(New Instrument of Threes)
- page twenty three -
(The Study of Threes)
http://threesology.org
A list of miscellaneous "threes" examples can eventually be compiled into an Encyclopedia. If they are not in a written form, then a picture of them can be taken and compiled along with written portrayals. While there are numerous examples that can be held in one's hand, the compilation of such examples would require a museum if the collector wanted to make them available for public viewing; as opposed to being displayed in a book that is. Yet, in collecting numerous instances of "threes", there is no way to guarantee that an individual researcher's usage of a singular number-related value; excludes the researcher from getting closer to a grasp of any other associated pattern.
At this present juncture of research, there is no way we can be confident in a given identifier as being equivalent to some underlying pristine truth. Whereas the usage of the numerical value "threes" assists us in a very generic and simple way of identifying other ideas with a similar structure; such items may be little more than having a commonality to the once arbitrarily derived concept of 'species'. And like a primitive mind, we are but learning to count different animals three by three, (as opposed to Noah's two by two ordering).
A new way to think about "threes" is to find some existing model to given oneself perspective, however momentary this may be until we can get a "second" (third) wind in our personal intellectual marathon. Let's take for example, a model of cellular development. Various "threes" examples can be viewed as individual biological components floating about prior to the development of a cell membrane which houses them in their respective "places", like items arranged in an alphabetical order within the binding of one or more volumes of an encyclopedia, dictionary, etc... Whereas different types of cells are housed within a single "body plan", different reference books are housed within a single structure called a library or book store. Whereas some threes researchers will be satisfied by having their work contained in a book to be given a Dewey decimal designation so that it can be catalogued within a library for others to read or look at by intent or discover by some formula of accident, a look into the past might reveal this as being just an species of fossilized thought; and is not the only one which can exist. It is merely the dominant species in vogue.
Whereas there are many species of life forms, all of them appear to have DNA... except for those viruses which have RNA only. All the different "threes" examples can be likened to different species which can be placed into a "threes" taxonomic system, even though one has not yet been devised. And let us note that what is presently living today does not necessary mean the same life forms will exist in the future, nor that any life form as we know it will necessarily persist forever into the future. Likewise, the various "threes" may not persist in form, function, or at all. There is no telling how many "threes" occurrences have come and gone without leaving some trace, or that we even yet know how to identify all the differing vanities.
It there behooves us, in this present comparative methodological example, to look at threes as if the accumulating examples were representative of a new biological science in the making, though any number of other sciences might well be used as an example. For those of us who have begun collecting " specimens of threes", whatever science one finds oneself in, the "threes" can be symbiotically substituted for any given item in question as a general formula for inquiry. For example, where did the first "three" arise? Was it DNA's triplet codon system? And by extension, let us ask whether or not DNA is alive and whether or not it developed separately, in its own "primordial broth" from that of RNA and Proteins... all of which joined by way of a serendipitous chance occurrence? Did the "threes event" begin or continue with the development of the three domains of life? Do "threes" represent a different type of genetic structure? Do threes originate from their own type of three "domains"?
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Image adapted from:
http://hosting.uaa.alaska.edu/mhines/biol450/pages/450diversity.htm
Did the first "three" originate with the three Archaebacteria?:
Three phyla of Archaebacteria that are found mainly in extreme habitats where little else can survive. All known Archaebacteria live without oxygen (anaerobic) and obtain their energy from inorganic molecules or from light:
- Methanogens: This type of bacteria produces methane. Many such species live in the intestines of animals. They help breakdown food in the intestines and also provide essential nutrients. In return, the bacteria get a source of energy. This is an example of a symbiotic relationship, which is when two organisms work together to survive.
- Halophiles: This type of bacteria can only live in bodies of concentrated salt water, such as the Great Salt Lake in Utah and the Dead Sea in the Middle East.
- Thermoacidophiles: A third phylum includes bacteria that are found in the hot, acidic waters of sulfur springs. These amazing species can handle temperatures near 80 degrees Celsius and pH levels as low as 2.
http://www.kent.k12.wa.us/staff/kloschky/MoneransFolder/archaebacteria.html
Do threes mutate? Are they a part of a mutation themselves, such that some represent advanced forms? Can these "advanced" threes forms be equated with an advanced species? Are they closely associated with actual biology to an extent that if they change, this reflects a change in our biology? Do they represent an accelerated time-line of that which will occur with present biological forms to an extent they show end results and possible extinction values? In other words, if there is an increase in "threes" does this represent a forthcoming increase in population, and a decrease in the "threes" population means an eventual decrease in the human (only human?) population? Does an alteration in the form and/or usage of "threes" reflect an underlying change in brain structure and/or function?
