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#30 From: "Jud Evans" <Jud@...>
Date: Mon Feb 26, 2001 4:57 pm
Subject: Re: Re: Time and Space Jud@...
Send Email

Hi Jon!
A son in Spain and my two daughters  - one in USA and one in deepest darkest
Wales both want to join the AIT list - trouble is none of them are already
EGroups/Yahoo clients.  Have you got a letter which you just click on
Analytical Indicant Theory so that it simplifies what can be for a first
timer a quite intimidating exercise?
If you do have that you could send me [my original was corrupted] I could
add a few words of my own and then send it on?

Cheers!

Cat.

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#29 From: Sandra Ann Shaw <sas@...>
Date: Mon Feb 26, 2001 4:55 pm
Subject: Re: Dear Editor. sas@...
Send Email

Oh good - do we get to talk about the sexes!!

Personally, the only generalized division I would make between
the two is our experiences are different - mainly because
of reproduction and attraction, etc. After that I leave everything
up for grabs, including the sensitivity (my dad was more sensitive
than my mom), and all else.

A young navy officer told me what he thinks many men with MCP attributes
would think about women with intelligence, knowledge, math background, etc.
They might skirm but in the back of their heads they think 'we' (us
intelligent women) are arrogant because we don't know a simple principle
and that is that they (the MCP) could kill us with their own bare hands so
all the knowledge, intelligence, etc. doesn't really do us any good. Anyway,
that is how 'some' think.

Sandra

>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Wheeler Andrea" <colette1901@...>
> To: <analytical-indicant-theory@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Monday, February 26, 2001 12:03 AM
> Subject: Re: [analytical-indicant-theory] Dear Editor.
>
>
> > Dearest Catweasle,
> >
> > I've lost my network connection again - hence the
> > colette address. Yes, I'll try to find and post the
> > last two chapters to you. I'm struggling abit with the
> > Bishops stumble out of the back door of the brothel
> > and down to the harbour. Did I tell you about my
> > embarrassing situation? Perhaps, you or Jon (being a
> > younger man) could help me with it. Obviously I've
> > made such a fool out of myself again.
> > So what if our existences allowed for two really
> > different genders, that is to say not man and and not
> > man, man and (wo)man but man and a radically different
> > object unlike man in every way, irreducible to him, Am
> > I being silly now? So the world was unconquerable to
> > him?
> >
> > Love
> > <kiss><kiss>
> > Andrea
>
> Hi Andrea!
> First let me thank you for sending 19 & 20 of our cyber-novel The Falchion
> of Supervenience. After a long struggle I managed to set up a Direct Cable
> Link between my two computers.  It took a seven hours download to transfer
> all my information from one to the other.  I was lucky enough to chance of a
> wonderful free software programme for linking the two together  - it's
> called 'LapLink' and I can highly recommend it to any other listmember
> wishing to do a Aquinasian 'copula' job between two components of  an
> information processing system. :-)
>
> Regarding your tantalising 'what - if' scenario of the man and the object
> unlike man in every way, irreducible to him.
> To be honest Andrea, I am not really into 'what if' scenarios. Think of me
> rather as the Clint Eastwood of philosophy [spit]   - if I can't see the
> danged crotalus horridus atricaudatus rattler in all its black and yellow
> reality, I tend to act as if it wasn't there and take another chaw of
> chewin' baccy. If I was a jocular male-chauvinist pig, [which I'm not,] I
> would make a silly remark like "women are from Venus and men from Mars,"
> retort and say that women already perform the function of being unlike man
> in every way, and irreducible to him.
> But the DON'T!   This is patently NOT so, for it is my experience that women
> are roughly speaking more sensitive and feeling about human relationships,
> more concerned with a stable relationship with their partner, and have the
> gift of this nurturing capability and desire for children -  but in effect
> are much more like men than the 'Problems of Inter-Gender Relations'
> industry would have us believe. I am generalising here of course. Personally
> I have always enjoyed a perfectly harmonious relationship with women because
> I have never patronised any of them, but rather treated them as my equals
> which they obviously are. I have many female friends - pals if you like,
> with whom I feel completely relaxed.  The quickest way to flatten a MCP
> would be to introduce him to highly capable and intelligent females like you
> and Sandra - introduce philosophy or mathematics into the conversation and
> watch him squirm.  :-)
> Regarding your personal man-problem - you know how I feel about it already.
> It's going nowhere - face that fact and wash him out of your hair. :-)
>
> Love
> <kiss><kiss>
> Cat
>
>
>
> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> analytical-indicant-theory-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
>
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>

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#28 From: "Andrea Wheeler" <Laxasw@...>
Date: Mon Feb 26, 2001 4:53 pm
Subject: Re: Dear Editor. Laxasw@...
Send Email

Hi George,

You not a catweasle here then? So it's not a what if then its a
demand, I demand the right to an I (she) in a non-hierarchal
relationship to another I(he) or I(she) or anything else. I need to
change our language to allow for this, perhaps I will start with some
architectural practice and please will you put your danged crotalus
horridus atricaudatus rattler in all its black and yellow reality, away,
its not nice.

Love
<kiss><kiss>
Andrea.

Reply | Forward | Messages in this Topic (13)

#27 From: Sandra Ann Shaw <sas@...>
Date: Mon Feb 26, 2001 4:43 pm
Subject: Re: Time and Space sas@...
Send Email

Hi Andrea,

I could take a stab. To me, it just says know what a symbol is, a symbol.
One of the requirements for a symbol is that at least two people (I would
say even more) agree to it or else it would be a 'pseudo-symbol (nonsense).
So you and I both know when I say two apples
what I mean by the symbol two as does, hopefully, everyone else on
this list. The first sentence is confusing to me. We see an object - we
call it an apple (sign). 'We' agree upon this as a 'community'. I
am not sure where the "subjects and not the exchange of women between
men" come in though. Probably wherever you got this is 'in context'
to some symbol. To me, whatever symbol(s) they are referring to, they
are saying that symbols are not necessarily specific as an exchange
between men and women - that people/subjects are the attributing factor.
But men and women are people/subjects - so I really don't get it.

Just some thoughts.

Sandra

> hi jon,
>
> i wondered if you or Cat (or anyone else) could help me with this
> quote and understanding what it might mean:
>
> I suggest starting again from a initial definiition of the symbol: an
> object-sign divided in two to indicate a meeting between two
> people, linked to each other through this division, both out of
> faithfulness to themselves and to the entire object-sign. I am not
> saying that meaning has to remain inert: it can evolve, but still
> keeping in mind this initial obligation. Hence it would be possible to
> say that the origin of the symbolic is an alliance between two
> subjects and not the exchange of women between men. This being
> understood the symbolic remains what it should be: a relationship
> of communication among people.Using the symbol in such a way
> is also means of escaping the abstraction of a symbolic order
> which risks destroying the meaning of the subject who obeys the
> law.
>
> -Luce Irigaray 'A Bridge Between Two Irreducible to Each Other'
>
> Thanks
> Andrea
>
>
> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> analytical-indicant-theory-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
>
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>

Reply | Forward | Messages in this Topic (11)

#26 From: "Jon Neivens" <jon@...>
Date: Mon Feb 26, 2001 4:33 pm
Subject: Re: Re: Time and Space jon@...
Send Email

Sandra:

I think the *time* issue is more of our "feelings" card we are dealt, i.e., "feeling of duration" and, then, our knowledge of events so we make temporal statements.

Jon:

I'd be seeing this as the simple inter-relation between spoken and unspoken mapping. Which are probably pretty much in a chicken/egg situation in terms of individual development. Each kind of just feeds off the other. Maybe, it's the "difference" between the "two temporalities," that leads us toward "time?"

Cheers, Jon.

Reply | Forward | Messages in this Topic (11)

#25 From: "Jud Evans" <Jud@...>
Date: Mon Feb 26, 2001 4:36 pm
Subject: Re: Dear Editor. Jud@...
Send Email

----- Original Message -----
From: "Wheeler Andrea" <colette1901@...>
To: <analytical-indicant-theory@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Monday, February 26, 2001 12:03 AM
Subject: Re: [analytical-indicant-theory] Dear Editor.

> Dearest Catweasle,
>
> I've lost my network connection again - hence the
> colette address. Yes, I'll try to find and post the
> last two chapters to you. I'm struggling abit with the
> Bishops stumble out of the back door of the brothel
> and down to the harbour. Did I tell you about my
> embarrassing situation? Perhaps, you or Jon (being a
> younger man) could help me with it. Obviously I've
> made such a fool out of myself again.
> So what if our existences allowed for two really
> different genders, that is to say not man and and not
> man, man and (wo)man but man and a radically different
> object unlike man in every way, irreducible to him, Am
> I being silly now? So the world was unconquerable to
> him?
>
> Love
> <kiss><kiss>
> Andrea

Hi Andrea!
First let me thank you for sending 19 & 20 of our cyber-novel The Falchion
of Supervenience. After a long struggle I managed to set up a Direct Cable
Link between my two computers.  It took a seven hours download to transfer
all my information from one to the other.  I was lucky enough to chance of a
wonderful free software programme for linking the two together  - it's
called 'LapLink' and I can highly recommend it to any other listmember
wishing to do a Aquinasian 'copula' job between two components of  an
information processing system. :-)

Regarding your tantalising 'what - if' scenario of the man and the object
unlike man in every way, irreducible to him.
To be honest Andrea, I am not really into 'what if' scenarios. Think of me
rather as the Clint Eastwood of philosophy [spit]   - if I can't see the
danged crotalus horridus atricaudatus rattler in all its black and yellow
reality, I tend to act as if it wasn't there and take another chaw of
chewin' baccy. If I was a jocular male-chauvinist pig, [which I'm not,] I
would make a silly remark like "women are from Venus and men from Mars,"
retort and say that women already perform the function of being unlike man
in every way, and irreducible to him.
But the DON'T!   This is patently NOT so, for it is my experience that women
are roughly speaking more sensitive and feeling about human relationships,
more concerned with a stable relationship with their partner, and have the
gift of this nurturing capability and desire for children -  but in effect
are much more like men than the 'Problems of Inter-Gender Relations'
industry would have us believe. I am generalising here of course. Personally
I have always enjoyed a perfectly harmonious relationship with women because
I have never patronised any of them, but rather treated them as my equals
which they obviously are. I have many female friends - pals if you like,
with whom I feel completely relaxed.  The quickest way to flatten a MCP
would be to introduce him to highly capable and intelligent females like you
and Sandra - introduce philosophy or mathematics into the conversation and
watch him squirm.  :-)
Regarding your personal man-problem - you know how I feel about it already.
It's going nowhere - face that fact and wash him out of your hair. :-)

Love
<kiss><kiss>
Cat

Reply | Forward | Messages in this Topic (13)

#24 From: "Jon Neivens" <jon@...>
Date: Mon Feb 26, 2001 4:24 pm
Subject: Re: Time and Space jon@...
Send Email

Hi Andrea,

I'll print it out and have a closer look. In general, I'm not keen on the words like "sign," or "symbol" when they're applied to language. So I need to see whether that's actually part of what Irigaray's saying. At first sight I'd guess her basic argument could be "translated" into my language.

