Ed Baker FLS ARCS

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Interdisciplinary researcher using sensor networks and acoustics to monitor biodiversity and environments.

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Some thoughts on

Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge's Taxonomy

In the essay "The Analytical Language of John Wilkins" (El idioma analítico de John Wilkins), published in 1942, Jorge Luis Borges writes:

"These ambiguities, redundancies, and deficiencies recall those attributed by Dr. Franz Kuhn to a certain Chinese encyclopedia called the Heavenly Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge. In its distant pages it is written that animals are divided into (a) those that belong to the emperor; (b) embalmed ones; (c) those that are trained; (d) suckling pigs; (e) mermaids; (f) fabulous ones; (g) stray dogs; (h) those that are included in this classification; (i) those that tremble as if they were mad; (j) innumerable ones; (k) those drawn with a very fine camel's-hair brush; (l) etcetera; (m) those that have just broken the flower vase; (n) those that at a distance resemble flies."