One of the several ways in which physical (textual) artifacts of an idea are distinct from those of a perception is that noncontracted ideas relate to one another in a continuous manner, whereas noncontracted perceptions do not relate to one another. Idea is in this sense a manifold of continuous action, whereas perception is a discrete manifold of existing or not-existing. One perception, for instance, does not permit or lead to another perception. If one needs proof, one can just flip on the television and channel surf. The series of images you perceive while flipping from channel to channel do not cause each other to exist.
Idea, however, is the mental process of apperception or hypothesis, by which we come to understand the universal meaning that corresponds to those objects of our sense perceptions. While a perception merely is, idea becomes, in a continuous process. The discrete "snapshots" of this continuous process are manifold, but exist in definite relation to each other in a progression of evolving mental action. The continuity of idea necessitates, then, the existence of relationships between instances of itself when it is contracted to a discrete manifold. This distinction is further elucidated in the Parmenides dialogue.
Whether the relationships between contractions of a given idea are causal, modal, or temporal, is the subject of my present investigation. Does the process of idea flow like a pebble flows along currents of gravity toward the earth? Can multiple ideas come together in a higher idea to form a continuous action of a higher order, such as planetary orbit? The answer to both of these questions appears to be yes. Is this in fact a "coming together", or are the two ideas products, projections or contractions of the higher idea? In which direction does order flow? The cognitive process of discovery appears to be able to travel in either direction.
As such, any electromechanical system which aims to contract the continuous relationships that exist between discrete states of an apperceptive process should permit the existence of complex or compound ideas, which are characterized as ideas of a 'higher order', or those which exist on a 'higher' manifold of action. Vis, "governing dynamics".
Of course, any system capable of storing these contracted relations must itself be a contraction of a yet higher idea. The apperception of this contraction, indicates a continuum of higher ideas. Our apperception of this continuum itself indicates a yet higher continuum of continuums. The process repeats itself, becomes fractal, and resolves itself into an analogue of Cantor's Paradise.