I'm kind of assuming she's influenced by Lacan?

I'll get back to you on this one.

Cheers, Jon.

Reply | Forward | Messages in this Topic (11)

#23 From: Sandra Ann Shaw <sas@...>
Date: Mon Feb 26, 2001 4:30 pm
Subject: Re: Re: Time and Space sas@...
Send Email

Okay thanks Jon,

Also, I think the *time* issue is more of our "feelings" card we are dealt,
i.e.,
"feeling of duration" and, then, our knowledge of events so we make
temporal statements.

sas





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> Content-Type: text/plain;
>  charset="iso-8859-1"
> Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
>
> Hi Sandra!
> Feel free with the "temporal statement" thing. Maybe you could try to entic=
> e them onto this list to discuss it?
> I haven't really thought about it myself yet. It came up purely out of the =
> necessity to clean the sole of my shoe!
>
> Sandra, anything that interests you, I'm already interested in. Period.=20
> So just post anything that interests you.=20=20
>
> Cheers, Jon.=20
>
>
>
>
>   ----- Original Message -----=20
>   From: Sandra Ann Shaw=20
>   To: analytical-indicant-theory@yahoogroups.com=20
>   Sent: Monday, February 26, 2001 3:57 PM
>   Subject: Re: [analytical-indicant-theory] Re: Time and Space
>
>
>   Hi Jon,
>
>   If you don't mind I would like to bring up your "temporal statement"
>   on another group. All of the sudden they seem to be having an agrument
>   about propositions of the form If . . . then as *time* related or
>   related to cause and I think the use of "temporal statement" will
>   clear this matter up :-) but who knows. Last week I asked about
>   differences and/or similarities between Chomsky and Wittgenstein
>   before I left for the weekend and got one response. However, when
>   I got back to work today I had over 20 messages related to this question.
>   Are you interested in a [my] summary after I sort everything through?
>
>   Later.
>
>   Sandra
>
>
>   > Sandra:
>   > Some thoughts: We know of time and space because we are human
>   > and we know that we did things in the past and we will probably
>   > do things in the future. Space, well, you can't stand in the
>   > same place as I can, now can you? Or is this place?  But talk of
>   > absolute time and space probably be best left to the church's of
>   > philosophy.
>   >=20
>   >=20
>   > Jon:
>   > HI Sandra!
>   > You see how quickly my mind starts chewing the furniture without you=20
>   > around to feed me sensible foods? :-)=20
>   >=20
>   > You're right, I was in danger of stinking the place up with incense!
>   >=20
>   >=20=20
>   >=20
>   >=20
>   > To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
>   > analytical-indicant-theory-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>   >=20
>   >=20=20
>   >=20
>   > Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/term=
> s/=20
>   >=20
>   >=20
>
>
>         Yahoo! Groups Sponsor=20
>
>         Click here for Classmates.com=20
> =20=20=20=20=20=20=20
>
>   To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
>   analytical-indicant-theory-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
>
>
>   Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.=20
>
>
> ------=_NextPart_000_0014_01C0A00E.A7D64E40
> Content-Type: text/html; charset=US-ASCII
> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
>
> <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
> <HTML><HEAD>
> <META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
> <META content="MSHTML 5.50.4611.1300" name=GENERATOR>
> <STYLE></STYLE>
> </HEAD>
> <BODY bgColor=#ffffff>
> <DIV>Hi Sandra!</DIV>
> <DIV>Feel free&nbsp;with the "temporal statement" thing. Maybe you could try
to
> entice them onto this list to discuss it?</DIV>
> <DIV>I haven't really thought about it myself yet. It came up purely out of
the
> necessity to clean the sole of my shoe!</DIV>
> <DIV>&nbsp;</DIV>
> <DIV>Sandra, anything that interests you, I'm already interested in. Period.
> </DIV>
> <DIV>So just post anything that interests you. &nbsp;</DIV>
> <DIV>&nbsp;</DIV>
> <DIV>Cheers, Jon. </DIV>
> <DIV>&nbsp;</DIV>
> <DIV>&nbsp;</DIV>
> <DIV>&nbsp;</DIV>
> <DIV>&nbsp;</DIV>
> <BLOCKQUOTE
> style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT:
#000000 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
>   <DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
>   <DIV
>   style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; FONT: 10pt arial; font-color:
black"><B>From:</B>
>   <A title=sas@... href="mailto:sas@...">Sandra Ann Shaw</A>
>   </DIV>
>   <DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A
>   title=analytical-indicant-theory@yahoogroups.com
>  
href="mailto:analytical-indicant-theory@yahoogroups.com">analytical-indicant-the\
ory@yahoogroups.com</A>
>   </DIV>
>   <DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Monday, February 26, 2001 3:57
>   PM</DIV>
>   <DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> Re:
[analytical-indicant-theory]
>   Re: Time and Space</DIV>
>   <DIV><BR></DIV><TT>Hi Jon,<BR><BR>If you don't mind I would like to bring up
>   your "temporal statement"<BR>on another group. All of the sudden they seem
to
>   be having an agrument<BR>about propositions of the form If . . . then as
>   *time* related or<BR>related to cause and I think the use of "temporal
>   statement" will<BR>clear this matter up :-) but who knows. Last week I asked
>   about<BR>differences and/or similarities between Chomsky and
>   Wittgenstein<BR>before I left for the weekend and got one response. However,
>   when<BR>I got back to work today I had over 20 messages related to this
>   question.<BR>Are you interested in a [my] summary after I sort everything
>   through?<BR><BR>Later.<BR><BR>Sandra<BR><BR><BR>&gt; Sandra:<BR>&gt; Some
>   thoughts: We know of time and space because we are human<BR>&gt; and we know
>   that we did things in the past and we will probably<BR>&gt; do things in the
>   future. Space, well, you can't stand in the<BR>&gt; same place as I can, now
>   can you? Or is this place?&nbsp; But talk of<BR>&gt; absolute time and space
>   probably be best left to the church's of<BR>&gt; philosophy.<BR>&gt;
<BR>&gt;
>   <BR>&gt; Jon:<BR>&gt; HI Sandra!<BR>&gt; You see how quickly my mind starts
>   chewing the furniture without you <BR>&gt; around to feed me sensible foods?
>   :-) <BR>&gt; <BR>&gt; You're right, I was in danger of stinking the place up
>   with incense!<BR>&gt; <BR>&gt;&nbsp; <BR>&gt; <BR>&gt; <BR>&gt; To
unsubscribe
>   from this group, send an email to:<BR>&gt;
>   analytical-indicant-theory-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com<BR>&gt;
<BR>&gt;&nbsp;
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>  
href="http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/">http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/</A>
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>   unsubscribe from this group, send an email
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R><TT>Your
>   use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the <A
>   href="http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/">Yahoo! Terms of Service</A>.</TT>
> <BR></BLOCKQUOTE>
> <br>
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Reply | Forward | Messages in this Topic (11)

#22 From: "Jon Neivens" <jon@...>
Date: Mon Feb 26, 2001 4:10 pm
Subject: Re: Re: Time and Space jon@...
Send Email

Hi Sandra!

Feel free with the "temporal statement" thing. Maybe you could try to entice them onto this list to discuss it?

I haven't really thought about it myself yet. It came up purely out of the necessity to clean the sole of my shoe!

Sandra, anything that interests you, I'm already interested in. Period.

So just post anything that interests you.

Cheers, Jon.

----- Original Message -----

From: Sandra Ann Shaw

To: analytical-indicant-theory@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Monday, February 26, 2001 3:57 PM

Subject: Re: [analytical-indicant-theory] Re: Time and Space

Hi Jon, If you don't mind I would like to bring up your "temporal statement" on another group. All of the sudden they seem to be having an agrument about propositions of the form If . . . then as *time* related or related to cause and I think the use of "temporal statement" will clear this matter up :-) but who knows. Last week I asked about differences and/or similarities between Chomsky and Wittgenstein before I left for the weekend and got one response. However, when I got back to work today I had over 20 messages related to this question. Are you interested in a [my] summary after I sort everything through? Later. Sandra > Sandra: > Some thoughts: We know of time and space because we are human > and we know that we did things in the past and we will probably > do things in the future. Space, well, you can't stand in the > same place as I can, now can you? Or is this place? But talk of > absolute time and space probably be best left to the church's of > philosophy. > > > Jon: > HI Sandra! > You see how quickly my mind starts chewing the furniture without you > around to feed me sensible foods? :-) > > You're right, I was in danger of stinking the place up with incense! > > > > > To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: > analytical-indicant-theory-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com > > > > Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ > >

To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: analytical-indicant-theory-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com

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Reply | Forward | Messages in this Topic (11)

#21 From: "Andrea Wheeler" <Laxasw@...>
Date: Mon Feb 26, 2001 4:06 pm
Subject: Re: Time and Space Laxasw@...
Send Email

hi jon,

i wondered if you or Cat (or anyone else) could help me with this
quote and understanding what it might mean:

I suggest starting again from a initial definiition of the symbol: an
object-sign divided in two to indicate a meeting between two
people, linked to each other through this division, both out of
faithfulness to themselves and to the entire object-sign. I am not
saying that meaning has to remain inert: it can evolve, but still
keeping in mind this initial obligation. Hence it would be possible to
say that the origin of the symbolic is an alliance between two
subjects and not the exchange of women between men. This being
understood the symbolic remains what it should be: a relationship
of communication among people.Using the symbol in such a way
is also means of escaping the abstraction of a symbolic order
which risks destroying the meaning of the subject who obeys the
law.

-Luce Irigaray 'A Bridge Between Two Irreducible to Each Other'

Thanks
Andrea

Reply | Forward | Messages in this Topic (11)

#20 From: Sandra Ann Shaw <sas@...>
Date: Mon Feb 26, 2001 3:57 pm
Subject: Re: Re: Time and Space sas@...
Send Email

Hi Jon,

If you don't mind I would like to bring up your "temporal statement"
on another group. All of the sudden they seem to be having an agrument
about propositions of the form If . . . then as *time* related or
related to cause and I think the use of "temporal statement" will
clear this matter up :-) but who knows. Last week I asked about
differences and/or similarities between Chomsky and Wittgenstein
before I left for the weekend and got one response. However, when
I got back to work today I had over 20 messages related to this question.
Are you interested in a [my] summary after I sort everything through?