I like using a biological example as a threes model because it is dynamic and not static. In other words, it's visibly active and not a rock laying at the bottom of an ocean. Besides, the biological research being conducted by thousands can accelerate knowledge of profitable avenues and those that appear to meet detours and dead-ends.
However, in terms of developing a enterprising logic of usefulness for collecting, collating, interpreting and applying the threes phenomena, we need to survey the greater landscape of available resources to find either an existing model for our particular uses, use parts and pieces from multiple existing models, or, in the process, develop our own model... which might well be viewed, at first, as a very strange creature... and I am not talking about the discovery of a living fossil like that of the Coelacanth which is said to have, and leave, a terrible taste in one's mouth.
Typically, Threes researchers use a hunter-gatherer approach to seeking and collecting different examples, which might alternatively be called foraging. And though some hunters for game in human tribes may come up empty, having to rely on the tubers, berries, and insects the women and children have gathered in the male ritual of going out to conquer some would-be item of wilderness I have yet to come up empty with "meaty" prospects, particularly in a library or reading an encyclopedia. But I must admit that the internet can be somewhat sparse, requiring the efforts of several people... one of whom I will acknowledge as having been of great help, namely Simon Kelsey of the Triplicity- The Phenomenon of Threeness in Life website. His assistance has been uniquely invaluable.
By broadening one's formula of what we interpret to be a three representation, many more different examples can be found. Yet the problem is not necessarily in the finding, but in the collating and rendering the collation into an understandable form to others. But let's face it, the creation of an abstraction is still an abstraction even if you label it with some everyday common name such as dog, cat or mouse. In fact, while I could be saying "dog", you might be thinking dog fish, dog-eared, dog-legged, dog-gone (it), dog star, or that you want a foot-long hot-dog with all the fixins' and then some. But there is no accounting for taste, no matter how you slice it... so hold your pepper, pickling and sauerkraut vituperations in reserve, please. You use your plate to eat off and I'll use mine. You drink out of your cup and I'll drink out of mine. You use your napkin and I'll use mine.
Let me again state that in this New Instrument of Threes I am presenting the developmental formula for a new type of Threes logic. It has its own developing culture of uniqueness, for which a basic Threes listing activity does not necessarily render itself receptive to a full appreciation of its mores-in-the-making. Humanity has spent way too much time and energy on Aristotelian forms of Syllogistic nonsense. Humanity is over-due to move on, and adopt new technologies accordingly. There is a need to question all natural laws as laws governed by the state (environment) which we live, like a person subjected to the laws of a given county, state or country. When we call such requirements of conduct the "Law of the Land", we must include Natural Laws as products of the environment. And like human developed laws that most come to comply with, humanities sciences and inter-related technologies, which includes mathematics; fashions its behavior in accordance therewith. While this is not wrong, it sets humanity up to be cold-cocked because it is blind-sided through a repetitiveness that acts as a security blanket.
Making a list of threes requires the donning of multiple garments like an actor or actress having to assume the role of various characters with accompanying perceptions, mannerisms, language, interests, dislikes, and an overall lifestyle representation. From different perspectives one sees threes from the vista in which one is standing, but not necessarily those within the vicinity. To see them may require the vision of yet another part to be played in the Threes dramatization of actuality. In other words, with all the threes examples around us, most people overlook them until their perception is directed towards such a view. It's as if most people are near-sighted, and yet looking in the distance but not recognizing any specificity other than the typical superficialities commented on by those assuming some authoritative standard of preferential perception.
For example, we look out beyond ourselves to others and mimic a behavior such as using different words to cuss with, even though some would claim one or another word is not an "actual" cuss word since in can be found in a religious text such as the Bible. As if such a remark was enough to conceal the fact that people in the past cussed and placed such cuss words in their religious texts as a means of emotionally jolting a particular audience. Religious writers of old were simple practicing their version of a literary technique they thought would be most advantageous to get a point across to those they wanted to manipulate and "buy" into the product they were selling. Let me Let me list a few cuss words in the English language:
Hell, Damn, Suck, Cunt, Shit, Twit, Slut, Fuck, Piss (as in piss off), etc., While I have deliberately provided 4-letter varieties for a further point to be made, let me also list some with more letters: Whore, Bitch, Bastard, Faggot, Queer, Homo, etc. All of which, with the exception of the words Hell, Damn and Twit, deal with some oral, anal, or genital reference. In other words, three regions of the body, with the exception of the word "twit" which many would prefer to exclude as a cuss word, as do I, which is best aligned with other words such as idiot, dim-wit, punk, stupid, idiot, punch drunk, nincompoop, foolish, pea-brained, etc., These latter selections are oriented towards describing a lack of intelligence or maturity. I don't recall anyone making reference to other areas or parts of the body in terms of using such as a cuss word, except that I have heard on occasion someone referring to themselves as being all thumbs, zoned out, with two-left feet, still asleep, etc., to explain away a curiosity of human behavior that is reminiscent of an on going plasticity of behavioral ability to learn new behaviors if confronted by a new environment. In any respect, let me make the point previously mentioned. This is to say that the assumed 4-letter words have 3 consonants and 1 vowel.
