New Online Book Provides a Manual for Life

Text Box: Jesse Yoder Wakefield, Massachusetts, July 27, 2001 – Flow Research announces the release of a new online book on philosophy and language by Jesse Yoder. The book is entitled Shades of Experience. Shades of Experience shows how people can increase their understanding by becoming more aware of previously unnoticed differences in their experience. The book, subtitled “A Manual for Life,” is available online at www.ideanetworks.net, where it can be downloaded on a chapter-by-chapter basis.

Idea Network previously published Shades of Experiences in 1988 under the title Duonyms. Duonyms contains a dictionary of duonyms, along with an explanation of how they are formed. A duonym is a word formed by putting two existing words together to form a single word with two components. Examples of duonyms include ‘egghead,’ ‘flowmeter,’ ‘girlfriend,’ and ‘homepage.’ Many website addresses are duonyms, since the Internet does not allow spaces to appear in addresses.

Shades of Experience contains an updated and expanded dictionary of duonyms, along with an updated explanation of their formation. It also contains a discussion of several proposed new rules of language that, it is believed, will expand its descriptive power. Other sections include an explanation of the relation between language and experience, and a discussion of the relationship between mind and brain.

Chapter Two of Shades of Experience explains the philosophy of viewpoint pluralism. According to viewpoint pluralism, our knowledge of a subject or object increases as we take additional viewpoints of it. For example, someone who sees a house from the inside and from all four sides has more knowledge of it than someone who just drives by it. This chapter also includes practical suggestions for applying viewpoint pluralism. Examples include taking a new way to work and trying out new restaurants.

Chapter Seven of Shades of Experience discusses the meaning of life. This chapter develops the idea that the meaning of life is self-expression. It further develops the concept of self introduced in earlier chapters, and defines the concept of self-expression. The concept of self-expression is compared to similar concepts, such as John Stuart Mill’s idea of individuality. The concept of self-expression is very similar to the idea of “being yourself,” an idea that became popular in the 1960s.

“One purpose of Shades of Experience is to propose a different way of looking at language,” according its author, Jesse Yoder. “Many people think of language as a given thing that cannot be altered. Nothing could be further from the truth. Language is a human creation that is intended to serve as a tool for communication. If we as speakers of language can revise it in ways that will make it more descriptive, it will be a better tool.”

“Shades of Experience proposes new rules of language that makes language more descriptive, and also makes it possible to experience the world from new points of view. By becoming more aware of different shades of color, and finding new ways to describe and name these shades, we become more discriminating. Just as colors have many different shades, so do many other aspects of our experience,” says Yoder.

Shades of Experience is the result of 32 years of research into philosophy, language, and the mind. Its author, Jesse Yoder, has a PhD in philosophy from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. From 1986 to 1995, he taught philosophy at the University of Massachusetts Lowell and Lafayette College, where he discussed many of the ideas in Shades of Experience. He serves as Research Director of Flow Research, a company he founded in 1999 to publish market studies on instrumentation such as flowmeters and pressure transmitters.

Dr. Yoder has written over 40 market studies since 1990 on various areas of process control. He has also written many articles on instrumentation for trade journals. Yoder is currently concluding a series of six market studies on the worldwide flowmeter market. His most recent study, which was released in mid-July, is called The Market for Coriolis Flowmeters Worldwide. Ducker Worldwide of Bloomfield Hills, Michigan is publishing this study. (www.ducker.com)

Shades of Experience is an online book available at www.ideanetworks.net. This is the website of Idea Network, a market research and publishing company formed in 1986. Idea Network is now a division of Flow Research. Flow Research is a market research company that provides market analysis and strategies for suppliers of flow, pressure, and temperature products. More information about Flow Research is available at www.flowresearch.com.

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