I wonder if anybody has any comment to make on the following passage from EB
holt? (Remember, I am the guy who tends to ask questions of PEOPLE when he
should look them up, so feel free to ignore me here.)
Holt (1914) writes: "If one is walking in the woods, and remarks that "All
this is Epping Forest," one may mean that this entire manifold of some square
miles is the forest; or else, that every twig and leaf which one sees, in
short, every least fragment of the whole is Epping Forest. The former meaning
is the true one; the latter meaning is absolutely false. Everyone admits that
while a circle is a manifold of points, a single point is not a circle; while a
house is a manifold of bricks, boards and nails and any single brick is not a
house. "
I am interested in this concept of "manifold" . Can anybody make the metaphor
come alive for me? Is it like a shroud?
Nick
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
Clark University ([email protected])
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
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