> -----Original Message-----
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of elephant
> Sent: Sunday, 8 April 2001 4:36
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Re: Yes! MD rogers metaphors
>
>
> Irony, sarcasm, bitterness, fatigue.
>
> I'm dissapointed that I create these reactions. I have not made myself
> understood at all, atleast not by Andrea - and he's an intelligent guy -
> this is something for me to be ashamed of.
>
> Perhaps this is because it seems so obvious to me, so that I fail to
> anticipate the points of difficulty. But really, I read what I
> have written
> and it does seem to say just exactly what it needs to say. I have said it
> all, but apparently I have not said it in the right way yet, and
> this makes
> me dispair because I have said what I have to say in several
> different ways
> without success. Perhaps there is someone, just one, who has undestood?
> Declare yourself - I'm in need of reassurance.
>
> I will try again.
>
> I have been saying that "discrete" cannot be a metaphor. My reasoning has
> been has follows.
>
> 1. Metaphor is (something like) seeing one object as (or in terms of)
> another.
like using maps to interpret territory... but good maps can be confused with
the territory...
> 2. All objects whatsoever are discrete.
I posted a paper to this list recently which you didnt read or you tried to
but failed. What it showed was that ordinality, and so an emphasis on 1st,
2nd, 3rd... and from that discreteness, is derived from cardinality, from
topological processes, as an attempt to be 'precise' but WITHIN a context,
often 'hidden', rooted in cardinality, in topological space.
In the concept of neural prisms introduced in that paper we recognise that a
topological experience is present in all of us, where your senses, every
'point', is *mapped* to a 'sheet', a rubber sheet if you like (our skin is
part of this 'sheet', as are all visual, auditory etc sense data). Each
point can act like a prism (see http://www.eisa.net.au/~lofting/prisms.JPG )
The distortions and exagerations of that sheet, and for particular points,
are expressions of differences that we detect and that detection then uses
feedback to zoom-in for more details and that process works recursively that
leads to the emergence of what seems to be an ordinal emphasis (see
http://www.eisa.net.au/~lofting/btree.JPG ) The act of zooming-in creates
the sensation of discreteness BUT the underlying topological presence is
still there, as is the emphasis that 'all is linked together'; in the 'pure'
topological world there is no such thing as 'ordinality'; all is cardinal
(Such that discrete, cause/effect ordinal perspectives associate concepts
such as discretness and 'randomness' to the expressions of 'pure'
cardinality).
In human development that part of the human brain that is more biased to
working with topological issues is more developed in infants prior to
speech. With speech also comes an increase in ordinality which eventually
takes over -- syntax rules. The topological part becomes specialised in the
area of dealing with cardinalty -- emotional distortions, exagerations that
include the concept of negation. WE see the development from the general
(topology) to the particular but a particular that is an extreme.
This development, this bias to ordinality leads inevitably to a bias to
discreteness. From this level of precision we make maps; we see metonymy
emerge where parts serve for wholes ('all is linked together'). Metaphors
develop as we use induction to make maps and abduction/deduction to refine
the maps. The maps become metaphors in that we become proactive by using the
maps and so 'live' through the maps - we live metaphors.
Language is a mapping system; language is a metaphor. ANY discreteness is a
result of the distortion, the exageration of a topological 'point' (or set
of 'points'). This process has become useful for our development as a
species but in doing so has also acted to 'hide' the underlying topological
emphasis.
> THEREFORE
> 4. Some object somewhere was discrete
in topology there is no 'somewhere' or 'somewhen' just exagerations,
distortions, a dynamic 'flow'....
when nothing else was, because some
> object was the first object and all objects are discrete (restates 2).
Wow note the EXTREME ordinality in this, your NEED for FIRSTNESS etc. You
are trying to work at the level of the particular and so exclude the general
but the particular is explicit that stems from the implicit, the world of
the general, the topological.
> AND
> 5. The use of "discrete" in that first case was not metaphorical because
> there was no other object that this first discrete object was
> seen in terms
> of (1 + 4).
At this level you are working WITHIN an underlying context determined by
that 'rubber sheet' of senses that hase been abstracted to the
'object/relationship' emphasis and so 'discreteness'.
> SO
> 6. "Discrete" has a non-metaphorical meaning (restates 5).
>
Since the discreteness is a process where a distortion/exagaration is
emphasised so the experience of it is a metaphor; the distortion is
representative, a map point, of a feeling that spreads out over the rubber
sheet, acts to distort/exagerate. Thus a severe distortion (e.g. psychosis,
neurosis) can act to interfere with all sensory learning experiences leading
to psychosomatic expressions even when the psychosis/neurosis is 'cured';
the learning of an experience during a period of 'instability' means the
'instability' gets encoded. The recall of the learning recalls the
'instability' even though there is no 'discrete' connection and the
'instability' is supposed to have been cured!
You are trying to be too discrete paciderm! too ordinal in thinking! :-)
Chris.
------------------
Chris Lofting
websites:
http://www.eisa.net.au/~lofting
http://www.ozemail.com.au/~ddiamond
List Owner: http://www.yahoogroups.com/group/semiosis
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