In the Society blog, we touched upon one fact of life (depending upon one’s view). That is, questions outweigh answers (say, in cardinality of the associated sets – ah, you might say – they are both countable). Some humans seem to live with more answers than not ( is this not the privileged class? as in, those who leave it up to others to handle the details and detritus [which I like to call residue] as well to slough through the rough?).
The science that is of STEM? Well, mature minds would say that it is a mode of operation, mostly, which is provisionally aligned with itself at each point in time. But, looking at the modern view (some of them), things seemed to be more tied up than not (as in, questions answered).
Need an example? 2007/8/0 mindsets that touted our (meaning the gifted and well-off) prowess was such that there would NEVER be another downturn that was as severe as some seen in the 20th century. You never heard this? We can go back and get verbatim quotes from that time.
But, enough of that, though Thomas Gardner, as tabula raza, can be used as an example in about any type of discourse related to humans and their lot (all types, whether adopted [albeit, many times without proper foresight] or imposed [ah, the Magna Charta was a little step toward freedom, many claim] by others or life).
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So, we have those who (can, if they wanted to) know their genealogy fairly well. Have not all associated with genealogical efforts seen the filled-in [for the most part] tree of William and Harry [mostly full except for a few holes here and there far back in time])? On the other side, we have those who cannot know (let’s say, their whole background is one big set of brick walls [this state can emerge from many situations]). In the former case, a lot of those become swashbuckling about their heritage [you all know who you are]). For those of the latter case, God knows (small consolation [but, in fact, more solid of an argument/counsel than many/most realize]).
Then, we have the in-between which is where Thomas Gardner of Salem comes in. Too, that whole middle area is a continuum. Perhaps, we could compare via the brick wall count (given human nature’s mode of competition), however there was an interesting counting method covered in a prior post (Numbers, again [if you look at the ahnentafels at Gardner Research, you will note that there is a lot known back to a certain generation]). So, Thomas’ descendants can know many things coming forward from his time, but there are lots of things that are not known, say “Whence Thomas.” We were gathering a running list which will be kept updated as we go along: What we know.
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So, our focus will be Questions. We will report all findings, no matter how trivial they may appear. In fact, we will be collecting findings (and opinions) from over the years, too. Example: A Thomas here and a Thomas there. Also, see the first issue of The Gardner Annals.
And, we will not let the middle case status inhibit the search. In the post on questions, Topology was mentioned specifically because conjectures (hypothetical or not) can be a strong method for information interchange, even to the extent of allowing collaborative efforts at extending frontiers.
The thoughts related to “A new science?” were not idly given. Reference earlier to STEM has several purposes which we will get to. There is a more full view (albeit, whose is better? [again, questions]).