Doyle,
Text is linear, but speech takes advantage of the real time aspects
of consciousness to be used non-linearly. Metaphor is a non-linear
integrative evidence of multiple fields in the brain interacting.
However, metaphor in text loses it's non-linear features by the
routinization of the words in the grammatical practice of written text.
That's probably why a more verbal culture (less writing more speaking to
each other) appreciates poetry because of the non-linear play in language
eroded in our culture by constant attention to text.
^^^^^^
CB; Maybe the possibility that writing, texts, originate in commodity
exchange (cuneiform wedges used in trade/taxing in Mesopotamia)is pertient
here. Counting or arithmetic too; counting might be the first writing if
writing starts in commodity exchange thus the number _line_ may be the first
line,pertinent to these musings about lines.
(see Chapter One of Vol. I of Capital on the theoretical origin of commodity
exchange).
Metaphor is sort of algebra...so.
