representational inquiry regarding meaning » value
This is the original diagram/symbol that gave rise to all the others. It's called l'arbre de rien, or tree for short. When experiencer/self, experiencing/dynamic, and experienced/world integrate to leave only experience as such, each is understood in its own terms and in terms of the others. This forms nine terms. L'arbre de rien (the tree) connects those nine terms in a continuous, six-segmented line that can fold up into an axis or unfold into a triangle. As folded up, the A-phase tree shifts to the I-phase. As unfolded it shifts to the L-phase. And the arcs scribed by its folding up and its unfolding represent the O-phase.
L'arbre de rien is also the symbol out of which the central torus image arose. When rotated about its vertical axis (which is itself formed by the tree as folded up), the tree scribes an inner circle and two larger circles—one above and one below the smaller inner circle. These circles are analogous to top and bottom of the torus hole. Moreover, when the unfolded tree (the horizontal triangle) rotates around the same axis, an outer circle is formed at the horizon. This completes the torus.
In the two views of the 3D figure on the right, six cones and three spheres symbolically represent the nine nodes as they're arranged on the A-phase tree.
Orthogonally represented, this phase of the tree's unfolding resembles the combination of an A, V, and X (
), and A is the best sign to represent this phase for reasons including the following.
The letter A began as a pictogram of an ox. As ox is what we call any bovine that has been trained to do work, an ox may be thought to represent the harnessing of primal energy. This connection with work-energy makes it an apt letter to associate with the phase of our Project dealing most directly with practical activity.
Moreover, if Heidegger's right and we first understand our world in terms of know-how—i.e., through our pre-cognitive engagement therewith—this is where meaning originates, and so it's appropriate to assign this phase the first letter of the alphabet. ...At any rate, it's where this Project originated. The other phases emerged out of the logic of the A-phase.
A-phase nodes are assigned the letters Q through Z (except W) because of their numerical values, as arranged in a magic square, in keeping with the spirit of the Project's balanced, self-cancelling terms. All columns and rows sum to 1500 and, given color, cancel to white (blue + green + red light = white light):
