The types of entanglements At first we should find what the difference is between types and sorts and kinds and varieties and brands and so on because with no doubt there are differences however we will not do that because such consideration will cause sort of mental entanglement which we would like to avoid, we don’t know why since such an entanglement could be very interesting and fascinating object of studies, well, if only to find what has been tangled and where, inside the head or outside it. Let’s presume we are not interested in it. Let them be the types. We emphasize it strongly: entanglements are the point, knots are not. Tangles appear spontaneously, against our will, though not necessarily against cables’ will [(now everybody will be resented – let them be resented, and when they cool down, let them consider if they have a will)] while knots are the results of tying, or an action that is deliberate, intentional, conscious, at least to some extent. We should not forget about knots which tied absolutely intentionally due to an absolutely unintentional jerk or pull or any other move caused by our impatience or lack of attention or unjustified haste turns into a nasty tangle. This is a moment and a place when and where spontaneity combines with intentionality. The logic prompts that untanglable-nonuntanglable should be the basic distinction. The same logic also prompts we should consider if there are any entanglements that can not be untangled. If something get tangled it can be untangled as well provided that this entanglement has caused no change of physical features, for example cables have not been melted and glued or fused. If it happened so we would face something more than a mere entanglement, something different by its nature hence it would not be within the area of our interest, for it would not be just tangling, it would be something else and we would not be interested to find what it was. So, if there are no entanglement nonuntanglable, there is no such distinction either and there are no types. It will be far better to write and talk about entanglements easy-to-untangle and hard-to-untangle. Definitely yes. Then we could define the scale of untanglability – it would be calibrated by referring to the level of our rage. Of course this scale would be extremely relative and the reasons of its relativity need no mentions at all, however, despite its all flaws it could be more precise than counting “crossings” which had to be spotted inside a terrible snarl, couldn’t it? The cuttable-uncuttable distinction, following the legend of a very famous knot, doesn’t seem reasonable and the logic doesn’t prompt it – does the cutting bring any profits? The most famous knot was destroyed and nobody could learn how it had been tied thus we lost the unique chance to learn to tie the unknotable knots, our knowledge had been diminished irrevocably, and the one who cut the knot have been boasted, praised and eulogized though he should have been condemned for his ignoble deed. Cutting tangled cables, or a cable, would have no sense, either; cables would be destroyed and would not work while tangled cables keep on working and connecting, unless a kink would tear the wire inside, which can and used to happen quite often. In case of one cable it is reasonable to cut away the entanglement, if it is a local one, limited, but the two parts should be connected once again which can be made easily, especially when there is only one wire inside the broken cable. Cutting a tangle in a thread would not be that easy because joining the two parts knotlessly might be a matter of magic. And cutting the whole big swirl of cables, like the one in a small brown old suitcase would have no sense at all, would be useless and stupid. Certainly, we should also think about the cables that can’t be cut, made of a material so durable and hard that no matter how sharp a tool is we will not be able to do it. Anything else? Yes. There is something the science doesn’t like very much and is reluctant to study due to its enormous elusiveness, lack of clarity, being too smudgy and frivolous… This is the beginning of the list of criteria much too intuitive, unclear, immeasurable, but so important in a daily life, physical, real, easily noticeable, perceived with great pleasure… So, entanglements can be: beautiful and ugly (can delight us with their accidental patterns or unexpected shapes) delicate and brutal (it may happen they can kill) exquisite and vulgar (mostly they are common) polite and impolite useful and useless (cables tangled usefully – it sounds like a line from a limerick) explicit and implicit real and seeming meaningful and meaningless (when somebody tries to read swirls and curls as signs of writing) . . . . . . . . . . . . . And many more can be invented and added to this list till it itself get tangled in a knot that can be neither cut nor untied. Now it looks like nothing else remains. Which could mean we have unknotted the not tangled dilemma of type distinction coming to the conclusion that distinguishing types and sorts and kinds and varieties and brands and so on would be but the redundant scholasticism, nevertheless we can’t forbid it. <<<