much of my reasoning rests on finding important touchstones, key points on which to hang my mental framework. Usually in the form of pithy statements or well constructed examples. Once found these reside in my mind as concrete points which are quickly referenced in the abstract for broad application. These it would seem work better than abstractions residing in my mind and looking for things to act on. I shall probably comment further on my thought process; however, a new category of posts will begin appearing here. "Touchstones:..." In these I will list touchstones as they occur to me as such.