Talk:Monad

Misc

Has anyone some more information about monads in category theory? --JensMueller

Isn't the term monad also used for the Asian yin-yang symbol, which was also used as a corporate logo by the Northern Pacific Railroad? --Chris Rodgers

Close but I think your thinking of Monad (Technocracy)

There is also a monad associated with Haskell (a programming language). http://www.nomaware.com/monads/html/

Dictionaries such as 1913 Webster tell that a monad can be "4. (Biol.) A simple, minute organism; a primary cell, germ, or plastid." and even "5. (Chem.) An atom or radical whose valence is one, or which can combine with, be replaced by, or exchanged for, one atom of hydrogen."

I think the biological usage is now archaic, and related to Liebnizes usage. If the biology or chemistry usage are still in use let's add them. Anyone know for sure? Bmorton3 19:50, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Monad is also a name for Microsoft new project for new CLI tools, which intend to be better than CLI tools in UNIX (and Linux).

Monas

Monas used to redirect here; I don't see why. I've redirected it to Monumen Nasional, which is almost always called "Monas". If there is something on this page that is sometimes called "Monas", we'll need to transform Monas into a disambiguation page - feel free to do so. CDC (talk) 2 July 2005 05:12 (UTC)

Haskell

What about monads in Haskell programing language ?

The entry was there already. I just moved it outside of mathematics item so it should be easier to see it now. --TuukkaH 19:42, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Cleanup

I don't agree with the "cleanup" tag, this is just a very big disambiguation page, and has to be this large in order to provide the reader with the correct information on where to look further for the correct "monad" definition. Nixdorf 20:27, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, looking at Wikipedia:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages), this page doesn't have much along the guidelines. We should have a short (one-line) entry for each monad topic in Wikipedia, nothing more. Only one link per entry. There are some fairly short entries already but the long ones make them harder to find.

Entries that already have a respective article can be trimmed down. I suppose others should be either moved into new stub articles or merged into some existing, notable article. --TuukkaH 22:16, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

pov/bias

Why did you remove the philosopher links but leave the occult ones on this page? LoveMonkey 02:07, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

"This is not an issue of subject matter but text. This article is about the word "monad" and its various uses on Wikipedia."

That is exactly what I added and then you edited away. But left the occult references. LoveMonkey 12:54, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

"I removed links to a number of philosphers who had dealt with the topic of monads, but where the name of the article didn't actually have any connection to the word "monad"."

Really explain the link to Gnosticism you left then. If it is inapprepriate then the resolve would be to create YET another monad page that has the words history. Why this page? A page that was deciced to be ambigious but there is no alternative page that covers the history of the term then? If I look up the word Monad in a normal encyclopedia I get the word and it's meaning not a reference page.

LoveMonkey 12:54, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

"If a philosopher or painter or politician were named "Robert Monad", then a link to him from the Monad disambig would be appropriate."

Not your standard people can go to the monism page and find out about gnosticism. You might consider adding **Hermetica, The Cup or Monad there.

LoveMonkey 12:54, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

"Recall that the purpose of a disambiguation page is to help users who are looking for some other use of a the term."

Not your standard if that was the case then you would have at least let some of my edits. You removed the the father of monad and the most famous philosopher of the monad when you removed ALL of my edits. But you left the two only occult references? I don't follow.

LoveMonkey 12:54, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

"They probably cam here from one of the monad articles, or from a search."

That could be only one possible assumption the another is that they would like to know that the specific word MONAD was used to MEAN ATOM. But you removed that too.

LoveMonkey 12:54, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

From here, they might follow Monism and end up reading more about Pythagoras there, and following that link, but there's no reason to put Pythagoras on this page. -Harmil 03:01, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

That might hold water if A) you hadn't left the two occults references and b) I had only added philosophy links that had no barring on other fields of study. But since you removed Epicurus that argument doesn't hold water either Atomism.