Later.

Sandra


> Sandra:
> Some thoughts: We know of time and space because we are human
> and we know that we did things in the past and we will probably
> do things in the future. Space, well, you can't stand in the
> same place as I can, now can you? Or is this place?  But talk of
> absolute time and space probably be best left to the church's of
> philosophy.
>
>
> Jon:
> HI Sandra!
> You see how quickly my mind starts chewing the furniture without you
> around to feed me sensible foods? :-)
>
> You're right, I was in danger of stinking the place up with incense!
>
>
>
>
> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> analytical-indicant-theory-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
>
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>

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#19 From: jon@...
Date: Mon Feb 26, 2001 3:51 pm
Subject: Re: Time and Space jon@...
Send Email

Sandra:
Some thoughts: We know of time and space because we are human
and we know that we did things in the past and we will probably
do things in the future. Space, well, you can't stand in the
same place as I can, now can you? Or is this place?  But talk of
absolute time and space probably be best left to the church's of
philosophy.


Jon:
HI Sandra!
You see how quickly my mind starts chewing the furniture without you
around to feed me sensible foods? :-)

You're right, I was in danger of stinking the place up with incense!

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#18 From: jon@...
Date: Mon Feb 26, 2001 3:39 pm
Subject: Time Turds jon@...
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Now here, of course, I'd really LOVE to be able to say: "Did anyone
spot my deliberate mistake?"


Previously:
It's the "time" thing where we've got to tread really carefully.

My own personal position would be to say:

"Just as much as there's no such thing as Being, there's no such
thing as Time."

Jon:
Because when we read the first sentence again, the second immediately
takes a VERY careless step, and it's:

"Hi Mr. Foot, meet Mr. Turd, I really do hope you'll be friends,
because you're about to get VERY CLOSELY acquainted INDEED."

FACT
"Last week I was bored by Heidegger."

That is a temporal statement. It's NOT a statement about time.

Let's try another:

"Yesterday, I somewhat overhastily said that there's no such thing as
Time."

That is a temporal statement. It's NOT a statement about time.


And another:

There's no such thing as Time."

That is not a temporal statement. It's a statement about time.
Language can't do that.

"Hi Mr. Turd!"

Phew! Now we've got both feet on clean, solid ground again.

So let's just say language can make temporal statements, and leave it
there.

Anyway, here's an interesting question:

"Although I am now bored by Heidegger, I still love Nietzsche."

Is this a temporal statement? Or does it just quite happily sit
itself down in our "normal" temporality?


Cheers, Jon,

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#17 From: sas@...
Date: Mon Feb 26, 2001 3:22 pm
Subject: Time and Space sas@...
Send Email

Well, I finally arrived. I finally gave up my random walk through
the e-group forest named Yahoo and in one series of discrete moves
made especially by my fingers typed the correct address of AIT, and
voila! Thanks Jon.

Some thoughts: We know of time and space because we are human
and we know that we did things in the past and we will probably
do things in the future. Space, well, you can't stand in the
same place as I can, now can you? Or is this place?  But talk of
absolute time and space probably be best left to the churchs of
philosophy.

Glad everything is up and running. 12 members so far! I guess I
am the 13th! What is 13? A numeral to express my membership place
between
12 and 14. Maybe by the time I am finished, the 14th member will have
arrived!

Sandra

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#16 From: jon@...
Date: Mon Feb 26, 2001 12:47 am
Subject: Re: Potted History of the am, is and was words. jon@...
Send Email

Cat:
Thought you might appreciate a quick potted history of the am, is and
was
words?
I've finished off with some more evidence which backs up AIT  on the
role of
the "to be" cluster.

Jon:
The "to be" cluster!
Can we keep it Cat?
PLEASE? PLEASE? PLEASE?
It's so much better than just the "to be."
Knocking "verb" out kind of left us sounding awkward.
Cluster!
Cat you're a genius.

Cheers, Jon.

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#15 From: jon@...
Date: Mon Feb 26, 2001 12:34 am
Subject: Re: Dear Editor. jon@...
Send Email

Andrea:
I've lost my network connection again - hence the
colette address. Yes, I'll try to find and post the
last two chapters to you. I'm stuggling abit with the
Bishops stumble out of the back door of the brothel
and down to the habour. Did I tell you about my
embarrassing situation? Perhaps, you or Jon (being a
younger man) could help me with it. Obviously I've
made such a fool out of myself again.
So what if our existences allowed for two really
different genders, that is to say not man and and not
man, man and (wo)man but man and a radically different
object unlike man in every way, irreducible to him, Am
I being silly now? So the world was unconquerable to
him?


Hi Andrea!
I really don't know if you're being silly because I'm afraid you've
lost me a bit. Can you go a bit slower?

Are either you or Cat going to post the back numbers of Falchion?
I'm pretty sure I've still got them all if you need them.

BTW - I've got a Mailbox problem so can only work off the site. I'll
do whatever I can to help, but don't know when I'll be able to get my
private mail.

Freeserve. GRRRRRR!!!!!!

Love
<kiss><kiss>
Jon :-)

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#14 From: "Jon Neivens" <jon@...>
Date: Mon Feb 26, 2001 12:11 am
Subject: Thoughts on Mapping IV jon@...
Send Email

Hi Cat!

I think the "Quotes" thing I was sort of trying to use them together; sort of the Anna and Funes as positive and negative examples. Can't have one without the other sort of thing.

Anyway, my main point in this posting is just that we have to make sure we're more ruthless with our own ideas than we can expect anyone else to be. And we've GOT to make sure all our terminology's fully nailed down. So here goes:

Catweasle:

We must never forget an important function of the modal indicant and that is to reveal the temporal dimension of the modality introduced by the modal indicant and expanded upon by the modal informant. To me this is an adverbial function for in effect the’ was’ is telling us the ‘mood’ [same word as mode’ but an older version,] of the verb ‘walking.’ In the statement: “Jon < walking.” The modal indicant is not only ushering us in to watch Jon walking, but also it also telling us that his walking activity happened in the past co-domain and is now a completed action.

Jon:

It's the "time" thing where we've got to tread really carefully.

My own personal position would be to say:

"Just as much as there's no such thing as Being, there's no such thing as Time."

Period.

I'm actually quite a big fan of Kant on this one- and I'd say that nothing Hawking or anyone else has said have ever truly dented his basic argument. I'd just add that Kant, as a "metaphysician," didn't realise that he was really just talking about what's basic to our biological structure. To me that's the only way in which any discussion of "finitude" makes sense. In terms of biology.

Physics is the best possible use we can make of our finitude. And we know we're getting damned close when the space and time that physics talks about pretty much passes beyond our understanding.

But you also have to add "Truth" to the above list, along with "Being" and "Time."

Otherwise you're a metaphysician.

That's always how I've understood what Nietzsche meant by the Death of God: The Death of Truth, Being and Time.

I'll stick the quote in, because it's always been one of my favourite's:

[It doesn't really matter whether we agree on this by the way- it's just my own personal ramblings :-)]

"Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market place, and cried incessantly, 'I seek God! I seek God!' As many of those who do not believe in God were standing around just then, he provoked much laughter. Why, did he get lost? said one. Did he lose his way like a child? said another. Or is he hiding? Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a voyage? or emigrated? Thus they yelled and laughed. The madman jumped into their midst and pierced them with his glances.

'Whither is God' he cried. 'I shall tell you. We have killed him - you and I. All of us are his murderers. But how have we done this? How were we able to drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the whole horizon? What did we do when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there any up or down left? Are we not straying as if through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night and more night coming on all the while? Must not lanterns be lit in the mornings? Do we not hear anything yet of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we not smell anything yet of God's decomposition? Gods too decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we, the murderers of all murderers, comfort ourselves? What was holiest and most powerful of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives. Who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must not we ourselves become gods simply to seem worthy of it? there has never been a greater deed; and whoever will be born after us - for the sake of this deed he will be part of a higher history than all history hitherto.'

Here the madman fell silent and looked again at his listeners; and they too were silent and stared at him in astonishment. At last he threw his lantern on the ground, and it broke and went out. 'I have come too early,' he said then; 'my time has not yet come. This tremendous event is still on its way, still wandering - it has not yet reached the ears of man. Lightning and thunder require time, deeds require time even after they are done, before they can be seen and heard. This deed is still more distant from them than the most distant stars - and yet they have done it themselves.'

Nietzsche - The Gay Science, #125

It's the one's who "don't believe in God" that the Madman wants to set straight.

Stephen Hawking: "To know the mind of God."

That's why philosophy's The Gay Science. It's just saying you've got your life to live, what more do you want.

And can your imagine the sheer absolute bloody cheek of Heidegger, HEIDEGGER saying Nietzsche was the last of the metaphysicians.

****

Anyway, other stuff.

The main point is that we must make sure we don't end up making the same mistake as the grammarians. When we're talking about the Imbuant and the Informant, they are always imbuing and informing the whole sentence - and they're allowed to do this by the Indicant.

We're basically asking how the Informant does this.

I think the symbols are important to us because they allowed you to make the initial breakthrough. Without that, all the rest of the stuff we're doing now would be impossible. But if they stop us doing that, they've got to go. Sorry, that's just how I see it.

I think the symbols refer to what the sentence as a whole says after the Indicant has done it's job. It always says THIS time, or THAT time. So "time" is only introduced at this stage. And it's modes of time, not Time, that is introduced.

Where the symbols are placed between the Imbuant and the Informant, I'm not sure whether this leads things astray. So we need to think about that.

I think the "ontological commitment" thing really helps us out in this territory.

But I'm afraid the one that's really got to go is "usherette word."

"Jon is walking."

What happens in the above sentence is the Indicant quite simply SLAMS "Jon" into "walking." BANG! No equivocation possible.

What we've got to think of here is that, strictly speaking, within the sentence it's always US who are doing the meaning.

Or rather, it's US who are having the meaning DONE to us BY the sentence.

As you said, in the sentence: "Being is not allowed on the premises." We are SCREAMED at. "Being WHAT!"

But strictly, the sentence is making US do all the screaming, on a purely cognitive level that we can't talk about because we've already fucked up our basic cognitive structure. But even here the "metaphysicians" go wrong because they don't understand the sheer violence of what they laughably call "metaphysical experience."

I think this is interesting here, because it looks to me as if the "Being WHAT!" is always a violent grasping for some specific mode of time. Which creates the "illusion of infinity" that gave Heidegger more wet dreams even than Hannah.

