Squad Your choice of topics is below. As the call for topics was slightly delayed I'll close the voting a day later this time, so you've got until midnight GMT on 1 Sept. To vote simply reply to this message and state the number of your choice. New members are very welcome to join in. cheers Diana --------------------- 1. (Mark Butler) "Fortunately our existence and language don't quite tie us down to such an extent [q.v. Orwell's '1984' and Newspeak] and the open-endedness can be sufficient to prise open the conceptual barriers. In the context of Zen, koans are this method, I guess. In the much more freewheeling western culture you need books like ZAMM and Lila and www.moq.org to prise the lid off the metaphysical cookie jar, 'cos we're not too hot on pithy aphorisms anymore." (Hamish Muirhead, letter to MOQ Focus, Sat Jul 29, 2000) How specifically might 'the open-endedness of language prise open its own conceptual barriers for the benefit of our free-wheeling western culture'? 2. (3WD) In their books ''Metaphors We Live By'' and "Philosophy In The Flesh" George Lakoff and Mark Johnson make the following points: "The mind is inherently embodied. Thought is mostly unconscious. Abstract concepts are largely metaphorical." According to Lakoff, metaphor appears to be a neural mechanism that allows us to adapt the neural systems used in sensory-motor activity to create forms of abstract reason. "If this is correct, as it seems to be," he says, "our sensory-motor systems thus limit the abstract reasoning that we can perform. Anything we can think or understand is shaped by, made possible by, and limited by our bodies, brains, and our embodied interactions in the world. This is what we have to theorize with." Assuming there is value to this theory: Let's explore the relationship between metaphors and the MoQ ? Are they primary to its development? If so, which ones, how many, etc? The goal being if an understandable metaphor or a series of metaphors could be found it might possibly be the elusive "catechism of the MoQ" MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org
