the.com/categorization
the brain's frantic filing clerk, sorting infinite chaos into boxes that comfort more than they describe
means The act of sorting things into groups or classes based on shared characteristics.
from Built on 'category,' which travels back through Latin 'categoria' to the Greek 'katēgoria' — meaning an accusation or a statement made against someone in public. The verb 'katēgorein' literally combined 'kata-' (down, against) with 'agoreuein' (to speak in the assembly, from 'agora,' the marketplace). Aristotle borrowed this courtroom word for his philosophy, using 'categories' to mean the fundamental classes one could predicate, or 'speak,' of a thing. So every act of sorting carries a faint echo of standing in the Greek marketplace and declaring out loud what something is.
- infant skill
- Babies sort objects before they can speak
- speed
- Brains categorize faces in under 100 milliseconds
- taxonomy roots
- Linnaeus once classified minerals and humans together
- fuzzy edges
- Tomatoes broke a tax law over fruit definitions
- survival use
- Snap judgments once meant predator versus prey