Concept analysis towards a periodic table of human values

Ensuring Dynamics of Sustainability by Appreciative Recognition of Evil (Part #18)

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As indicated above, colour is fundamental to the identification of political parties and -- by implication -- the values they represent. The complexity is readily understood to require colour codiing (cf. Political groups of the European Parliament, Wikipedia). Far less evident is why and how values are associated with colours -- especially in the absence of certain colours. Curiously many political groups label others (or some others) as "evil" -- from whose policies a country or region must be "saved".

Conventional ways of depicting the European Parliament
The Parliament's hemicycle (debating chamber) during a plenary session in Strasbourg.	Indication of composition of the European Parliament by political groups (Elections to the Parliament)
European Union, 2014 EP-012763	User:Glentamara [CC BY-SA 4.0], via Wikimedia Commons

There is however no sense in which the diversity of values can be understood in systemic terms or represented in a manner which reflects that understanding, as noted separately (Experimental Visualization of Dynamics of the European Parliament in 3D, 2019). There is no recognized periodic table of values, ideologies, religions or schools of thought -- and no collective desire for its elaboration. Experimental exceptions include the Periodic Table of the World's Religious and Philosophical Traditions (Facebook), and The Periodic Table of Arguments (proposed by Jean H. M. Wagemans). Arguably the perception of "evil" indeed rules the dynamics (Evil Rules: Guidelines for Engaging in Armageddon Now, 2015).

In exploring the pssibility of any periodic table, of relevance is therefore the recognition that the elements are colour coded in the periodic table (What Is the Importance of Color on the Periodic Table? ThoughtCo; 7 Ways to Color the Periodic Table, Color Paints; Color of all the elements in the Periodic Table, SchoolMyKids)

Concept analysis: The development of the above-mentioned Encyclopedia of World Problems and Human Potential from 1972 (now online) explicitly sought to address the paradoxical relationship between "problems" (as noted above) and various understandings of "human potential". The latter included the challenging semantics of the extensive array of "human values" simply presented in any need hierarchy. The early focus on the latter, through the Human Values Project of that initiative, was encouraged by early involvement in the Committee on Conceptual and Terminological Analysis (COCTA) which has since evolved into a research committee of the International Sociological Association, following activity within the International Political Science Association.

An early concern was how to move beyond the constraints of structured lists and hierarchical representation of concept arrays (Anti-Developmental Biases in Thesaurus Design, 1981; Needs Communication: viable need patterns and their identification, 1980; Patterns of N-foldness: comparison of integrated multi-set concept schemes as forms of presentation, 1980; Relationship between elements of knowledge; use of computer systems to facilitate construction, comprehension and comparison of concept thesauri of different schools of thought, Working Paper No. 3, COCTA, 1971).

Tabular configuration of concepts: This shift away from dependence on hierachical representation had been strongly influenced by the tabular presentations of Ingetraut Dahlberg as developer of the universal Information Coding Classification (ICC) and as instigator of what later became the International Society for Knowledge Organization (Grundlagen universaler Wissensordnung, Verlag Dokumentation, 1974; Ontical Structures and Universal Classification. Bangalore, 1978). Dahlberg's ICC influenced the topic organization of the online version of the Encyclopedia (Functional Classification in an Integrative Matrix of Human Preoccupations, 1982).

Value polarities from Roget's Thesaurus: Of relevance to the above argument, the Human Values Project identified sets of 1992 "destructive value" terms (implied in problem perception and description) and 987 "constructive value" terms (implied in the articulation of any strategic response). To address the highly problematic definitional challenges and semantic ambiguity  of these terms in practice, these were clustered into 233 "value polarities", namely "positive-negative" concept pairs. These polarities were in turn clustered into 45 "value types" within a 5x9 tabular framework otherwise presented as Variety of value dynamics, 2015). Other tabular arrays (3x5, 3x7, 5x12) were considered in exploring semantic similarities between clusters of polarities (Classification: Human Values Project).