LoveMonkey 12:54, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

"The monad disambiguation page is not a place to explore the history of monadism, but as its goal is to provide searchers with access to a list of "monad" pages, I left anything that had specific similarities of name. In some cases, this was the title of a book, and in some cases, that book didn't have a page, but the author did. So be it, that's the nature of disambiguation pages. Anyone looking for that book's page might search for "monad".

"That's as I recall. If there's something not explicitly named "monad" on that page, it should go."

Then removal of my Kant reference was incorrect. The book I referenced isn't even mentioned on Kants article page. This does not fit with any of the other critieria. This appears to mean a term and it's history can not be used unless explicitly noted. In that case a WHOLE LOT of greek philosophy articles need to be reworded to express the monad in greek as monad from the original text rather then whatever word Monad was translated into. AKA Plotinus, Parmenides, Xenophanes need to explicitly say the greek word Monad. Also the chinese don't have the word Monad at all in their vocabulary. And then why remove the Plato and Parmenides links? So what is it if Monad can be mentioned in the Gnosticism why can it not be mentioned by the philosophers? If one is looking for a book about Monads why did you remove my mention of Kant and his book on "Monads"? Your edit has an impossible criteria. It also contridicts its self.

LoveMonkey 12:54, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Look at my latest edit Harmil 1 what does that mean to your comment "The monad disambiguation page is not a place to explore the history of monadism, but as its goal is to provide searchers with access to a list of "monad" pages, I left anything that had specific similarities of name." and "That's as I recall. If there's something not explicitly named "monad" on that page, it should go." Go look at the Plotinus page. When I came to this page to edit it. I did it with my late edit in mind 1. Tell me now why the occult references where left (without translation duplicity)? Or are you missing the point that ALL of the articles I linked create the meaning of the latin word monad. Since the english word for monad is ONE or UNIT.

LoveMonkey 13:11, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Once again how can anything be posted when this below is the criteria?

"The monad disambiguation page is not a place to explore the history of monadism, but as its goal is to provide searchers with access to a list of "monad" pages, I left anything that had specific similarities of name." and "That's as I recall. If there's something not explicitly named "monad" on that page, it should go." LoveMonkey 13:22, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Hi. First off, please read WP:D. It will help you to understand the purpose of a disambiguation page. Second, relax. I have no agenda here, other than to improve the usability of Wikipedia, and I'm am assuming that you don't either. -Harmil 13:47, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

HMMMMMMM. OK I'm relaxed and now please clarify. :) LoveMonkey 15:36, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Now let's try to get on the same page..

Here are the rules....

Specific topic For disambiguating specific topic pages, several options are available:

When there is another word (such as Cheque instead of Check) or more complete name that is equally clear (such as Titan rocket), that should be used. A disambiguating word or phrase can be added in parentheses. The word or phrase in parentheses should be: the generic class that includes the topic (for example, Mercury (element), Seal (mammal)); or the subject or context to which the topic applies (for example, Union (set theory), Inflation (economics)). Rarely, an adjective describing the topic can be used, but it's usually better to rephrase the title to avoid parentheses.

Do you agree? LoveMonkey 15:42, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Heading

• Monad, a symbol of God or totality is known in several philosophical circles

Why was this heading left? But the edits that I contributed to explore this where removed? LoveMonkey 13:19, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Links

I replaced the links removed by Mongo, because no one told me not to... no, I mean, because they seemed like a valid attempt at a compromise on the part of one editor. I think Mongo, for whatever reason, didn't notice that perhaps consensus was at least being moved towards. In any case, I consider it hashed out (unless somebody else decides to removed them again, of course :). Also, I made a few formatting and wording changes to the page, but most of those are of a fairly uncontroversial nature, so I won't bother to explain them.

