Glen, At the risk of being dumb, I would say that when we peal an onion we get layers; when we slice an onion, we get cross-sections; is there any way we can get a "level" out of an onion?
N Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology Clark University http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ -----Original Message----- From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Steven A Smith Sent: Monday, June 12, 2017 1:25 PM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam@redfish.com> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] sometimes an onion is just an onion... Glen - > It is nice to see another person admit to their premature registration! Thanks. I took it as a simple 'mis-registration'. I'll think about "premature" a little more... > I brought up an onion as an example of a thing that, when analyzed with levels produces a different result than when analyzed with layers. I think I get your point. I admit to being guilty with you as some of my professors in college were of marking you down for not "showing all the steps" in a derivation. I know you to be able to skip a level of abstraction (take it for granted) without being explicit (to my apprehension anyway). They eventually quit giving me F's for that antisocialism and began to give me A's for the implied skill in not HAVING to be so explicit when there was plenty of room to fill in the blanks conceptually if one tried. > You have to admit that slicing an onion produces different results > than prying off its layers one by one. Rigth?j and do I read you correctly that a sliced onion exhibits the abstraction of levels (outside-in?) and their juxtaposed contrast each with the next or the many with one or the few, while the peeled onion exhibits layers (each one coherent in itself and only exposing, at most the next layer and/or the remaining (sub) whole? And in the immortal words of someone else here years ago "but will it blend?" : http://www.willitblend.com/ Odd that some use "ideasthesia" and "conceptual blending" in similar ways to "conceptual metaphor". So "blending" itself is a metaphor... recursion up the moibeus ourobourousian tailpipe? Or is it down the rabbit hole? Or is that more a literary allusion than a metaphor? Go ask Alice, when she's ten feet tall! Thank you Grace Slick! I'm waiting for "Jefferson Wormhole" to form and transport us to another universe. Metaphorically speaking of course! - Sneeze > > On 06/12/2017 10:01 AM, Steven A Smith wrote: >> I always appreciate your corrections. You are naturally the only one who really knows what you meant when you brought it up. I thought I remembered that you invoked the onion and it's layers to try to explain your distinction between levels and layers and the utility of the same in the discussion of Complexity Science. >> >> I know how to slice onions with a knife, I've even been known to crush small ones like a garlic clove, and have even run them through a blender for various culinary purposes, but in this discussion, I can't think why we would have been talking about an onion if not as the source domain for a metaphor. Why were we talking about an onion? I remember a discursion into or near the embryological implications of how onions form their layers? ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