Perception of the cuss words is generally focused on evoking some negative emotional response and not analyzing the words from a distance. The same goes for the local and distant viewing of different threes examples. And though when such a recognition takes place, it remains there as if it were a to-be-owned vista to share (or not share) with others, so a make-shift homestead is enacted for fear someone will take your spot and make money from it. While this can happen, since there is plagiarism taking place, with little or no credit being given to the originator of an idea because of the many starving-for-recognition egos in many different subject areas; you can't stay in one intellectual place if you have a true pioneering spirit. What you leave behind are just the embers of a much brighter campfire lit by a torch you alone hold.
When I first "recognized" the recurrence of "threes", I did not come across anyone making the point about a recurrence from any perspective such as business, politics, art, science, music, religion, sports exercising, etc. No one was saying anything about it, at least not in the materials being researched at the time. As I collected more and more examples which seemed to be too much of a coincidence, I couldn't believe there was no one who wasn't seeing the same thing. While some religious references talked about the Trinity and how they thought different threes were representations thereof, and gods of ancient civilizations were grouped into a similar "Trinity" mindset; I couldn't find a single person making mention of the phenomena. Fortunately, in one of those fortuitous serendipitous moments, I attended an anthropology lecture at a University where a speaker from Mexico was discussing different topics of culture, and briefly made mention of a "threes"-related reference that I queried him about after the lecture. It was, I later found, Professor Alan Dundez's "The Number Three in the American Culture" as a chapter in a book entitled "Every Man his Way" copyrighted in 1967- 1968.
While I did make mention of the "threes" occurrence to different people, they didn't know what to make of it and shrugged it off as a "so-what?" curiosity. Some even retorted with another number pattern such as twos, fives or sevens, giving a small sampling thereof as if their sampling was adequate enough act not only as a bulwark, but as a battering ram to knock down that which I was drawing up a foundation for. But I was not to be detracted from the scent I was on. And even today, some try to deflect the conversation from a verbalized threes list, by mentioning the same number patterns as did those in the past, but I have since looked into these areas to find them complementary and not antagonistic. Far too many react to my verbalized recitation of threes as if being confronted by an assault to which they must be in the defensive thereof, no matter how unassuming I bring up the topic of threes. What I have come to understand is that their perspectives are merely different perceptions of similarly perceived perceptions. In other words, they distinguish types of orientations derived from a physiology that is based significantly on a threes-patterned formulation.
Some people I meet and begin a discussion about "Threes" with find it disconcerting because my rendered verbalized listing is reacted to by claiming that it will be something they will think all day about, like some song that repeats over and over again in their mind. They don't want to think about anything while performing a routine they would prefer not to be reminded of because it is drudgery and that to think may necessarily entail becoming overly conscious of their situation and how much they dislike it, but have no other marketable skills with which to acquire a more meaningful job. To think is to become conscious of one or more things for which they have only conventional systems of personalized logical discourse with which to address concerns in a syllogistic pattern that supplies conclusions of despairing negativity. Going beyond most peoples forms of personalized logical discourse will require a change in the structure of the present social system in terms of a new form of social self-governance, religious-belief orientation, educational training, etc...
While I meet some people who are not readily receptive to a "threes" perspective, I have yet to encounter anyone who is unable to appreciate it as a pattern. But such a vision is not a conventional way of thinking in terms of a conscious attendance. People use one or more patterns-of-three from day-to-day while remaining oblivious of the pattern from any conscious orientation. Some even use two or more different patterns-of-three in a dichotomous oppositional format, because an ancient pattern-of-two mentality is being exercised. A "threes" perspective beyond a mere academic exercise in terms of distinguishing a cultural trait, requires not only a conscious attendance, but the formulation of such a consciousness into a logical construct decidedly superior to the old Aristotelean tri-partite syllogistic formula. Clearly, the "superiority" is rendered not just by the quality of acknowledgment as to the prevalence and usage of "three-based" syllogistic equations related solely in the framework of philosophically oriented logic, but the developmental application of a needed substitution of logic not contrived by the traditionalized intellectual gaming procedures promoted as an inheritance of a proper procedure for thinking correctly.
