Well, good morning to you, Robin Many fine points: 1. We create a map but fail to include the mapmaker So we step back (to 3rd position!) and from that point of view we make a map of the map and the map maker. Then we realise we have created another map maker so we take a step back ... and so on ad infinitum." Incompleteness Theorem for Representation on page 105 Turtles All The Way Down - I'm there. 2. You wrote, "You misquote your own work.. The C operator as defined in Patterns 2 stands for congruency.  The R operator defines that which is available consciously" Agreed, thanks for the correction. 3. You wrote, "I propose (and John you may understand this in the context of Andy Clark's paper if you have had time to absorb that) that language as a part of our thinking has to arrive there like everything else through First Access" I am not convinced - indeed, one of the deep insanities of our species arises simply as we generate experiences with our high-powered representational system in the absence of transforms of differences of corresponding external events (hallucinating in all its ubiquitous forms - such as the dagger in MacBeth) and then fail to note (or remember) that we created what we are now confronted with - "The invention that returns to plague the inventor". The implication is that languages introduces (or perhaps more accurately, induces) distinction that are NO part of FA. This seems useful to me. 4. You wrote, "Each rep system will share a common F1 "logic" or patterning..." Yes and no - yes, at a general level of description and surely the logic(s) of f1 will be distinct from the logic(s) of f2 - for example, no universal quantifiers occur within f1 while they are ubiqutous in f2 language mapping where each noun implies a universal quantifier. No, in the sense that the distinct characteristics (they are different logical types) of the individual representational systems will bend and twist their particular logic distinctly from the bends and twists of the others. All this is (as you point out) a general admission of the woeful state of research and development in the fundamentals of our field. 5. You wrote, "*We have no way of specifying "chunk" size within the model." Miller, as you are aware, was artfully vague about chunk and knew it. The question of specifying chunk size is soluable for a specific model with an identified vocabulary (which, for purposes of making the specification, we can effectively treat as a closed system with a fixed vocabulary). Once the vocabulary is fixed (and with the temporary assumption of a closed system), it is possible (although non-trivial) to relativize the amount of information contained in an expression. We seem to me to be so far from a well-developed vocabulary that your point is, for practical purposes) correct although I think it important to note that it is a possibility - one I would not find profitable to pursue at this point. 6. You wrote, "*We have no way of specifying constructed as opposed to eidetic" Sure we do - this is the point of the lateralization cues in eye movements - one side (the non-dominant hemisphere access) for eidetic and the other (dominant hemisphere access) for constructed. Am I missing something here, Robin? 7. In two separate pieces, you wrote, " So while we have an abstract way of talking about that which is available at first access we have no clear definition of what first access is, it is simply a convenient verbal description at the moment." and "By now I think it should be clear that we have no operational definition for this function. we can use the calculus to describe experiences such as the ones Ryan mentions and we can use it as a useful pedagogical device as you do in Patterns 2 John but I think it would be a really interesting exercise to begin to relate this nomenclature back to some neurophysiology and some robust introspection." I perceive the situation slightly differently: you seem to suggest that there is no justification for distinguishing FA from others points in the processing of information. This is highly reminiscent of the arguments in Transformational Grammar of decades ago as to whether there was enough evidence to support deep structure as a distinguished point in the derivation of thought to utterance. Please point out where the difficulty is with how Carmen and I propose to define FA - the first point at which we have access to the reports of transforms of differences in the afferent pathways. Now, let us agree that FA with differs therefore from person to person and within each person, from state to state, depending largely on the function we call attention. This variability is to my way of thinking an advantage as it reminds us of the necessity of taking into account individual differences and the flexibility we can learn to exercise in extending or retracting the FA line in each of the input channels. Your more general point is, of course, perfectly valid - namely, "but I think it would be a really interesting exercise to begin to relate this nomenclature back to some neurophysiology and some robust introspection." Indeed, it was the hope of Carmen and me that the publication of Whispering would stimulate the identification of huge gaps in our field as a prerequisite for developing patterning and classes of evidence to fill these gaps. Surely, these are some of the most important tasks confronting anyone interested in refining NLP enough to position it as a legitimate method for the investigation of human functioning and in particular that most elusive form called excellence. 8. You wrote, Language is so imbedded in our thinking that we forget that it immediately introduces boundaries that do not exist."  and "As soon as you say "I feel my foot" you have created a boundary between yourself and your foot which does not exist." I would argue that from the perceptual position of researcher, there are important levels of analysis involved and that the boundary is there and the language is reflecting it. Consider the following: Ryan pushes his foot from time to time during the rocking exercise into the floor. The contact point between foot and floor is well-defined. The news of difference (stimulation of the receptors in the foot by that contact with the floor) travels up the long nerves in the leg and into the spinal column - at each synaptic junction, the structure of the transform (AND gate, OR gate...) and the bio-chemical environments (facilitating/inhibiting the neurological connections) acts on this movement of these differences as they pass adding, modifying, deleting... in undefined ways. The culmination of these unmapped transforms is FA where we first have access to these transformed differences. The perceptual "I" (as you mentioned elsewhere badly in need of explication - BTW, clearly a function as opposed to a constant) now receives this information. In that sense, the language is in the loop as part the neurology and in this particular case is a relatively useful mapping of the actual sequence of neurological events. Finally, you close with, "I challenge "you" to go in search of "you" without getting lost in infinite recursion!!!!" If you will define "I" in the sentence above, I will surely be competent to define the "you" in that same sentence. :) All the best, John