"The knee-trembling of Being," I think he called it.

Actually Cat, I think the above might give us quite a good lecture-room trick. Walk in: get the audience to close their eyes and say:

"I AM BE-ING...."

With the full on "metaphysical effect."

Then archly raise one eyebrow, explain it in the above terms, and say:

"There, wasn't that a more satisfactory explanation?"

I hope that's worth the pruning!

Cheers, Jon :-)

PS I seem to be having mailbox problems. Sending but not receiving. Is yours OK?

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#13 From: Wheeler Andrea <colette1901@...>
Date: Mon Feb 26, 2001 12:03 am
Subject: Re: Dear Editor. colette1901@...
Send Email

Dearest Catweasle,

I've lost my network connection again - hence the
colette address. Yes, I'll try to find and post the
last two chapters to you. I'm stuggling abit with the
Bishops stumble out of the back door of the brothel
and down to the habour. Did I tell you about my
embarrassing situation? Perhaps, you or Jon (being a
younger man) could help me with it. Obviously I've
made such a fool out of myself again.
So what if our existences allowed for two really
different genders, that is to say not man and and not
man, man and (wo)man but man and a radically different
object unlike man in every way, irreducible to him, Am
I being silly now? So the world was unconquerable to
him?

Love
<kiss><kiss>
Andrea



--- catweasle <Jud@...> wrote:
> Dear Editor---
>
> I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say
> there is no 'Being'.
> Papa says, "If you see it in 'Being and Time', it's
> true." Please tell me
> the truth, is there a 'Being'?
>
> Virginia O'Hanlon
>
>
> Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have
> been affected by the
> scepticism of those naughty indicant theorists. They
> do not believe except
> they see. They think that nothing can be which is
> not comprehensible by
> their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether
> they be men's or
> children's, are little. In this great universe of
> ours, man is a mere
> insect, an ant, in his intellect as compared with
> the boundless world about
> him, as measured by the intelligence capable of
> grasping the whole of truth
> and knowledge.
>
> Yes, Virginia, there is a 'Being.'  It exists as
> certainly as love and
> generosity and devotion exist, and you know that
> they abound and give to
> your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! How
> dreary would be the world if
> there were no 'Being'! It would be as dreary as if
> there were no Virginias.
> There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry,
> and no romance to make
> tolerable this existence. We should have no
> enjoyment, except in sense and
> sight. The external light with which childhood fills
> the world would be
> extinguished.  Yes, Virginia perhaps when you are a
> little older you may
> have a chance to dance along that yellow brick road
> to Freiburg to see the
> wonderful Wizard (Watch out for the wicked witch
> Catweasle on the way,) and
> there you will see for your self Wizard Slybegger's
> little gnomes working
> away busily packaging their little bundles of
> beingness ready for Santa to
> collect them and take them away on his sleigh to
> drop them down the chimneys
> of university campuses all over the wide world.
>
> Not believe in 'Being?'   You might as well not
> believe in fairies.
> You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all
> the chimneys on
> Christmas Eve to watch 'Being', as it is delivered
> every year to all the
> little boys and girls all over the world by Santa
> Claus, what would that
> prove? Nobody sees 'Being', but that is no sign that
> there is no 'Being'.
> The most real things in the world are those that
> neither children nor men
> can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the
> lawn? Did you ever see
> flying saucers?  Of course not, but that's no proof
> that they are not there.
> Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there
> are unseen and
> unseeable in the world.
>
> You tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes
> the noise inside, but
> there is a veil covering the unseen world, which
> neither the strongest man,
> nor even the united strength of all the strongest
> men that ever lived could
> tear apart. Only faith, poetry, love, romance, can
> push aside that curtain
> and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory
> beyond. Is it all real?
> Ah, Virginia, in this entire world there is nothing
> else real and abiding.
> No 'Being'!  Thank God! 'Being' lives forever. A
> thousand years from now,
> Virginia, nay 10 times 10,000 years from now,
> 'Being' will continue to make
> glad the heart of childhood, (and the childish minds
> of many grown-ups.)
>
> The Editor
>
>
>
>
>


__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Get email at your own domain with Yahoo! Mail.
http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/

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#12 From: "catweasle" <Jud@...>
Date: Sun Feb 25, 2001 10:11 pm
Subject: Re: Dear Editor. Jud@...
Send Email

Dear Editor---

I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no 'Being'.
Papa says, "If you see it in 'Being and Time', it's true." Please tell me
the truth, is there a 'Being'?

Virginia O'Hanlon


Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the
scepticism of those naughty indicant theorists. They do not believe except
they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by
their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or
children's, are little. In this great universe of ours, man is a mere
insect, an ant, in his intellect as compared with the boundless world about
him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth
and knowledge.

Yes, Virginia, there is a 'Being.'  It exists as certainly as love and
generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to
your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! How dreary would be the world if
there were no 'Being'! It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias.
There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, and no romance to make
tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and
sight. The external light with which childhood fills the world would be
extinguished.  Yes, Virginia perhaps when you are a little older you may
have a chance to dance along that yellow brick road to Freiburg to see the
wonderful Wizard (Watch out for the wicked witch Catweasle on the way,) and
there you will see for your self Wizard Slybegger's little gnomes working
away busily packaging their little bundles of beingness ready for Santa to
collect them and take them away on his sleigh to drop them down the chimneys
of university campuses all over the wide world.

Not believe in 'Being?'   You might as well not believe in fairies.
You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on
Christmas Eve to watch 'Being', as it is delivered every year to all the
little boys and girls all over the world by Santa Claus, what would that
prove? Nobody sees 'Being', but that is no sign that there is no 'Being'.
The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men
can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Did you ever see
flying saucers?  Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there.
Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and
unseeable in the world.

You tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but
there is a veil covering the unseen world, which neither the strongest man,
nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived could
tear apart. Only faith, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain
and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real?
Ah, Virginia, in this entire world there is nothing else real and abiding.
No 'Being'!  Thank God! 'Being' lives forever. A thousand years from now,
Virginia, nay 10 times 10,000 years from now, 'Being' will continue to make
glad the heart of childhood, (and the childish minds of many grown-ups.)

The Editor

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#11 From: "catweasle" <Jud@...>
Date: Sun Feb 25, 2001 9:50 pm
Subject: Re: Quotes Jud@...
Send Email

----- Original Message -----

From: Jon Neivens

To: A.I.T.

Sent: Sunday, February 25, 2001 7:53 PM

Subject: [analytical-indicant-theory] Quotes

This is really just some stuff I happen to like because it sort of helps me think of "consciousness" as a "standing wave" in "the sea of language":

Early in the novel that Tereza clutched under her arm when she went to visit Tomas, Anna meets Vronsky in curious circumstances: they are at the railway station, when someone is run over by a train. At the end of the novel, Anna throws herself under a train. This symmetrical composition - the same motif appears at the beginning and the end - may seem quite "novelistic" to you, and I am willing to agree, but only on condition that you refrain from such notions as "fictive," "fabricated," and "untrue to life" into the word "novelistic." Because human lives are composed in precisely such a fashion.

    They are composed like music. Guided by his sense of beauty, an individual transforms fortuitous occurrence (Beethoven's music, death under a train) into a motif, which then assumes a permanent place in the composition of the individual's life. Anna could have chosen another way to take her life. But the motif of death and the railway station, unforgettably bound to the birth of love, enticed her in her hour of despair with its dark beauty. Without realising it, the individual composes his life according to the laws of beauty even in times of greatest distress.

    Milan Kundera - The Unbearable Lightness of Being, p. 52

Locke, in the seventeenth century, postulated (and rejected) an impossible language in which each individual thing, each stone, each bird and each branch, would have its own name; Funes once projected such a language, but discarded it because it seemed too general too him, too ambiguous. In fact, Funes remembered not only every leaf of every tree of every wood, but also every one of the times he had perceived or imagined it... Not only was it difficult for him to comprehend that the generic symbol dog embraces so many unlike individuals of diverse size and form; it bothered him that the dog at three fourteen (seen from the side) should have the same name as the dog at three fifteen (seen from the front). His own face in the mirror, his own hands, surprised him every time he saw them.

    Jorge Luis Borges - sorry I don't have a reference for this one: I found it somewhere else.

Jon.

Hi Jon,

Yes - lovely stuff. Kundera's language effluxes like a sweet Cornish mead' mellifluous and mellisonant.

The Tolstoyan art was a happy mix of writer, artist and composer all manifest on the written page. His novels were similar to a huge concerto or Wagnerian cycle, with literary leit-motifs lacing through the main movements - an awesome symmetry inked upon a vast canvass of resplendently envisioned circumstance.

The Funes' reaction whilst looking in the mirror most of us have experienced.

Cheers!

Cat.

Hey Andrea dear!

I lost the last two chapters of Falchion in the last crash - any chance that you could post them on to me pretty please?

<Kisskiss>

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#10 From: "catweasle" <Jud@...>
Date: Sun Feb 25, 2001 9:21 pm
Subject: Re: Potted History of the am, is and was words. Jud@...
Send Email

Hi Jon and fellow members!

Thought you might appreciate a quick potted history of the am, is and was
words?
I've finished off with some more evidence which backs up AIT  on the role of
the "to be" cluster.

Here we go:


Conjugational forms:

Origin of "AM."
1st person present indicative singular: "am,"  ("I am:")
2nd person present indicative singular  "is" plural  "are" (archaic: and
dialectical:) "art, beest,"  (archaic: and dialectical) "be:" past: "was"
plural: "were" present subjective: "be" past subjective: "were"; past
participle: "been."

  The conjugational forms are derived from four bases as follows:


1st person singular:
Indo-European: -es -s-:  Old English: eam, am, West Saxon: eom (with eo
after beo (m) see below) = Old Norse: em, Gothic: im, Old lrish: am,
Lithuanian: esmi, Old Slavonic: jesmi, Latin: sum (for *esem; influenced by
sumus we are), Greek: eimi, Sanskrit: asmi, Old Persian: amiy, Armenian: em,
Albanian jam: Indo-European: -esmi:

Third person singular:
Old English: is = Old Frisian: Old Saxon: ist (Dutch: is), Old High German:
Gothic: ist, Old Norse: es (later er), Old Irish: is, Welsh: ys, Latin: est,
Greek: esti, Old Slavonic: jestl, Sanskrit: asti: Indo-European: *esmi:

Plural:
Old English: sind, sindon, surviving in Middle English: till c: 1200 ~ Old
Frisian: send, Old Saxon: sind, sindan, Old High German: 3rd plural: sint
(German: sind), Gothic: 3rd plural: sind, Old Irish: it, Old Welsh: int,
Latin: sunt, Greek: eisi (Doric: enti), Sanskrit: santi: Indo-European:
*senti:

Present subjective:
Old English: sie, plural: sien, later si, sin, surviving till c: 1200 = Old
Saxon: Old High German: si, sin (Dutch: zij, zijn, German: sei, seien) ~
Latin: siem, sim, sint, Greek: eien, etc: Sanskrit: syat :-Indo-European:
S(i)jem, -s(i)jenti:



Origins of "ARE."
Germanic: ar (: - *or-), of unknown origin:
2nd person: singular: Old English: eart, plural: aron, earon are; these are
old perfect formations.