Put more simply, Aristotelian syllogistic logic is like playing at a game of Rock, Paper, and Scissors used most often for amusement, and then applied to more serious situations as a means of attempting to qualify it as a fair, equitable, and logical system of determination. In other words, justification and usage are contrived and given an elitist position based on tradition because those using the type of system are familiar with it, comfortable with it, and are unable to think beyond it. Like teenagers playing with a Ouija board with a serious attitude of actually believing or wanting to believe in the presence of some inexplicable "force" from which can be interpreted a truth laden with various personalized values which are renderable in a particular context that may even be defined as fate, destiny, or super-naturally directed.
This is the state of affairs with our current systems of logic, despite all the applications which are then used as supporting evidence for determining the value of the system of logic employed. It is a modern day version of ancient divination based on present day values of practicality inter-mixed with the metaphysics of those striving to go beyond their own employed systems of thinking. These are the very same who want to have a "safe-zone" akin to a child's home base, or a get-out-of-jail for free card in a game of real-life intellectualized monopoly, in order to fall back on if they are perceived as venturing too far afield into realms that might well be labeled on the same level as witchcraft, demonology, or spiritualist alchemy... that is interpreted to be antithetical to accepted proprieties of thought in a modern day sense of application.
A Threes perspective extending its perception beyond the conventional methods of listing and interpretation is like a modern day mentality awakening in an ancient time and place. The embodied perception then has to find a place from which they can orient themselves without thinking themselves insane or delusional. They might well see the most modern advances as artifacts best suited for some museum displaying relics of antiquity found preserved in the catacombs of an accidentally unearthed civilization no one even knew existed, because it was intentionally buried by another culture that didn't want anyone to know it had ever existed for fear that they might be looked upon as a similar accident of nature. Such might well be the case for they type of logic presently in usage.
The disposition of a Threes perspective thrust into such a situation would truly be an acquired composure. And it is a composure that must adapt itself to the many vagaries of cultural idiosyncrasies even though they might still be perceived as "unusual, weird, different or strange", and even perhaps as having something that others should be wary of, if not fearful of to an extent they have to be reported to some authority. Nonetheless, even though you adopt some relative behavioral repertoire to give the impression of being normal, like everyone else who strives to do the same, you know you are different. However, it is a knowledge that does not likewise set itself up to be interpreted to be better or superior, though others might otherwise consider it to be; there is no way to be other than you are. A routine brain scan might render images of a normal brain, but this is because such techniques of analysis are synonymous with the same same level of mental imaging superficiality evident in the employed systems of logic being defined as intelligence... which is little more than ego posturing.
Even in very primitive cultures there are systems of hierarchy which label that and those as evidence of superiority, with real superiority having to conceal and maneuver itself from behind the scenes and in the shadows because the general social orientation is directed towards the observance, recognition and belief in superficiality. In other words, many people are used as icons, as figure heads of an imagined representation while the actual structure thrusting the illusion into the public view does its best work when it is unencumbered by having to address questions from those who think they have some unique insight into fundamental activities, when they are duped just as well... being supplied with that which intrigues their peculiar form of mentality... such as the state of affairs with many journalists.
The expression that "behind a great man is a woman", and this does not refer to a man's rearing mother-figure, but more often a wife; is an apt adage displaying the real life situation that it is the superiority of a woman's attitude, perseverance, strength, wisdom, courage, perspective, etc., in a given situation; which is the unseen guiding light with that a man steer's a straighter course of contemporarily viewed greatness. The expression is sometimes rendered as "Behind every great man is a greater woman", is said to be substantially different, that is, when viewed from a woman's perspective of entitling themselves with a super-position instead of remaining in the shadows of quiet and subtle acknowledgment. With the intent of either expression being rendered a muted point if the man, woman, or situation were not in the same context. None of which might be shown to be other than a commonality if one of the three variables were absent.
A New Instrument of Threes entails a further development of the already in-progress positioning of a new perspective with the intent of a functionality beyond mere listing of different Threes examples into contemporary categories related to conventionalized areas of subject matter. And we will leave the syllogistic (intellectual) gaming interests to those who can not get past this form of threes orientation who can not see any value to a "threes" acknowledgment unless it can be rendered in a syllogistic form they are comfortable with to the point of self- admiration for design and effort expended in contemplation thereof. Like the modern perspective thrust into an ancient setting, an "out-of-place" admission is accepted with the purpose of designing the necessary state of affairs most suitable for its fullest expression... unless one would waste their time and energies placed into an enclave of meditation expecting a concerted type and level of hope would suffice as the needed mediator to supply them the means of returning from when and whence they came... if it any longer exists, or has ever existed until they awakened.
Your Questions, Comments or Additional Information are welcomed:
Herb O. Buckland
herbobuckland@hotmail.com