The primary tool for that exercise was Roget's Thesaurus. Its organization enabled detection of synonym-antonym pairs for qualitative concepts deemed to be "value charged" to some degree, namely liable to figure in any naming of a problem or of the value implied by any strategic response or human aspiration. From the perspective of the argument above, each value polarity holds both a negative connotation (with its implication of a degree of "evil") and a positive connotation (with its implication of "transcendent" potential). As such the tabular array constitutes a richer framework through which "good" and "evil" are articulated.

Formal concept analysis: Roget's Thesaurus has since become a focus for computer-based studies of semantic similarities in the light of the methodology of formal concept analysis (FCA) and its relevance to data mining, text mining, machine learning, knowledge management, and the semantic web. As described by L. John Old:

Roget's Thesaurus is a semantic dictionary that is organized by concepts rather than words. It has an elaborate implicit structure that has not, in the 150 years since its inception, been made explicit. Formal Concept Analysis (FCA) is a tool that can be used by researchers for the organization, analysis and visualization of complex hidden structures.... Roget's Thesaurus has been studied or used for the automatic classification of text, automatic indexing, natural language processing, word sense disambiguation, semantic classification, computer-based reasoning, content analysis, discourse analysis, automatic translation, and a range of other applications. (Unlocking the Semantics of Roget's Thesaurus Using Formal Concept Analysis, School of Computing, Napier University, 2004; published in Concept Lattices, ICFCA 2004, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2961)

Other FCA studies of Roget's Thesaurus, indicative of its potential relevance to the clarification of the array of values, include:

• Mario Jarmasz:  Roget's Thesaurus as a Lexical Resource for Natural Language Processing (Ottawa-Carleton Institute for Computer Science. 2002)
• Mario Jarmasz and Stan Szpakowicz: Roget's Thesaurus and Semantic Similarity (arxiv.org/abs/1204.0245, 2012)
• Stan Szpakowicz Mario Jarmasz: Roget's thesaurus and semantic similarity (Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 2004)
• Patrick J. Cassidy: An Investigation of the Semantic Relations in the Roget's Thesaurus: Preliminary Results
• Roget2000  (hyperlinked thesaurus); Visualization of Roget's Thesaurus
• Jason L. Baumgartner and Timothy A. Waugh: Roget2000: A 2D Hyperbolic Tree Visualization of Roget's Thesaurus ( Indiana University, 2002)
• Uta Priss and L. Old: Lattice-based modelling of thesauri (Semantic Scholar, 2008)
• Uta Priss and L. Old: Concept neighbourhoods in knowledge organisation systems (Semantic Scholar, 2010)
• Yen-Ling  and Kuo, J. Hsu: Bridging Common Sense Knowledge Bases with Analogy by Graph Similarity (Collaboratively-Built, 2010)

Such computer-based studies have demonstrated the continuing appreciation of the organization of Roget's Thesaurus, justifying its use with respect to any study of values. However they make no use of the implication of the distinction of a qualitatively "positive" (constructive) value term as set against its antonym, then to be understood as a qualitatively "negative" (destructive) term -- potentially indicative of some degree of perceived "evil" (however dilute). It is appropriate to note its alleged use by Wikipedia for classification of its articles (Outline of Roget's Thesaurus)

Tabular orgnization of value polarities: With respect to the ordering of clusters of value polarities in tabular form, consistent to any degree with that of the periodic table of chemical elements, a possible question would then be how to transform the distribution of the clustered elements from a 5x9 pattern into one which corresponds to the basic 8-fold structure of the main groups of chermical elements -- the columns of that table. This would mean that some clustered polarities would be associated with the period structure -- the rows of that table.

The first of Roget's 6 main classes is on Words Expressing Abstract Relations with 8 sections as indicated in a comprehensive Wikitionary entry (Roget's thesaurus classification). The 5x9 pattern in fact made explicit use of 5 of those 8 sections as columns of the 5x9 value types table -- allocating 3 to a later row. Clearly use could potentially be made of FCA to refine the redistribution of the set of value polarities associated with the other 5 Roget classes.