It seems to me, I might (in fact, will) add, that often, when I see a page where someone has done substantial work adding info (the way LoveMonkey has here, for instance), it often indicates there is susbtantial relevant information available. When disagreement like this erupts, it's sometimes because the underlying page 'concept' is wrong in the first place. I guess what I'm saying is, has anybody considered Monad (philosophy) as an exploration of the history of this notable and interesting concept? Many other philosophical ideas have pages tracing their history, changing definitions, etc, and this word could qualify for one, too. (BTW, you'll also need to mention Theosophists specifically, or at least those of the Alice A. Bailey persuasion, as the word figures quite prominently in her books, as well.) Eaglizard 10:07, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

occult links

Why are the occults links again being added to this page when there has already been ample discussions that to allow them would be to also allow thr philosophy links (which were not added back). Please elaborate. LoveMonkey 04:32, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

I see no cause for eliminating notable uses of the term monad, whether they're philosophical, occult, or gnostic, or whatever.

Is LoveMonkey actually making an argument that links to "occult" uses of the word "monad" are not notable or worthy of inclusion? If LoveMonkey is making an argument that these terms are not notable, then put up those articles for AFD. After the articles are deleted, they're no longer notable. Don't forget, gnosticism heavily influenced much of Christianity for at least several hundred years. And uses of the term in the realms of philosophy, religion, spirituality, speculation, or whatever other category it has been put in, are published, notable, and significant within their respective realms of discussion. It is fairly standard practice to give benefit of doubt with disambiguation links anyway.

As to "ample discussions", I see a lot of text posted above by User:LoveMonkey, and a brief counterargument by another user, but nothing in the way of what realistically could be termed consensus thus far. And, if there were consensus to remove "philosophy links" from Monad, I would sure like to know what on earth is wrong with that picture, and proceed to rectify the situation as expediently as possible. ... Kenosis 15:15, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Either this is a disambigious page or it is not. By being disambigious the page is not to address specifics but be a general page to link to more specifics. I originally included a good bit of info to other and even more pertinent links but the previous occultist who keep adding the occult links removed all of my philosophical ones and stated that being a disambiguation page it should only have links that are off the understood meaning of the term meaning that the gnosticism and hermetic use would be pretty much the same as the greek philosophical one. Case in point Night Out. Monad in the occult is the same general understanding as Monad in Pythagorus and Plotinus. It's understanding is not so radically different a use of the word that it needs to be mentioned on this page. Now as for all of kenosis' lack good faith this reflects poorly on your point. Your assumptions about me are just that assumptions. Please address what my reason was and how the occult links you keep adding are justified in contrast having them and omitting philosophy ones. LoveMonkey 16:21, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

The "previous occultist" referred to by LoveMonkey is incorrect about the purpose of disambiguation pages. The purpose is to allow the reader to parse through and find their way to the various notable uses of the term, whichever ones they might happen to be looking for.

As to assumptions about other users' edits, I like to take it one point at a time. A quick review of LoveMonkey's recent contributions, however, indicates that (well, whaddya know) there is in fact a preferred POV involved here across a number of articles. To the extent that there is a POV involved (specifically, User:LoveMonkey's very apparent attempts to remove "heresies" from Wikipedia articles on theological topics), that POV should rightly be put forward in a relevant article if it is notable (WP:RS) and verifiable (WP:VER), and balanced with other POVs in keeping with the principle of WP:NPOV rather than removed as LoveMonkey has done in this case. Also, when LoveMonkey throws in a quick reference to the principle of good faith by making the statement "Now as for all of kenosis' lack good faith...", LoveMonkey apparently either misunderstands or misuses the term "good faith" as it is intended to be used in Wikipedia. WP:AGF does not mean "anything goes" or "don't dare argue with User:X".