Origins of "BE"
Indo-European: *bheu bhu-: 1st person: singular: beo, earlier: bio (*biju) =
Old Frisian: bim, Old Saxon: bium, biom (Dutch: ben), Old High German: bim
(German: bin), correlates: to Latin: fio  "I become" (: -bhwijo), related
further to Latin: fui "I was", futurus future, Greek: phuein "bring forth,
cause to grow," ephun, pephuka "I was" phuesthai "grow, come into being"
(see PHYSIC), Lithuanian: buti, Old Slavonic, byti (Russian: byt'), Old
Irish: buith, Welsh: bod "be." Sanskrit: bhavati "becomes," "is" Persian:
bud "was" budan "be, become, exist." So Old English: bist "wilt be," "art" =
Old Saxon, Old High German: bis(t) (German: bist), Old English: bith "will
be, is," correlates to Latin: fis "becomest," fit "becomes." compare: Welsh:
bydd "will be"; Old English: beoth; pIural: will be, are, infinitive: beon
(a new formation on beo)
The original meaning of this "be"-base is 'grow' the derived sense 'become'
led to its adoption as an appropriate element in the paradigm of the verb
'to be', especially for expressing the future; for another sense-development
see "bower - build."

Origins of "WAS."
Indo-European: *wes: *wes-: Old English: infinitive: wesan ~ Old Frisian:
wesa, Old Saxon, Old High German: wesan, Dutch: wezen; German: wesen,
(surviving as substantive,) Old Norse: vesa, vera, Gothic: wisan "remain,
continue," related to Sanskrit: vasati "dwells, remains:" The original
meaning is 'dwell, remain', and the use of this base is therefore
appropriate to the imperative: (Old English: wes, plural: wesan and the past
Old English: 1st and 3rd singular: waes "was" 2nd singular: waere wast,
plural: waeron "were" in which latter alone it survives.

Of the three types of the present indicative plural in Old English: beath,
aron, and sind (on), the first continued in general Middle English: as beth,
ben, and finally "be" (surviving till XVll.


The Old Fashioned Traditional View of the Pseudo-Verb " to be:"
The substantive and copulative verb expressing:
1. Simple existence:
2. Existence in a defined state, (i.e. whence its use with participles as an
auxiliary of tense and voice):

Cat:
1. This is plainly in error.
2.  Simply means that it indicates past, present or future, active or
passive voice.
For example consider the following sentences.

1. The hunter shot the tiger.
2. The tiger was shot by the hunter.

Although there is the same meaning in each sentence, there is a difference
of emphasis.  In sentence 1. the attention is upon the hunter, which is the
subject of the sentence.  In sentence 2. it is on the tiger which is the
subject of the sentence.

We can divide the sentence thus;

Subject                                         Predicate
The hunter  _______________        shot
                                                      the tiger

When a verb represents its subject as doing the action it is said to be in
the active voice.
When a verb represents its subject as being acted upon the action it is said
to be in the passive voice.

Indicant theorists are always saying that the "was" "is" and "will be"words
are not in the business of endowing existence on the subjects of the
sentences in which they appear, but are more concerned with the MODE of
existence of the subject.
It seems very obvious now, but if you look at the first sentence: "The
hunter shot the tiger."  you will note that there is no "was" "is" and "will
be"word to invest the hunter with existence.  As Indicant theorists we
already know that it is not necessary, for the very utterance of the word
hunter,  (or Andrea,) instantaneously bequeaths extantness upon it.  This is
further evidence if any is needed,  that in a sentence that DOES include the
"was" "is" and "will be"words, that they are there for another different
purpose - that purpose WE know is modal indicancy.

Cheers!

Cat.

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#9 From: "Jon Neivens" <jon@...>
Date: Sun Feb 25, 2001 7:53 pm
Subject: Quotes jon@...
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This is really just some stuff I happen to like because it sort of helps me think of "consciousness" as a "standing wave" in "the sea of language":

Early in the novel that Tereza clutched under her arm when she went to visit Tomas, Anna meets Vronsky in curious circumstances: they are at the railway station, when someone is run over by a train. At the end of the novel, Anna throws herself under a train. This symmetrical composition - the same motif appears at the beginning and the end - may seem quite "novelistic" to you, and I am willing to agree, but only on condition that you refrain from such notions as "fictive," "fabricated," and "untrue to life" into the word "novelistic." Because human lives are composed in precisely such a fashion.

They are composed like music. Guided by his sense of beauty, an individual transforms fortuitous occurrence (Beethoven's music, death under a train) into a motif, which then assumes a permanent place in the composition of the individual's life. Anna could have chosen another way to take her life. But the motif of death and the railway station, unforgettably bound to the birth of love, enticed her in her hour of despair with its dark beauty. Without realising it, the individual composes his life according to the laws of beauty even in times of greatest distress.

Milan Kundera - The Unbearable Lightness of Being, p. 52

Locke, in the seventeenth century, postulated (and rejected) an impossible language in which each individual thing, each stone, each bird and each branch, would have its own name; Funes once projected such a language, but discarded it because it seemed too general too him, too ambiguous. In fact, Funes remembered not only every leaf of every tree of every wood, but also every one of the times he had perceived or imagined it... Not only was it difficult for him to comprehend that the generic symbol dog embraces so many unlike individuals of diverse size and form; it bothered him that the dog at three fourteen (seen from the side) should have the same name as the dog at three fifteen (seen from the front). His own face in the mirror, his own hands, surprised him every time he saw them.

Jorge Luis Borges - sorry I don't have a reference for this one: I found it somewhere else.

Jon.

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#8 From: "Jon Neivens" <jon@...>
Date: Sun Feb 25, 2001 2:37 am
Subject: Ontology jon@...
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Two definitions from the Routledge Encyclopaedia Of Philosophy

(courtesy of Catweasle)

Ontology:
The word 'ontology' is used to refer to philosophical investigation of
existence, or being. Such investigation may be directed towards the concept of being, asking what 'being' means, or what it is for something to exist; it may also (or instead be concerned with the question 'what exists?' or 'what general sorts of thing there?' It is common to speak of a philosopher's ontology, meaning the kinds of thing they take to exist, or the ontology of a theory, meaning the things that would have to exist for that theory to be true.

Ontological Commitment:
A person may believe in the existence of God, or numbers or ghosts. Such beliefs may be asserted, perhaps in a theory. Assertions of the existence of specific entities or kinds of entities are the intuitive source of the notion of ontological commitment, for it is natural to think of a person who makes such an assertion as being 'committed' to an 'ontology' that includes such entities. So ontological commitment appears to be a relation that holds between persons or existence assertions (including theories), on the one hand, and specific entities or kinds of entities (or ontologies), on the other.
Ontological commitment is thus a very rich notion -one in which logical, metaphysical, linguistic and epistemic elements are intermingled. The main philosophical problem concerning commitment is whether there is a precise criterion for detecting commitments in accordance with intuition. It once seemed extremely important to find a criterion, for it promised to serve as a vital tool in the comparative assessment of theories. Many different criteria have been proposed and a variety of problems have beset these efforts.

W. v. Quine has been the central figure in this discussion and we will consider two of his formulations below. Many important philosophical topics are closely connected with ontological commitment. These include: the nature of theories and their interpretation; interpretations of quantification: the nature of kinds; the question of the existence of merely possible entities: extensionality and intensionality;
the general question of the nature of modality; and the significance of
Occam's razor.

Further reading Quine, Wv: (1939) : Logistical Approach
to the Ontological Problem', presented at the fifth International Congress
for the Unity of Science, Cambridge, MA; repr. in The Ways of Paradox and
Other Essays, New York' Random House, 1966, 64-9. (An early discussion of
naming, reference and ontolog)'. The source of 'To be is to be a value of a variable'.)

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#7 From: "Jon Neivens" <jon@...>
Date: Sun Feb 25, 2001 12:16 am
Subject: Fw: Fw: Analytical Indicant Theory, (AIT) Basic Terminology. jon@...
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Andrea:
I wondered if we could talk about the possiblity of a language with a I (she) and an I(he) and the problems that might cause or not. Will we need a different idea about existence to allow for this?

Jon:

I guess Cat would know whether or how many languages might have this form. I'd guess English is maybe unusual to the extent that it ISN'T 'gendered.'

I think in general though, it's interesting to cosider how this might work in terms of the way a gendered I would map to a gendered mode of existence.

[Sorry, to introduce another bit of our terminology there, but I think it's probably better to explain that in a separate post.]

More generally though, where you say:

"a different idea about existence to allow for this"

I'd tend to say that: "a different idea about existence would be allowed BY this."

Our idea of existence would be changed by the words themselves.

Even if we changed our language so we had an I (she) and an I(he), the original "I" would then become I (neuter). The original meaning of the "I" as covering all three would be impossible for us simply in order for the two new additions to function properly. And WE would be irrevocably changed by this.

If language didn't work upon us like this, we wouldn't be able to say things and MEAN them.

Sorry, if that's what you were already saying the above probably sounds pedantic; but it's a good question simply because it opens out this relation between us and our language.

Love
<kiss><kiss>
Jon

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#6 From: "Jon Neivens" <jon@...>
Date: Sun Feb 25, 2001 12:15 am
Subject: Fw: Re: Analytical Indicant Theory, (AIT) Basic Terminology. jon@...
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Hi Jon, Cat, Sandra and anyone else,

Thanks for asking me to join your list. I'm not sure I really
understand your theory but I can try. I wondered if we could talk
about the possiblity of a language with a I (she) and an I(he) and
the problems that might cause or not. Will we need a different idea
about existence to allow for this?

Love
<kiss><kiss> to everyone,
Andrea

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#5 From: "Jon Neivens" <jon@...>
Date: Sat Feb 24, 2001 2:02 am
Subject: Response to Lucifer jon@...
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----- Original Message -----

From: Jon Neivens

To: heidegger-dialognet@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Wednesday, February 21, 2001 7:02 PM

Subject: Re: [heidegger-dialognet] Cat&jon&Sandra

Lucifer:

I have these two questions for ya:
1)What is a verb?
2)What are your thoughts on "ontology"?

