And allowing ideas to have abstract representation offers a potential methodology for analyzing systems of ideas without getting stuck on incongruent interpretations and associations. This way we can look at idea structures apart from distracting, and sometimes inflammatory, ideological baggage. Due to the extreme complexity of idea structures this approach may facilitate conversations about consciousness and ontology that cross over discrepancies in vocabularies that continually tangle webs of communication. Technology and Art Chimpanzees modify sticks for termite snacks but humans weave tapestries of idea structures. Setting up dualities and dichotomies and literary oppositions are tools.
Visualizations are tools.
The development of tools or technologies demands a specific type of human activity that is imbedded with intentional functionality. So, the net of ideas devoted to utilitarian technological progression is inevitably intertwined with the net of human cognition and desire. They are extensions and productions of consciousness. We develop tools to facilitate survival, but identifying what facilitates survival is in constant flux. Communication devices that facilitate information processing, transfer and memory are tools that are imagined to maintain, perpetuate or enhance survival.