Let's please keep these articles objective, folks -- there are all kinds of notable points of view published in the world, and gnostic views, mystical views and philosophical views are no exception. LoveMonkey, I'm sorry you were mislead or wrongly persuaded about disambiguation pages (WP:D) by that other user (the "previous occultist" you referred to, whoever it was). ... Kenosis 18:06, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

POV would be addding occult links without re adding the philosophy links that I added and where removed by the previous occultists. The only one kidding themselves are those who believe that browbeating people and causing revert wars will change the fact that adding occult links without the actual historical philosophy links that generated the actual term is anything other then POV 2. How is adding a gnosticism link and not evening editing the article to mention Pythagorus 1, not POV? And stop with the ad hom. Also speaking of bias you 1. did not get any agreement with me before adding the links again and 2. You committed a 3RR. So much for rules that you like quoting hey kenosis. LoveMonkey 14:41, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Protected page

I have protected this article due to the edit war...reach a consensus here and let me know when there is an agreement and I can lift the protection. Thanks.--MONGO 04:36, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

OK I have a proposed draft of a compromise at User:Bmorton3/Monad, you can look and edit. I have removed the image. (If we have the Pythagorean image, then why not the Technocratic one?, Images are suspiciously POV for a disamb page). I moved the philosophy to the end, and collapsed a lot of it, but not all of it, I felt some distinctions were still worth making here. I included the Hermetic stuff under philosophy. I did keep the Gnosticism link seperate since it has its own page, but I lumped it under the category of ancient greek philosophical positions. Also I think the contexts of Ancient Greek Philosophy and Gnostic Religion are distinct enough to warrant seperate entries, even though the meaning of the term is pretty darn similar in each of them. I agree that monad in the occult is pretty similar to its understanding in Pythagoreanism, but look at the disam page for and, its grammatical meaning and its logical meaning are similar and related, but get seperate entries because its context of use is so different. That seems analogous to our case here. Is this satsifactory to LoveMonkey? Is it satisfactory to Kenosis? Anyone else want to comment? Bmorton3 16:29, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Agreed but no one removes the Pythagorus references. That's what started this whole thing.

The concept is significately Pythagorus'. I was not the one who removed the gnostic references until the other pro occultist removed the philo ones. Either both or none at all. LoveMonkey 19:23, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Would the "intervening" editor here please get their facts straight before making fast-and-loose assumptions? I know y'all have a lot on your respective agendas, but please get the facts straight first before diving in with a quick scan and a conclusion, along with, of all things, locking an article. This article has had less than 50 edits since May (here's the history). Apparently several users have disagreed with some of LoveMonkey's preferred disambigs, which appear to have started around the middle of July. In the course of business in Wikipedia this is no big deal and happens all the time. The recent arguments between User:LoveMonkey and User:Kenosis (immediately above) are already over, as I've decided not to respond to the tendentious nature of the last post a couple of days ago.

But since the issue's been framed as an "edit war", let's review the last week as it relates to this notion of an "edit war":

1. Kenosis adds the standard gnostic use to the disambiguation
2. Kenosis adds "Hermetica" as an additional disambig for use in that book
3. Immediately reverted by LoveMonkey
4. First revert by Kenosis with the edit summary (Revert to previous version by LoveMonkey. These perspectives are legitimate dismbigs or uses of the term. Other editors thoughfully included those perspectives, and they rightly remain in the article) Note carefully that Kenosis has reverted to the previous version by LoveMonkey, so this is not a blanket dispute about an editor, but about a specific issue, which was the removal of uses considered "mystical".
5. Second revert by LoveMonkey with the highly misleading edit summary (Cleanup per WP:D -- removal of non "monad" article links, and simplification of disambiguation text this is continuing iseue as stated w/hamil). Fact is, this is a simple revert by LoveMonkey, his second of September 24, despite what the edit summary says.
6. addition edit by LoveMonkey, a reasonable edit with an irrelevant communique saying (Take it to the talk page kenosis)
7. On the following day, Kenosis reverts, his first of September 25 here with the edit summary (Revert misleading edit. This was not "cleanup" by LoveMonkey, but intentional removal of disambigs disliked by LoveMonkey).
8. Kenosis then followed up with minor cleanup of excess formatting here with the edit summary (cleanup), which incidentally is a very reasonable use of the word "cleanup". In the meantime, discussion proceeded on the talk page.
9. Four days later, LoveMonkey implements an edit adding additional disambigs here, quite reasonable in general, even if debatable; followed up with a minor cleanup here. In other words, within the last week there have been two reverts by LoveMonkey (on September 24), and two by Kenosis (one on September 24 and one on September 25).
10. Then User:MONGO, an administrator, locks the article here on the basis of an "edit war".