Jon:

1) Generally I'd say it's a mistake to think "verb" and immediately think "word" without also adding "under a transformational rule." It's generally just a way of talking about a mode of existence in terms of the way it falls under the modality of time. So basically, it's just a "semantic" word that's been subjected to a syntactic transformation.

The problem has already arisen that, above, it looks as if I've said "time" is a "separate" mode of existence, but I think we should allow the fact that this supposedly "double twist" is imparted all in one go, to tell us something important. We shouldn't get hung up about the fact that we've had to regard "time" as something separate, because all that's really happened here is that we've had to stop the verb working in order to talk about it. As a rule, I'd say it's important to remember this when we're talking about language.

It's kind of like the Wittgensteinian thing of the "ineffability of semantics," although I think he was too pessimistic here. It's OK, as long as you remember that you've dissected a word, and killed it's function, when you're asking what it does. So you've always got to keep at least one eye on the sentence as a whole.

When it comes to the Modal Indicant, I think again there's confusion about the way it "helps out the verbal transformation" with regard to the "mode of time." Again, it creates the impression that time is a "separate mode of existence." This confusion is pretty much unavoidable when the Modal Indicant is taken as a "verb."

So, again, it helps to think "transformational rule," and to say that the Modal Indicant isn't "a word under a transformational rule," but is purely "a word that performs a transformational rule." So you need to look at how the Modal Indicant "helps out the verbal transformation" with regard to the "mode of time."

In some respects, there's no reason why you couldn't say:

"I was fishing."

As: "I fishinged."

I guess it's not impossible to imagine a language where you could do this across all the tenses. So maybe here we have a basic structure of language. In other words, the "verb" is designed by language in order to allow a further transformation to be performed upon it. But the "time element" of the Modal Indicant is really only a secondary function, that allows it to perform it's primary function.

We do have a language that can treat "time" as a separate mode of existence, however. It's called mathematics.

Its also interesting to note that where we have "abstract verbs" - "to do," "to go," etc. - that can stand in for the Modal Indicant, they then need further help when pointing to some specific mode of existence. Maybe these "abstract verbs" (I've provisionally called them Modal Auxiliaries) can't therefore be gerundialised without making us

go "huh?" (But we need more work here.)

But really, I'd tend to stick to my original definition and say a "verb" is a "word under a transformational rule."

Think of "Lewinskying" as a mode of existence with a certain Presidential flavour.

2) Here, generally, I'm more interested in the idea of "ontological commitment." I think I'm correct to say this idea comes from Quine.

For him, to say: "I am Napoleon," is to say "I believe I am Napoleon."

But here, I think, he misses a beat because he doesn't think of the "to be" in terms of its biological function. Basically, a species that can say:

"There's a Sabre Tooth Tiger under THAT tree over THERE!"

Is always going to have the edge over one that has to say:

"It seems that what seems to look like what, up to now at any rate, we've generally agreed to call a "Sabre Tooth Tiger," stands in a definite spatial relation that, up to now at any rate, we've generally agreed to call "under," what seems to look like what, up to now at any rate, we've generally agreed to call "a tree," in the specific spatial direction indicated by what, up to now at any rate, we've generally agreed to call "a pointing finger."

Oops! Too Late! Mr Accurate Description is Sabre Tooth Tiger meat, and can't pass on his Mr Accurate Description genes.

The most basic fact about E-Prime sentences is that they are soooooooo paaaaiiiiiiinfuuuuuuully looooooong.

If you want to know when to say "I am.... ", and when to say "I believe..." You just have to go out and learn the language-games from the forms of life language makes possible. Some people are better than others at learning these "rules" because they are "free rules." Which is what allows language to make specialisation possible.

So my general thoughts on "ontology" would be:

1) If you want to know why you have an "ontology," ask a linguist.

2) If you want to know whether your "ontology" is justified, ask a physicist.

3) If you're still not happy, listen to some Mozart; or read some Shakespeare; or make crazy love to the woman (or donkey) of your dreams; or take some drugs.

Or, if you really feel you must, although it wouldn't be my own personal choice, talk to a Priest.

Because if we had all the answers to 1) and 2), we wouldn't have 3).

But, as always, good questions.

Cheers, Jon.

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#4 From: "Jon Neivens" <jon@...>
Date: Sat Feb 24, 2001 1:59 am
Subject: Thoughts on Mapping III jon@...
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Hi Sandra!

I've maybe picked some of the bones out of the Quine stuff in my "Response to Lucifer," but there's some juicy bits in your postings I'd like to chew over.

Previously:

This is kind of what I mean by 'vague co-domains.' The sentence doesn't say 'where' Jon is 'doing' this walking,' or 'where Jon is walking to,' bu t enough of this stuff belongs to the 'set' we call 'walking' for the sentence to make sense. I don't know, maybe the sentence happened for you as something like: "Jon is walking tortoisefully through the woods."

Sandra:
This sentence gets into an inferential level surpassing the descriptive
level. This is what we need to talk about, IMO. I believe all that the mapping can do is work on the descriptive level or set the rules here.

Jon:

I like this: "descriptively, the sentence is inferentially surpassive." Or maybe: "each sentence is an inferential overeaching." Yeah!

Sandra:
For example, you open a box of *Scrabble* and start playing with your friends. You all have to follow the rules but you have a choice of words to make with the letters you have drawn. Or, metaphorically - in life, we are dealt a hand of cards - but we have a choice of how to play them - at least we 'feel' we have a choice to play them and this 'feeling' is one of the cards that was dealt to us. We could say the same of sentences.

Jon:

We sure could! Did you know in *Scrabble,* if you use all seven letters at once, you get 50 points? I guess what's surprising is that in sentence formation that happens most times. But this metaphor only works if "dealing" is itself generated by the sentence formation (there's nothing "outside" our *Scrabble* board). So if the sentence is an "inferential overeaching" (do I not like that!), then the seven letters not only make a complete word. The last two letters are also the first two letters of the next word.

But I like your style on this "feeling of choice" thing! It doesn't matter whether we "really" have it - it may be a necessary illusion created by language itself. I think it's important to be relaxed about that, and just explore the implications.

Sandra:

The mapping is the rule, such as Jon maps to walking or Jon walking. What is included in the rules is that 'we' make inferences. Part of our humaness and, therefore, part of language. This needs alot of work (on my part of thinking anyway). But this is what I come up with for now. One gets the sentence (or is dealt some sentences), one first determines if it is a function, Jon walking or Jon is related to walking (so I still have two?).

Jon:

It's important to think in terms of how "we" are inferential. "We" don't "make inferences" - if you're going to see it in those terms, then "inference" is what "makes us." Obviously I'm using words like "we" and "us" strictly in terms of "consciousness" here.

Here I'm going to introduce a metaphor, just to see how far it runs. The idea I originally got from Bataille, but it has to do with the image of "consciousness" as a "standing wave," as happens in fast flowing water. So it's an "area of stable form" that's also "constant change of substance." Maybe this is just pure whimsy, but thought in terms of movement through language, the "motor" would be the "inferential overeaching."

Sandra:

The rule is satisfied, or discovered so it is necessarily onto - or specifically, walking is related to Jon (this onto-ness makes it one). Now is it 1-1? It doesn't matter if it is for the rule to apply. If the sentence was Jon walking and swimming then it wouldn't be 1-1. If the sentence was Jon walking and talking then it would be 1-1. Now all of this has been established. What can we do in language - we can make inferences, keep silent, or whatever. Math-wise example: The whole
realm of numbers map to fractions. Yes, this is a function, and onto and 1-1. Now we can make inferences about fractions, we can manipulate them, further separate them into further domains, say, even and odd.
The fractions are in the co-domain the whole set of numbers are in the domain. Now, we can have the fractions as the domain and the even, odd in the co-domain.

Jon:

You've pretty much lost me here.

Previously:
1) If we all had exactly the same diagram for everything, we wouldn't need to talk to each other.
2) If we all had totally different diagrams for everything, we wouldn't be able to talk to each other.
3) If we each knew exactly what all of our own diagram looked like, we wouldn't have to talk to our selves (to think).

Sandra:
Yes, I see what you are saying theoretically. For 1) - isn't this impossible -
if we take the diagram literally. No two people would have the same diagram.
2) In a way this is impossible also. But you and I have totally different
diagrams but we have some elements that are similar and some that are dissimilar
so we can talk.
3) We never know what our diagram actually looks like because Now is gone.

Jon:

Yeah, you've got it in one, it's informative to consider WHY the diagram is impossible. Time, yes of course.

Previously:

What I mean is, it's like, upon some primary level, we all WANT our diagrams to have exact correspondence? What fascinates me about maths and logic generally, is that they tell us what this would look like. Anyway, your postings have helped me to clarify a lot of my thinking on this.

Sandra:
Yeah, it is just a framework, some rules to go by. Personally, I notice
when people don't make rules they are the ones trying to change the
rules in the middle of the game or they don't want to be responsible for
their actions - or they like to live in illusion (just some of my experiences). So the math, logic is just a rule - the really 'neat' stuff comes after - but within the rules.

Jon:

Dead right. We're always going to be attacked pretty hard on the "determinism" front, because people generally like to say: "It was YOU who gave me the option to choose to have no choice."

But we've just got to say it how we see it.

Previously:
What I like about the 'set' idea, generally, is the idea that whenever
we say the 'to be,' we are mapping whatever we are talking about (which the sentence in a certain way 'creates' as extant) onto some particular (past, present or future) vague co-domain.

Sandra:
Yes, I like this to - specifically for "to be"!! Is there a difference between
"to be" and "I believe to be"? I tend to separate the descriptive from
the inferential - again, I believe that Quine has something to say about this and
from what I read this weekend I am not sure he would like Indicant Theory. However,
he never talks specifically about "to be" as Cat and you do.

Jon:

Personally, I think the idea of ontological commitment is extremely rich territory, but again, I've spoken about Quine in my response to Lucifer.
But have a look, because there may be good stuff in there we can steal ;-)

Sandra:
I am referring more to 'clear thinking'. How do we help clear our thinking
about "to be" when some people take He is a poet to mean that is ALL he
is. He maps to a poet seems to help. He maps to a husband, He maps to
a baker, etc. etc. The use of mapping might be only one way to think of
"to be" and that is when it involves correspondence, relationships (functions).
What IF (big) "to be" didn't exist but "mapping" did? What would Heidegger
have talked about "mapping"? He would have come up with something completely
different, don't you think? Wouldn't his thinking been more clear? Try
reading his "Being" by replacing the word "Mapping" in B&T - would this
change anything? This is more of the thought process I was taking. If
it doesn't change anything - then I think the mapping theory we are discussing
is a bit useless.

