ANDREA WRITES:
> from merriam-webster (online):
> continuous: marked by uninterrupted extension in space, time, or sequence.
> discrete: noncontinuous
>
> I was not saying that the discrete/continuous distinction is metaphorical in
> se, just that applying continuous to "reality" and discrete to "language" is
> metaphorical. Looks like a physical metaphor to me.
ELEPHANT:
It cannot, in this case, be a "physical metaphor", since in order for their
to be the "discrete" stuff in physics that you claim to be the basis of the
metaphor, discrete language itself must be used to create it.
Yours is thus a picture of a snake eating itself.
I take this to be a sign that the discrete/continous distiction is apriori
and not metaphorical in origin at all. This is in fact born out by the
dictionary citation which does not limit the distinction to spatio-temporal
sequence, but applies it *universally*.
"or sequence" - it's all there.
Elephant
p.s.
ANDREA ALSO WROTE:
> I wonder, also, whether a reasoning w/out metaphors actually feels like
> "reasoning" or just like "manipulation of symbols" (no meanings and no *value*
> attached).
ELEPHANT:
I am aware of the thought and I do puzzle over it myself. There is
something right in what you say. But remember that what Zen might call
"right thinking" isn't exactly "reasoning" in the pragmatic sense. Still,
value, the good, is very present in this "emptiness". Indeed I would say
that it's reality is *indicated* by the right kind of emptiness. The
hollowness, the *strain* of language attempting to only speak the truth, is
perhaps the only way to indicate the reality which it would otherwise
falsify. What does the manipulation of symbols show us? It shows us what
it leaves out.
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