[Editor’s Notes: Nice of me to finally put some of these thoughts into writing, but shame I didn’t care for any further development. Recommendation: Be inspired, and then start the project which here is alluded (esoteric complexity irregardless [sic])]
Molecular biology and Talmudic study have long been associated in my mind. But I have never thought of anything more specific than the most general inspirations. Which is not a trivial criterion for these two sophisticated (subjects and thus) cultures of learning.
Nor do much here. This is a prototype, and nothing that is described should be regarded as a recommendation for testing by any right proven here. Rather everything should be regarded as an imprecise and clumsy attempt, whose imprecisions and mistakes can be looked for, and thus inspire something better designed for development.
Thus this is a prolegomenon for a future study. And a draft too.
I avoid detailed examples from the Talmud to minimize misrepresenting its contents.
How should one begin to cross-fertilise these never joined creatures? I recommend a random perusal of broad subjects in MB according to personal interest, whilst thinking about the Talmud. I doubt many had done so, and the first exploration is the most corrupted by eager minds knowing less than their inspiration’s halo.
Thinking about axonal migration vs how arguments mature in applicability.
In MB the determinations inherent in an axon can be contrasted to the determinations inherent in the layering of its soma (eg cortical neurons) and tested for specificity which is determined by layering, or by migration. In some cases, there are degrees of amorphously constrained (since they do not correlate to any recognizable phenotype, but instead to a restriction in potentials but which are not identical to the restriction later potentiated by the end of migration) intermediary restrictions on fate.
I interrupt to acknowledge: The imagining of analogues between these subjects is inconsequential for legitimacy. Here. And I may describe my own approaches later. Here I am thinking of axon migration as the way that a principle is presented, but is matured by positioning within a context of principles, and by specifying the direction of effects on legal/practical conclusions.
Vaguely: What is the context of principles for strict laws that are for protection? What are the arguments that direct the first law into a final clarification which contains specifications not originally seen? And thus (drawing from MB) how does the range of an idea’s definitiveness change at different stages.
I now skip to a fundamental precursor consideration: How is any of this practical: Might not be. This is not an instruction manual. But here is how I would start if forced to start at this time:
- Study a section. For each idea that is discussed, define its intermission points. For each intermission, describe what is different in the way that you think of this idea’s scope (e.g. what was first thought of as times that are binding, and later thought of as times that are binding or protective).
- Once have 3 ideas, I would then classify the features I’d chosen to describe.
- Revise step 1, but inspired by feature definition.
- Try and describe the way the set of features changes over the intermissions.
- Reflect and continue to expand and iterate.
- If nothing is found within some pre-defined range, then this approach is not informative.
And what is sought? For me: Just want to have a better model for how meaning can be encoded in information in a way that is communicative. For others? Maybe an appreciation for what else is going on in the Talmud and thus gain an added sense of its depth.
