Situational Note-taking: The idea of “Meaning Matrix”
On Sept 16, 2023, I made a note about a rough idea for a brand new Theoretical Psychology. See the diagram in the upper right corner of the picture below.
In the left side of the above picture, I used the “Ontology — Realism — Hermeneutics” schema to analyze a brand new psychological theory about human nature. A friend of mine in China developed the theory and sent me a summary of his new book (draft) about the theory.
I made the diagram on July 16, 2023. The outcome is amazing! It encouraged me to apply the “Ontology — Realism — Hermeneutics” schema to develop the Platform Ecology (v3.1) meta-framework.
The diagram in the top right corner of the above picture is about the concept of “Mindset”. I made the diagram on Sept 1, 2023, and wrote a long article titled The Concept of Mindset and Theoretical Integration on Sept 10, 2023.
The outcome of the article is the Mental Tuning framework. See the diagram below.
On Sept 16, 2023, I reflected on these diagrams and used the “Ontology — Realism — Hermeneutics” schema to generate a new idea:
- Ontology: Human — Meaning Matrix
- Realism: Actor — World of Activity
- Hermeneutics: Mindset — Life Domains
The Realism part is inspired by the Creative Life Theory while the Hermeneutics part refers to the Mental Tuning framework.
The new idea is the “Meaning Matrix” which echoes the “World of Activity”.
I used the “Universal Reference” framework to create several diagrams. I realized it became a significant part of the Creative Life Theory.
Based on the “Ontology — Realism — Hermeneutics” schema, I made a distinction between “Universal Reference” and “World of Activity”. In order to open a new creative space for further discovery, I used a new term called “Meaning Matrix”.
In fact, the term “Meaning Maxtix” was inspired by what theoretical sociologist Thomas J. Fararo and his student John Skvoretz called “a hierarchical meaning control system” in an article titled Methods and Problems of Theoretical Integration and the Principle of Adaptively Rational Action (1993).
According to Fararo and Skvoretz, “Calling this a meaning control hierarchy is intended to emphasize that higher levels constitute commitments that ‘inform’ — enable and constrain — the lower level activities or discoveries.”
On Sept 21, 2023, I started using the term “Meaning Matrix” to name the diagram below.
The above diagram is not a simple “Universal Reference” diagram because I incorporate the “Kinds of Actors” framework and a sub-framework of “Ecological Formism” to discuss the concept of “Theme(Concept)”.
This is a fantastic theoretical insight because it could offer me a solution to curate my work on Curativity Theory, Activity Theory, and Mindset together!
We are entering a new creative space for building a new theoretical psychology!
On Oct 19, 2023, I made the following diagram.
Last year I used the “Ontology — Realism — Hermeneutics” schema to curate some ideas for Creative Life Curation and Advanced Life Strategy.
For Advanced Life Strategy, I placed World of Activity at the Ontology layer.
Why did I do it?
I wanted to define the concept of “Lifescope” which is bigger than the traditional concept of “Career”, but smaller than the ordinary concept of “Life”. You can find the final solution in Lifescope: The World of Activity for Creative Life Curation.
In the past several months, I used the concept of “World of Activity” to refer to the Realism layer.
Thus, the new concept of “Meaning Matrix” is perfect for something in the Ontology layer.
