[Ian] On your point here ... yes those "phsyical" attributes are the metaphors we use for those particular patterns of value. MoQ doesn't undermine "scientific understanding", it underpins it with a reminder that none of this stuff is as objective as our metaphors lead us to assume.
[Case] I suppose that is a matter of your metaphors. I think of reality as an eddy in a trout stream, a tumbleweed, a dust devil. I would make a Taoist Yin Yang symbol of broccoli and cauliflower. I think of lightning and fire. I dream of capillaries swollen from lactation. [Ian] Your examples are inorganic (physical) patterns, but the moon can be involved in dancing-in-the-moonlight, green-cheese and moonlight-sonata patterns too, but they are on quite different levels .... I'm just repeating your point ? [Case] My point is that the pattern of the moon can only be determined through its context. In its objective context the moon is mass and reflectivity, basically a set of numbers. This context is valuable because it is equally valid for anyone who can understand it and it applies to them even if they don't. It is universal but sterile. In the context of a convertible on a quiet night in a secluded spot the moon may more properly understood through a different set of associations. The moon fits into many sets of patterns of values from science fiction and nursery rhymes. The moon as a pattern of values is never truly static our metaphors for it shift to fit the current context. We are no more locked into a single way of understanding the moon than it can be confined to a single pattern. The whole point of the objective point of view is to establish to the extent possible, things about the moon that are not dependant on context. Its mass and position relative to the earth; its phase can be determined regardless of whatever mood one is in. It has been said that this imagined stripped down view is itself a point of view. Perhaps so but this does not diminish its utility or its applicability. The moon in any context is informed by, but not limited to this objective point of view. The moon in a romantic context is not less romantic because we know it is a big rock instead of a slab of limburger. Knowing that it has one sixth the gravity of earth stimulates the imagination it does not stifle it. Think of making love at one sixth your weight on a trampoline under the earthlight. In what sense is the moon a static pattern when it can understood in so many different ways and different contexts? [Ian] The point of the levels is as you say that many different kinds of pattern arise, things that underpin our everyday metaphors of physical, biological, socio-cultural, etc. All underpinned by the same idea of patterns, so all fundamentally (non-objective) value patterns, but quite different patterns none-the-less. [Case] And here my point is that our understanding of the moon can not be relegated to any fixed set of patterns and to the extent that it can, that is objectively, it becomes ever more sterile. The meaning of the moon is largely determined by its context. The moon is a static pattern of meaning that changes dynamically. I get the feeling that this is the sort of thing Jos and Ron are getting at with topos. 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/