Classification of qualitative categories: The challenge with respect to classifying values is comparable to that of figures-of-speech and of tone-of-voice (Questionable Classification of Figures of Speech -- as fundamental to the need for powerful rhetoric in governance, 2016; Varieties of Tone of Voice and Engagement with Global Strategy, 2020). There is every reason to expect recognition of some figures-of-speech as of an evil nature. Thus for Robert C. Delgadillo:

The historical track record of demonizing one's adversary goes far back. Demonization uses metaphor or figures of speech to create an image of the enemy as evil or in league with the Devil. In politics today, the cosmic battle between God and the Devil disguises itself in the rhetoric of good and evil. Thus, while the origins of demonization are religious, its role today is fundamentally political. (Dealing with the (D)Evil Enemy: a historical perspective, UC Davis Library, 28 November 2016)

This recognition would also apply to tone-of-voice: An easy way to tell if someone is evil is that their voice is much deeper than a normal character, often artificially so (Evil Sounds Deep, Tropedia; Evil Voice Sound Effects, Soundsnap).

The focus on Roget's Thesaurus, both in the Human Values exercise and by the FCA studies, avoids a fundamental issue as to how a category is perceived and used in other cultures and languages -- especially non-European. With respect to the values exercise, it was indeed noted that there was an inherent English-only bias in the use of a thesaurus composed only of English words.

References to equivalents to such a thesaurus in other languages are sparse. The Princeton WordNet is a lexical database of semantic relations between words in more than 200 languages. The lexical resources of the EuroWordNet project, based on WordNet (not on Roget) are not freely available (Piek Vossen, Introduction to EuroWordNet, Computers and the Humanities, 32, 1998; WordNet, EuroWordNet and Global WordNet, Revue française de linguistique appliquée, 7, 2002, 1). The Global WordNet Association (GWA) is a free, public and non-commercial organization that provides a platform for discussing, sharing and connecting wordnets for all languages in the world. GWA builds on the results of WordNet and EuroWordNet.

Despite the acclaimed importance attributed to values across the cultures of the world, there is seemingly little interest in seeking value correspondences between languages -- or their implications for insights into "evil" (How to Say Evil in [100] Different Languages , In Different Languages). Of potential political relevance has been early concern that terms described with negative prefixes might prove especially problematic (Conceptual Distortions from Negative Descriptors: the possibility that "non-governmental" may be comprehended as "anti-governmental" in some languages, 1974).

Of further interest is the sense in which values call for subtler understanding, especially when their significance may be better carried by their use as verbs (Freedom, Democracy, Justice: isolated nouns or interwoven verbs? 2011). The latter argues that the assumption that value "categories" are nouns may have framed an illusory quest for qualities and principles dynamically disguised.

The generalization of the periodic table of elements into psychosocial domains by Edward Haskell also usefully frames the challenge, especially given the distinctions he makes between entropy and negentropy through the coaction cardioid (Full Circle: the moral force of unified science, 1972).

Also of potential relevance is the encoding of values through any device which is not dependent on text, embodying ambiguity through the metaphors by which it is interpreted (Encoding Coherent Topic Transformation in Global Dialogue, 2021). One such is the Yi Jing (I Ching) dynamic pattern of hexagrams (Correlating a Requisite Diversity of Metaphorical Patterns: entuning the dynamic of cognitive eases and diseases, 2015). It is organized in the form of a periodic table of 8x8 distinctions which could indeed be understood as values -- framing the question of how "evil" is contrasted and entangled with its opposite by such a device (Alternation between multiple patterns, 2010).

Consideration has been given to the sonification of such encoding (Musical Articulation of Pattern of Tao Te Ching Insights: experimental sonification based on magic square organization, 2003), especially the wotk of Richard Burdick (I Ching as a Structural Foundation for Music, 2011; I Ching Base Tones for solo microtonal instrument, 2011) and of Joo Wan (I Ching and Tertian Harmony , 27 September 2021). Noteworthy is the early initiative of John Cage (Music of Changes, 1951; John Cage's I Ching technique. 6 September 2017) based on the I Ching as the Book of Changes. With respect to the entanglement of "good" and "evil", of which "white" and "black" are commonly symbolic, there is a particular irony to the piano keyboard's distinction between white and black keys -- by which contrasting qualities of music are engendered.