Jon:

The Heidegger's of this world will always find stuff to get all dewy eyed over I'm afraid. You can't cure people of their addictions, just provide the treatment programme and leave the wide door open.

As far as I'm concerned, I'm doing this because bursting ballons is more fun than filling them with not air.

Previously:
From the little I've read on logic (I get lost pretty much as soon as the symbols kick in) you can express the sentence:
"John loves everyone but Mary"
in terms of logic, but not:
"John is everything but a lover to Mary."
Again, I suppose it's 'the gap' between these two sentences that interests me most. It seems to say something about the way our knowing is always finite.

Sandra:
The first sentence says that John loves everyone minus one (Mary).
The second sentence says that John is everything to Mary minus one
(a loving thing to her).

Jon:

Interesting. It bursts my balloon but I like it. Would you say any sentence that doesn't make us go "huh?" can be analysed in these terms? The idea certainly appeals to me.

Sandra:

Okay, logic is already a form of life. The propositional calculus is
very basic to our language - infant language. A baby knows if mommy
is in the room or not in the room. This starts M, not M. Then M can
act on this or that. M can act on this and that. This is conjunction
and disjunction. The conditional, if . . . then, is just formed from
the above and goes from there.

Jon:

POP!

Sandra:

Like I say it is just a rule or language game. How we play the game is what matters? Do we write poetry with language, do math, do science, do mysticism, do illusion?

Jon:

Mathematics has changed our forms of life beyond all recognition. So it's a fully fledged Natural Language. It's passed the test.

Sandra:

Logic is very primary - (and very easy I might add - just pick up any Schuamns outline to logic and set theory and I bet you would have it within one reading!) to language.

Jon:

POP! Now you've revealed one of your primary ontological commitments.

But this IS totally bloody FASCINATING! Because look how absolutely ACCURATE the "to be" IS in this context.

(I think I can assume a basic agreement in our respective ontological commitments here.)

And the species that can transform its disagreement into instantaneous antagonism, and its agreement into instantaneous alliance (which does after all save time) is the one that will get its revenge in first by sheer weight of numbers!

Which does have certain advantages for the species - though not for the two saps beating seven shades of drunken shite out of each other on a Saturday night over which IS the best football team. (Get a lot of that in UK by the way. It's to do with the "free rules" of our own particular language-games.)

POP! That was Quine's. We did that together. It IS fun!

Anyway, speaking strictly according to an accurate description of MY ontological commitments.

"Logic seems very primary to you."

Generally, I can do maths with pen and paper, as long as its also simple enough for me to apply stuff I already know to it. What I can't do, is "carry it around" and apply it to what I see. Sorry, I just can't :-)

If you give me piece of paper with a sentence of forty unpuctuated words, and another that says the same thing with seven or eight

symbols, for me, the first will be easier.

Sandra:

As far as your "Math never seems to do this, maybe because it has no aspirations concerning its relation to natural language". There is already a logic in language then math uses the symbols to express this logic in language. But I see where you are coming from. Do we need to use a bunch of symbols to express language like the mathematicians use to express the world around us? I bet it can be done - but is it practical? Maybe poetry expresses language better?

Jon:

No. I think my position has changed on this in the course of this post.

Now, I'd say "Maths is a natural language." It seems to me it's already passed the test. It's changed our forms of life.

But isn't maths poetry anyway?

Sandra:

All math does is uses symbols then logic to describe the
world - it does this with computers and we have computer language.
To me it is about the game. Do you remember or know the the Bat in the Vat argument (Nelson Goodman)?

Jon:

Tell me more about Nelson Goodman.

He sounds like a relative of Dr. Seuss.

The bat in the vat with the cat on the mat with the horse for the course that pauses for thought :-)

Sandra:
I guess I need more help with "to be." Let us say We can "to be" to an action verb or We can "to be" to a category. The "to be" to a category, like "I am a woman" is different than "I am sitting." "I map to woman" and "I sitting."

Jon:

Good question.

I'm not sure on this, but I think we need to procede very very carefully here. My problem is this question of the division that's introduced according to time. On the one hand, the application of the verb rule looks like a basic linguistic structure. On the other hand, maybe it's not applied to "woman" just because it wouldn't make sense according to the "non-word" it's required to name.

We're talking "boundary conditions" here between "laws" and "rules," so we've got to wear our softest slippers.

On your other point, I think "non verbal" gets too confusing here. Wrong connotations.

Sandra:

Do we treat these different? Also, when I read Quine he talked
about "to believe" is a transitive verb, and so on.

Jon:

Yeah, but how and why?

Generally, for "verb," as I've said, I think it's maybe it's a mistake to think "verb" and immediately think "word" without also adding "under a transformational rule."

On terminology, ask Cat. He knows this stuff. I don't.

Sandra:

Can we make a distinction
between the "to be" to category and "to be" to a verb, or map to a category
and map to verb (transitive, intransitive) with "to believe"? Just some thoughts here - or thinking outloud.

Jon:

I think we'd better leave it here, for now.

Sandra:

I would like to get back to math - just for a little moment. I read
Fahang Zabeeh's _What is in a Proper Name_ a few months ago and I remember
that he mentioned that he found it detrimental that math people (Frege,
Gogol, Russell, Whitehead, etc.) formulated stuff
like propositional logic, and things dealing with language without even
consulting the linguistic people. Similarly, linguistic people formulated
language structure(s) without consulting the math people. They did
this is both in their own realms and, while coming up with 'great stuff'
they also made errors that they wouldn't have if only they had consulted the
other. Zabeeh seems to be very knowledgeable both about logic and linguistics
and he writes in a manner that I can understand. I just ordered some other
books of his and first, I am going to find if he has made any comments
on the "to be" verb - which, I believe, he would be the type to do so, and
second learn more about the linguistic or language aspect of natural language as
you have helped me do.

Jon:

Could you sort of summarise some of this if you get time?

Sandra:

As far as the math part, to me, you and Cat are already speaking in mathematically.
I can imagine mathematicians using the terms like "modal indicant", "modal exbunt",
etc. In other words, I think we are talking about two different realms when
there is only one. (Kind of like talking about body and mind as if they could
exist apart). My point here is that the terms decided on do not have to
belong to one realm or the other, but some creative terms, as you have
suggested, might be used in both realms later on. I still find it interesting
that mathematicians would never say "Beings". They do use the terms "free",
"modes", "modal". Hopefully, we can work together in this exciting new area.

Jon:

We aleady are, Sandra. Really well.

Sandra:

When I said before that I am not creative I wasn't trying to be funny. I really
am not. I do enjoy research and analysis and if I can bring forth some old
stuff to your new stuff I would be glad to do it.

Jon:

If you insist. I'll refer strictly to your serendipitous insight instead!

Cheers, Jon.

Talk to you later.

Cheers to you!

Sandra

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#3 From: "Jon Neivens" <jon@...>
Date: Sat Feb 24, 2001 1:57 am
Subject: Thoughts on Mapping II jon@...
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Hi Sandra!

Hopefully I can clear up some of our confusion here. As a general rule, when someone tells me they don't follow what I'm on about, that sets the alarm bells ringing as to whether or not I'm talking sheer nonsense.

So don't ever hesitate on this score!

As a general comment on the maths as language thing, it's maybe interesting to note that what's usually called "The Scientific Revolution" occurs when maths replaces Latin as the lingua franca of international learning.

Jon (previously):
I love the idea of 'co-domains,' and from the very little that I can
grasp of 'set theory,' it fascinates me.

One thing though. When you speak of 'mapping' as a 'function,' does this mean that mapping creates the relations between the terms over which it ranges, as well as describing them?

Sandra:
Usually, one must find a function, (relation, correspondence) first. When
one does it's necesararly 'onto' or 'surjective', i.e, the stuff in the co-domain map back to the domain. When one first starts studying functions, in math, we are given exercises to determine whether 1) it is a function 2) is it 1-1, onto, or both - this is more a creation type process. But, for mathematical purposes, mappings are discovered then described. Therefore, mapping is a RULE. I guess, in linguistic terms, this means one finds (discovers) the relations then describes the relation, on a practical level. The creating of a function would be more of an excerise or an example to use - theoretical.

Many people use discover and created as the same - do you?

Jon:

I had a rough idea maybe this was the case, but wanted to check it out first. In very general terms, what I'm doing is attempting to use 'mapping' as a metaphor for how the Modal Indicant functions. I don't think we can expect an 'exact fit' between the two.

Yes, I'm sort of using 'discover' and 'create' as the same, although I'm throwing 'describe' into the bag as well. I'm saying that the Modal Indicant does, or, at least, can do, all three, maybe simultaneously, entirely depending upon the context of its use. Take the sentence:

"Jon is walking."

This pretty much the kind of sentence picked up as part of the way children initially grow into language.

The Modal Indicant establishes a descriptive relation between "Jon" and "walking," but at the same time, in terms of how it functions, it does a lot more. What I mean is, it doesn't say "Jon + walking," it says "Jon walking." The Modal Indicant allows the sentence to say ONE thing, not TWO.

As I say, this is the kind of basic sentence that we pick up 'as a whole' from language, but in order to work it's magic, it must, to some extent, be 'creative' every time it's used. How was your thinking redirected when you first read the sentence?

And this is kind of what I mean by 'vague co-domains.' The sentence doesn't say 'where' Jon is 'doing' this walking,' or 'where Jon is walking to,' but enough of this stuff belongs to the 'set' we call 'walking' for the sentence to make sense. I don't know, maybe the sentence happened for you as something like: "Jon is walking tortoisefully through the woods."

Obviously, this kind of imaginative 'filling in,' taking our selves elsewhere,' can happen without words (I tend to call this 'reverie' as

opposed to 'thinking,' which I reserve for 'internal dialogue.') But I'd tend to doubt we'd be capable of reverie if we didn't have language at all.

BTW - Here's a question I heard the other week which maybe contradicts the above point. Do deaf people think in sign language?

Previously:

This diagram caught my eye:
C -> B -> D

|^ |v
E <- F <-> G
Suppose this is taken as "how things look to B," in terms of a
particular 'function' (e.g., 'a friend of'). So F ^ (is) 'a friend of' B, or so it seems to B, at any rate (F probably has his own view upon this).

