Getting Started

The Polymathic Journey

It’s great to see you with me on this journey. But what’s the plan, what’s the itinerary, quō vādimus?

I laid out the general backdrop and objective in my introduction to this series. This is a quest to make sense of reality, in a much richer way than we normally do. This is an endeavor to apply intelligence, in a more powerful way than we are wont. This is a journey hopefully to a new intellectual world.

But yes, the first question that needs addressed is, where do we begin? How are we going to set out on this journey? What do we pack?

The key to mastering any craft, to switch metaphors, is mastering the tools of the trade. So, yes, it’s quite simple: to make this a successful endeavor, to make it worth our time and effort, we have to know what tools we’ll be using, get to know them, sharpen them.

The fundamental tools in such an intellectual journey are the core concepts and terminology that will enable us to tackle the questions and challenges en route. These are what we will ‘pack’ at the onset of this journey - these are our epistemological essentials.

A key part of understanding any phenomenon, any system, any discipline is understanding the fundamentals: first principles. It’s easy for us to ignore this, and I’d suggest most people tend to most of the time, because they’re in a hurry to get to the destination. However, I contend that a first-principles-based approach is far superior to stabbing in the dark, muddling through, getting by. Thus a core focus of mine here, especially in the early stages, will be nailing down the fundamentals, taking a first-principles approach at every step of the journey.

In the coming days, I’ll lay out a bunch of concepts, with succinct definitions of each, one at a time. These concepts will be part of the epistemological foundation - they will constitute the ontology and taxonomy of this journey on the road of knowledge. Some of these are more important than others, but at this stage my intention is to just lay them all out.

In no particular sequence either because they are related - these are a web of concepts, core ideas, and thus it doesn’t necessarily make sense to consider them in a linear manner. And as we cover ground here, we will connect the dots, lay the bricks, build our edifice of enhanced knowledge and intelligence.

This may sound vague to you at this point, but stick with me, it’ll all start falling into place: in this very article, for example, you have seen me use terms like ‘ontology’ and ‘taxonomy’ - not words of daily use, but relevant to our epistemology here - there, yet another word you don’t casually throw around in parties (not yet anyway!)

These (ontology, taxonomy, epistemology) will be some of the very first such concepts I’ll be introducing, in bite-sized form, over the next few days. And, again for example, getting an idea of ontology should help illuminate my point about this not being a linear or chronological series. It’ll start to throw light on why I’m referring to a web-like phenomenon here.

And even as you are, I’m sure, getting very keen on seeing these next posts in your inbox, I’ll wrap this one up by saying this - I exhort you to post your replies under each such article using your Substack app, sharing your own views, whatever comes to mind, even posing questions and challenges for me to tackle. It can only enrich your and my experience in this journey. It’ll also give me feedback to make this more enjoyable and worthwhile for you.

So, let’s get packing, let’s go!