"Tuning" tabular configurations: It is perhaps useful to emphasize that the quest for a higher degree of order for human values -- especially with implications of periodicity governed by analogy down each column of a table -- is at a stage comparable in historical terms to the progressive insight into the periodicity of the properties of elements in the table of chemical elements. The organization of that table only gradually became evident from its early proposal by Dmitri Mendeleev in 1869 -- with his predictions of elements yet to be discovered. The shambolic nature of current discourse on human values, with its claims and counter-claims, suggests that collectively there may indeed be a degree of reccognition of the values in the first periods of such a table -- a recognition diminishng rapidly at this time with respect to later periods.

The future refinement of the human value table had been previously framed in terms of "tuning" as discussed separately (Tuning a Periodic Table of Religions, Epistemologies and Spirituality -- including the sciences and other belief systems, 2007;  Positive vs Negative, 2007).

There is the curious possibility that any such "tuning" might be associated with the organization of magic squares, as discussed separately (Salvation Enabled by Systemic Comprehension -- Via aesthetics of magic squares? 2015). The possibility is explored in the following context:

In commenting that: composers have, over the centuries, used their own codes for the cognoscenti to decipher, notably Bach, a number of composers are specifically cited by Tom Service (Magic numbers: composers and their clandestine codes, The Guardian, 2 July 2010), Work on the latter encoding by Albert Clement has been usefully reviewed for the American Bach Society.

A continuing pattern of notes is presented experimentally by Adam Scott Neal (Magic Square Music, You Tube, 2009) -- with the numbers in a 4x4 magic square determining most aspects of the music (voices, chords, tempo, length). The numbers in a 4x4 magic square determine most aspects of the music. Links are given to related experiments with magic squares of 3x3 (Lo Shu) and 5x5 (Vedic). A detailed explanation is offered of an 8x8 magic square by Gareth Roberts (Composing with Numbers: Sir Peter Maxwell Davies and Magic Squares, Math, Music and Identity, 2015). This focuses on the use of such a square by Davies in his composition of A Mirror of Whitening Light (1977) derived from the plain chant Veni Sancte Spiritus, as presented below:

8-note phrase used in a magic square in A Mirror of Whitening Light (reproduced from Gareth Roberts, Composing with Numbers, 2015)

The form of the table of chemical elements is the focus of many proposals for alternatives -- despite (or because of) the fundamental nature of the elements, and the challenge of representing the periodicioty of that pattern meaningfully. Beyond checklists of human values, of which there are many, the 5x9 pattern seemingly remains the only such exercise, in contrast with the hierarchy of Maslow, with its own limitations. Suggestions have been presented for a polyhedral configuration of values:

• In Quest of a Strategic Pattern Language: a new architecture of values (2008)
• Configuring sets of values and principles as polyhedra, (2008)
• Embodiment of values in interweaving cycles (2011)
• Topology of Valuing: dynamics of collective engagement with polyhedral value configurations (2008)
• Recognizing missing values and the challenge of configuring value dilemmas (2018)
• Implementing Principles by Balancing Configurations of Functions: a tensegrity organization approach (1979)

In seeking clues from the table of chemical elements, a key question is whether the clusters of the 5x9 table can be meaningfully redistributed in terms of 8 columns following Roget -- at least as a first approximation. Alternatively is it the 233 value polarities within those 45 clusters which call for redistribution following more sophisticated analysis as suggested by the FCA methodology?

In either case the positive-negative combination could be understood in a manner analogous to the proton-electron combination constituting a potentially stable element -- a stable meme. In this light, the good-and-evil dynamics can be understood in a richer context -- worthy of the challenges they constitute in psychosocial relations.  Especially intriguing are then the configurations "inimical to life" -- whether as heavier elements or due to their instability, otherwise recognized as radioactivity (for which value analogues might be usefully recognized). Also intriguing is the possibilithy of stable positive-negative combinations of values, analogous to superheavy chemical elements, but of far greater complexity -- termed "islands of stability".

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