Kenosis 19:31, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

And, to add to the unnecessary confusion, User:MONGO left a 3RR notice on my talk page after my first and only reversion on September 25 here, thus apparently prompting User:LoveMonkey to make the statement on this talk page above: " Also speaking of bias you 1. did not get any agreement with me before adding the links again and 2. You committed a 3RR. So much for rules that you like quoting hey kenosis." My point being, if administrators who have a lot on their agendas don't take the extra time to look carefully at what's going on before they make their judgments and imposing their actions, it can lead to a great deal of time-consuming extra work to untangle additional messes that were not part of the original set of interpersonal exchanges.

Although User:LoveMonkey has shown a tendency to get angry on the talk page, he appeared to me to have a valid point about having been incorrectly persuaded within the last two-and-a-half months about how to deal with disagreements about disambiguation pages. His preferred material referring to the neoplatonic and other Christianity-related POVs on the subject had been removed, so his approach to NPOV was to remove the gnostic and "occult" links too. I thought we settled that issue this past week, and the most recent two edits by LoveMonkey were merely adding perspectives on "monad" representing another important theological POV on the idea of "unity", "oneness", etc. I also think User:Bmorton3 proposed another reasonable way to organize the page just above (at User:Bmorton3/Monad, although I see no reason to delete the image, which speaks objectively to the original usage of the term by the Greek philosophers and describes the use of the term prior to the advent of trinitarian perspectives in the fourth century CE). ... Kenosis 20:02, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

That image doesn't bias one way or the other for the uses you and LoveMonkey are fighting about, but it does bias for the old philosophical uses, and against the mathematical uses, or the Technocratic use. Essential the problem is there is no way to use the image that is fair to all parts of the page. The guideline at Wikipedia:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages) says "Including images is discouraged unless they aid in selecting between articles. Examples of this are the images at Congo (disambiguation) and Mississippi Delta (disambiguation)." Bmorton3 20:28, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm just amazed it's a contested point (no pun intended). What image can capture all of a diverse subject such as the concept "one" or "discreet, rather than continuous"?. Is there that much contention over this point? ... Kenosis 21:04, 29 September 2006 (UTC) And, there we all go again, making quick judgments without thoroughly reading the exchanges. The statement "That image doesn't bias one way or the other for the uses you and LoveMonkey are fighting about" neglects to fully consider the content of what I just said, which is: LoveMonkey was arguing that verifiable POV's which (s)he previously inserted were removed by one or more other editors, so the way for LoveMonkey to achieve NPOV was to remove the "opposing" POVs too. I was arguing to LoveMonkey that the way to deal with this issue is not to remove verified POV's but to include them all (especially in a disambiguation, where WP:NPOV#Undue_weight is not ordinarily a significant issue). ... Kenosis 01:05, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

No there isn't contention, there is a guideline saying don't use images on disambig pages unless they illustrate the disambiguation. If we wanted and image we could use

(A)Technocracy's Monad

or

(B) The Monad was a symbol referred by the Greek philosophers as "The First", "The Seed", "The Essence", "The Builder", and "The Foundation". Also referred to as "Unity."

or

(C) PowerShell RC 1, code named "monad", running under Windows Vista

or

(D) a diagrammatic representation of the definition of a monad in category theory

Depending on whether we think modern philosophy, ancient philosophy, Contemporary computing, or the Mathematics of Category theory is most relevant! Bmorton3 21:18, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Didn't know about the policy on images for disambigs; it's on WP:D? ... Kenosis 23:08, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

OK lets definately keep the mention of Pythagoras in the ancient Greek usage, and also allow the Hermetic and Gnostic usage, and try to keep this a short disamg page rather than an essay on the development of the term over time in the history of philosophy. All agreed? Let's unlock! Bmorton3 19:50, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Agreed Professor! LoveMonkey 23:54, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Agreed as well. As indicated above, this set of arguments was already over; and this block unnecessary under the present circumstances. LoveMonkey, any thoughts about Bmorton3's proposed modifications to the page? (User:Bmorton3/Monad) ... Kenosis 00:48, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Epicurus and the monad

