3. MACROSCOPIC PROPERTIES OF THE MK PROCESS

Some general characteristics of the MK Process are:

1. An apparent simplicity.

2. An ill-defined complexity, which reveals vistas of major expansions and great richness.

3. The realization that no precise definition of the MK Process can be accepted, because of the intrinsic scope and generality that are implicit in the process itself.

The only satisfactory ways of defining the MK Process are (a) by examples of its use; (b) by isolated statements concerning aspects of its nature; and (c) by developing sequences of questions [not answers!] that are capable of transporting the observer into a mental climate that is, identically, the only complete form of the MK Process itself.

Among the isolated statements that can be made is the following:

The MK Process is a procedure, a methodology, an operator, that makes possible the arrangement (classification) of stellar spectra into prepared structures that are defined by the spectra of arrays of individual standard stars.