CONTENTS 118.5 Y NEXT
Y: the symbol that takes its meaning from the context


The symbol 'Y' is the topological essence of bifurcation. The Y junction on the highway of folklore is the archetypical symbol of binary choice. Life is full of choices between the left or the right, and there is very often no way back. Roads, rivers, arteries, root systems and snakes tongues... anywhere where there is a system of energy transfer... bifurcation is often a pragmatic option.

'Y' is often the conventional dependant variable for two dimensional mathematical space. It is the symbol most often used in mathematical expressions for (single-valued) functions which have x as their independent variable. Thus y = 1 + 2x - x3 and y = cos(x) + sin(x) are both simple single valued functions where for any chosen value of x, there is a single unique value of y that corresponds to it.

'Y' is a label for the chromosome that makes a woman appear to be a man. Put another way... it is used as a label for the chromosome that makes a man think he is not a woman. The Y chromosome has the effect of adjusting a female XX phenotype human to an XY male phenotype. It modifies the intellectual capacities of the male in such a manner that they are able to ignore their obvious residual female attributes like breasts and nipples, and perpetuate the absurd religious propaganda that femaleness is secondary to, inferior to, and derivative of maleness. Eventually the Y chromosome will become extinct... because technology will make it redundant... and this particular meaning of Y will be consigned to irrelevance.

Some demographic commentators use the label 'Generation Y' to refer to those individuals born between 1975 and 1995 (or thereabouts). Certain characteristics of this group are supposed... like being technologically oriented and having a short attention span... on the assumption that such a 'simplification' is helpful. But human societies are subject to an ever-changing environment... revolutions, famine, climate change, etc... and no one generation ever has to cope with exactly the same set of problems as previous generations. Partitioning a demographic group according to their birth dates is unlikely to allow for the innumerable significant factors that do not conveniently conform to the chosen dates.

Like its precursor 'x', it also is commonly used in several quite different contexts and its function and meaning can only be determined from that context. It is a shorthand for affirmative... i.e. one half of the Y/N (yes/no) response to a query. It is a symbol for the element Yttrium. It is a common suffix symbol that converts unwary nouns into adjectives by heating under pressure. Water becomes waterY... earth becomes earthY... air becomes airY... sex becomes sexY...


CONTENTS 118.5 Y NEXT