I have deleted the following entry from the article:

• Monad, a term used by the ancient philosopher Epicurus to describe the smallest units of matter, much like Democritus's notion of an atom (atomism)

There is no indication whatsoever that Epicurus ever used the word 'monad' to describe the smallest indivisible units of matter. In all of his preserved writings he was perfectly happy to follow Democritus' lead and speak of 'atoms'. --Fabullus 21:02, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

"Monad" in Greek Philosophy

The first definition of monad here shows some signs of original research and is saddled with a bit of theosophy. It's true the Neoplatonists occasionally used the term to describe the One, which they equated with god, but this usage is hardly the common one. Plato and Aristotle, when they do use the term (i.e., in the Philebus, Topics, Metaphysics), never do so to discuss a deity of any sort. Further, the word μονας does not even appear in the extant fragments from Parmenides. Also, it's sloppy to attribute usage of "monad" to Pythagoras himself when we posses none of his writings (if he wrote anything at all). Please avoid making contributions if you're not familiar with the primary sources. T of Locri (talk) 04:22, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

It's not supposed to be a definition, it's just supposed to be a brief pointer to a real article. With only one link. I undid your expansion which made it even longer and had more than one link, but I'd have no objection if you come up with a more concise and more accurate rephrasing of this line that only has the one link. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:16, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Not linking genus is fine by me, but I don't think the text added is extraneous. A compound sentence is preferable to one that's simply false.

T of Locri (talk) 05:48, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

A strange use of the term

http://www.mathematik.uni-muenchen.de/~pareigis/Vorlesungen/04SS/Cats1.pdf See pp.6, 8, 9, 15 77.125.104.71 (talk) 10:31, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

Monadic

Do we really need it in the same dab page as monad? Not sure what the guidelines say on this type of issue... Tijfo098 (talk) 09:12, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Just to make it clear, I've moved it out of "monad may refer to" because I've not seen a single math/logic/compsci source where monad is used to refer to monadic function/predicate etc. Tijfo098 (talk) 08:29, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

• Monadic is an adjective, so is unlikely to be the title of any article and I can't see it having its own dab page, but it seems reasonable to leave it redirected to this page as most of its uses seem to be "of or relating to" something called a "Monad". I've added it to the "Wiktionary" link at the top, and have given a "See also" section whereby people can reach the partial title matches - ie titles which start with "Monadic", but which would have no place in a dab page at "Monadic" (if this existed) because they are not ambiguous with "Monadic". I just can't work out what to do with the fleeting mention of "Monadic" in the arity article, lost in my change: it might be better added to Wikitionary? I don't think it really belongs in this dab page: it's only an example of an "alternative nomenclature" for an "other name", which seems pretty minimal! I suspect that the "Monad" page could benefit from a cleanup, it seems to include a few items which shouldn't really be in the dab page, but am not inclined to do it myself (and risk prolonged arguments, from the look of the above talk page!). PamD (talk) 08:55, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

• But it might be possible to construct a tiny dab page at "Monadic", with Wiktionary link, to point to the Monad page and the sense used in Arity, with the same "lookfrom" and "intitle" links. PamD (talk) 08:59, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Ok, I've added an entry in wikt:monadic (it was missing the math sense although Collins Unabridged has it [1]), and I changed the Monadic page here to point to that. Tijfo098 (talk) 18:40, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

• I've recreate it as a dab because (1) the adjective has uses that don't transfer to the noun, e.g. a unary/monadic function is not called a monad and neither is a univalent/monadic ion called a monad and (2) because we do have dabs for some adjectives, e.g. monovalent. Tijfo098 (talk) 06:24, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Monad (philosophy) which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 20:15, 12 April 2018 (UTC)