What is an Ark?

Since this question came up on Bill's blog I thought it would be useful to comment about it here.

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In Rolonics we have coined the term Ark to connote a vessel that contains knowledge.

In choosing this term we, of course, chose to respect the two deep traditional meanings of the word:
1. A floating house that contains all species
2. A box or container that contains sacred knowledge

So an Ark is a vessel. In Rolonics vessels are special.

Without a proper boundary you cannot contain, retain, and maintain knowledge. Arks provide such a boundary.

Arks provide:
- a context for Realms
- an internal environment so that realms can interact with other realms.
- a permeable membrane so that Realms can interact with the outside world
- services for Realms to interact with other Realms within other Arks
- homeostasis for Realms.

Arks are our floating houses; our sacred vessels; our knowledge keepers.

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Finally, for those who insist on acronyms, we have one. We sometimes refer to an Ark as an "Agile Repository of Knowledge". However, the egg came before the chicken.

;-norm