[Matt] Definition: "A rose _is_ a plant with thorns on it." Metaphor: "My love _is_ a rose."
[Arlo] I though the definition of a rose is "a red petaled flower"? Or maybe, "an aromatic flower with silky red petals"? No? What about "A rose is a perennial flower shrub or vine of the genus Rosa, within the family Rosaceae"? Hmm... or there's "Any of numerous shrubs or vines of the genus Rosa, having prickly stems, pinnately compound leaves, and variously colored, often fragrant flowers.".... And while contemplating this, I decided that a rose is not "a plant with thorns on it", twenty letters composing six monosyllabic words, at all. Those letters/words constitute a metaphor for whatever that thing is we experience that we agree gets referred to by sound "(rōz). Point: We try very hard to cement symbolic representations to the point where we forget that's what they are, and work off the assumption that our symbolic representations capture experience as it is, objectively, and neatly. [Matt] that "we depend a lot on" "this illusion." [Arlo] Sure, without a shared consistency discourse would be impossible. I remember reading once that Nietszche (that damned nihilist!!), I think, commented on the phrase "I saw a man with a hat" by saying that it could refer to such a wide range of experience that its amazing we are able to communicate meaning at all. Or was it Wittgenstein? Could be the speaker saw a cowboy, or a clown, or a king, or a baseball player, or a frenchman wearing a beret, maybe he was wearing it on his head, or carrying it, or had it tucked under his arm, maybe it was rainy, or sunny, or snowy, or foggy,.... and more than likely the image you formed in your head is vastly different than the one in mine, we accept this illusion because it allows us to form a shared context. [Matt] Why is it that when I say "DQ is X," if I fill it in with "a finger pointing at the moon" I get hurrahs, but if I fill it in with "a neuron firing in the brain" I get boos? [Arlo] You would not get hurrahs from me. DQ is NOT a finger pointing at the moon. The MOQ could be described this way, with DQ being the "moon" in this analogy. Neurons firing in the brain make the symbolic edifice of the MOQ possible, without a neuro-biology, socio-intellectual patterns (as we know them) can not exist. Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
