What Is Stratified Thinking

When I was in elementary school in French class (ie, English class to you) we learned a bunch of rules for conjugation in first grade. Then we learned more complex rules in the second grade because the first
ones were wrong. Then we learned still more complex rules in third grade. I thought it was a remarkably stupid way to learn because you kept being taught lies.

Complication layered over complication, with each layer of rules being more specific and less general. That is stratification or archeological thinking. One layer over another. It's Gaian thinking. Synthesis, analysis, generalization, abstraction, and many other things, are completely alien to this way of thinking.

When breeding, Gaians are in love with multiplication. "Be fruitful and multiply". Because they love to "bring babies into the world". You know what else has multiplication? Ring theory in mathematics. And by no coincidence whatsoever, ring theory is about ... rings, which are ... circles. Which Gaians worship since they're perfect embodiments of rotational symmetry.

And everywhere else than breeding, they are in love with continuity and derivation. As in, derivatives.
Everything is "the previous situation plus a tiny derivative" in their minds.

If they worked in a gas station and then a nuclear power plant, they would try to apply the rules for the gas station to their new workplace first, until something broke and they realized they need new
rules. Or someone forced them to do it beforehand. The thought "those two things aren't similar" would never occur to them anymore than "people aren't trees".

In their minds, a nuclear power plant is merely a more specific case of a workplace which a gas station is a more general example of. And a human being is a more specific case of a living being which a tree is not merely a more general example of but a more PERFECT example of. Why? Because trees have rotational symmetry. Not because they're fractal or because their biomass outweighs humanity, but simply because ... you can rotate them on their axis and they'll still look identical.

Stratified thinking. Also claddistic thinking (Harry Potter, son of James Potter, exactly like James Potter except for a few derivations). Also ... casuistry. Which is still used in legal circles in common law jurisdictions. Oh yeah, I thought that would stop the snickering of anyone who knew medieval teaching methods. It's still used today!!