Sandra:
Okay, yes you are right, except F doesn't probably (or possibly) have his own view about B. B believes his friend to be F. F believes his
friend to be E and G. G believes his friend to be F. So F and G have
the only mutual friendship according to this 'friendship diagram'. This
mutuality is expressed by the bi-conditional, or if and only if statement,
or 'it is necessary statement'. This gets back to what I e-mailed
Catweasle about Modal Logic (from what I know of it). What one CAN say about F is that he believes his friend to be C who in-turn believes his friend to be B who in-turn believes his friend to be F. One would say F, E, C, and B are 'closed' in this way - that is, if D and G were out of the picture F, E, C, B would still be same - or under the same relation (rule). So the possibility of F, E, C, and B going out to
lunch or for drinks or something out of friendship would be a likely
scenario.

Jon:
What I'm doing here is trying to see how this kind of diagram could be applied to the way natural languages work. So the double arrow would then mean "B believes that F and G are friends." If we wanted to check out B's opinion, we'd have to look at F's and G's diagrams respectively. The arrow from C to B would mean something like "B thinks C likes him (B)" and those between B and F and B and D would indicate who B thinks he likes. And since this is a diagram for friendship, not antipathy, we can't infer anything from the absence of an arrow (although a double arrow would still mean something different from from a single one).

OK, think of it as the cast of 'Friends.' B would say to D "Why doesn't F ever show up for lunch or drinks?", and D, who likes B a lot (we'd see this from D's diagram), would, ever so gently and gradually, try to alter B's diagram with regard to F (which, might, in turn, also alter B's diagram with regard to D).

But, since we're talking about how natural languages work, even this is a bad example, since the cast of 'Friends' aren't people we have conversations with. So if we wanted to find out about the diagrams of B, C, D, E, F, and G, we'd have to hang out with them and get to know them. Which, in effect, would mean that we'd have to add Sandra's and Jon's diagrams to all of the others.

OK, now I'm going to apply this idea to natural language in general, and make Three Contentious Claims:

1) If we all had exactly the same diagram for everything, we wouldn't need to talk to each other.

2) If we all had totally different diagrams for everything, we wouldn't be able to talk to each other.

3) If we each knew exactly what all of our own diagram looked like, we wouldn't have to talk to our selves (to think).

This has to be seen as the general context within which the Modal Indicant operates. And this why, when I'm talking about 'vague' sets or co-domains, this mustn't be seen as immediately negative.

So what I'm curious about here, is how "degrees of correspondence between sets," can be expressed (maybe in terms of ratio, or whatever)? Because I think this 'degree of correspendence' is perhaps the 'motor' that drives language. What I mean is, it's like, upon some primary level, we all WANT our diagrams to have exact correspondence?

What fascinates me about maths and logic generally, is that they tell us what this would look like. Anyway, your postings have helped me to clarify a lot of my thinking on this.

Previously:

What I like about the 'set' idea, generally, is the idea that whenever
we say the 'to be,' we are mapping whatever we are talking about (which the sentence in a certain way 'creates' as extant) onto some particular (past, present or future) vague co-domain.

Sandra:

Yes, I do too, because the 'to be' doesn't seem to do this for some
reason - not in our brains. Many paradoxes come up because "to be" doesn't seem to do this (when it should?)

Jon:

I'm not sure what you mean here. The 'to be' ALWAYS does this. You'll get into serious trouble if you start telling the 'to be' what it 'should' do ;-)

From the little I've read on logic (I get lost pretty much as soon as the symbols kick in) you can express the sentence:

"John loves everyone but Mary"

in terms of logic, but not:

"John is everything but a lover to Mary."

Again, I suppose it's 'the gap' between these two sentences that interests me most. It seems to say something about the way our knowing is always finite.

But to return to my Three Contentious Claims, it looks like if we could speak in an 'entirely logical' language, if all our sentences were of the first form (first order language) this would already mean that all of our

diagrams for everything would be the same. In which case, or so it looks to me, sentences like the first would be redundant. I think this is an important point to remember about the context across which natural language operates, and itself makes possible (I think this was Wittgenstein's basic point about language-games as 'a form of life').

I don't know, maybe logic would just eat itself at the point where it became a 'form of life' rather than an analytical tool. Maths never seems to do this, maybe because it has no aspirations concerning its relation to natural language.

But maybe if you could find a way to express 'the gap' between those two sentences, you'd end up with something like a "Chaos Theory Logic' ?!? Again, this would maybe have something to do with expressing degrees of correspondence between sets?

Previously:

BTW - this idea of a 'co-domain' also allows me to answer Kalev Pehme's eloquent point concerning 'modality' in posting #1246. The idea of a 'mode' also covers the general area of 'accidental properties.'
"The hat is red."

Sandra:
Also for color "The hat seems red to me" would be better. "The hat is
red" doesn't really make sense, so "to be" doesn't work here at all!

Jon:

No. You understood the sentence, otherwise you couldn't have reformulated it, so it worked just fine. Again think 'forms of life,' and imagine someone who always used "seems... to me" in place of "is."

Would you say this person was making logical statements or just plain indecisive? Obviously, I'm interested in the question of how the Modal Indicant allows ontological commitment; it allows us to claim that something definitely exists as something. So testing the accuracy also depends on the Modal Indicant.

(Sorry, I'm not rying to shoot you down here, since your comments are helping me a great deal on this whole 'logic/natural language' thing.)

Previously:

Within the particular sentence, the 'vague co-domain' is also 'created'
as extant. Or, more accurately, it is allowed by the Modal Indicant to
'borrow' the extantness of the Extantial Imbuant for as long as the sentence itself 'hangs in the ether.'

Sandra:
Okay, but can you give me a specific example here to help me understand better?

Jon:

Hopefully, I at least began to do that above? But let's go back to it.

"Jon is (still) walking."

What I mean is, walking is a mode of existence. We're calling it the Modal Informant. Now 'walking,' is never extant all by itself, since it needs some extant thing (a person or a horse, etc.) to perform it.

As I said, the sentence says just one thing, not two. But we'll let Jon rest his weary legs and intoduce another example.

"The cat is on the mat."

So "on the mat" is the Modal Informant. It has no extantness of its own.

But take "on the mat" as a vague co-domain or set. What most immediately 'belongs' to "on the mat" is "on the floor" and therefore probably also a "room," since that definitely belongs to the set "floor," but probably not "walls," since now we've moved a little too far from "on the mat."

But what I'm getting at is that the extantness that belongs to "the cat" is passed through to "on the mat" in such a way that "on the mat" functions as a set. But it always a 'vague set' that is made extant, and it is made vaguely exant; or, more exactly, the extantness just sort of fades away, without having 'definite edges.' Notice that we don't ever see anything like "not the television" when we say "The cat is on the mat."

But at the same time, "the cat" also functions as a set. Following Aristotle, I guess we'd call the contents of this set the cat's 'essential properties.' But again, this is a 'vague set,' inasmuch as there is never a hard and fast boundary between 'essential' and 'accidental' properties.

Here's what I mean (sorry if this is 101ism for you BTW, but it helps me to go through this step by step anyway): Suppose the cat is lying down; 'lying down' is an accidental property, since a cat that is standing up is still a cat. But since 'position' is an essential property, we'd always see the cat as in some position. But with "The cat is on the mat." we'd tend to see the cat as 'lying down.' Why? Because this mode has been passed passed to "the cat" from "on the mat." Again, this has been done by that little 'genius word,' the Modal Indicant.

So the Mapping idea is PERFECT here: "the cat" maps to "on the mat."

And it's also essential that these 'sets' are vague, inasmuch there would be no 'semantic word' in a language that was not also part of the 'set' of another word. So "floor" is part of the 'set' of "ceiling" and also vice-versa, whilst "lampshade" can belong to "ceiling", but "mat" does not.

So if language consisted of 'closed sets,' it would be like a house with all the doors locked.

But it's precisely because these are 'open sets' that we are able to move through language. Think of the correlation between word-association games and everyday conversation here. Also, it's probably true to say that the contents of my set "cat" won't be exactly the same as yours (or Cat's). So, since nothing was specifically stated concerning the cat's position, if you saw it as 'sitting' that wouldn't have been 'wrong.'

Like our respective vocabularies, the contents of our 'word sets' are similar enough to make language possible, whilst simultaneously being different enough to make it necessary.

Previously:
It is this 'allowing to borrow' that we have already discovered to be
the function of the Modal Indicant. So, for as long as we are speaking or thinking, there is continuous 'light show' of fluctuating mapping relations; a constant shifting and overlapping movement of co-domains. What does remain constant, however is the 'act of mapping' itself, to which we usually attach the label "I."

Sandra:
Yes, because it is a rule, IMO. Can this be compared to Wittgenstein's
language games?

Jon:

Yes, I think the idea of language-games is really good here, because it says a lot about the way 'rules' in general function in language. (Also, this comment of yours that set me thinking on the 'forms of life' stuff above) Again, I think this is a major difference between maths (and logic?) on the one hand, and natural languages on the other; i.e., the extent to which they are bound by their rules. That's why Wittgenstein uses the word 'game' here: It all hinges upon the inter-relation between freedom and rules. Generally, that's how we recognise "skill." It's being able to beat the rules by simultaneously obeying them.

Anyway, for the sake of argument, suppose we call the rules of language "free rules." (I'm not sure whether these linguistic rules can be called 'function rules.' If you could give an idiot-proof sketch of 'function relations' that would help me out: is this a 'relation between functions' or a 'function that relates'? Or both? And I'll leave Cat to give the proper terminology on what follows.)

What I'm getting at is that what is fixed within a particular language is the way we use 'semantic-words' and 'syntax-words.'

We can call these the 'free' rules of language, which means they are strictly 'rules of use.' If everyone used the word 'cat' for 'dog,' and vice versa, that would work fine. How the rules function would be the 'deep structure' of language, the domains across which these functions operate would be the 'surface structure,' specific to the particular language, and this surface would consist of 'forms of life.'

A language also imposes definite forms of sentence structure upon the ways we can combine words into a particular semantic whole.
In English, for example, the way nouns relate to verbs is usually established by word order.

1) The man was bitten by the dog.

2) The dog was bitten by the man.

In Ancient Greek, the noun's role (who is doing the biting) is established by supplying it with a different ending.

So a language is a set of 'free semantic rules' and 'free syntactic rules.'

Semantic Rules

Beyond the basic fact that a language must have semantic rules, they are 'free.' Or, more accurately, they are 'free' with regard to form, but not to function. Roughly speaking, the function of semantic rules is to establish a relation between word and non-word.

Generally, the non-word will be either something that exists - an Extantial Imbuant, or a mode of existence - a Modal Informant.

But here, it's crucial to see that, whilst the particular phonetic form is always fixed to the same non-word, whether or not the particular non-word appears as Extantial Imbuant or Modal Informant is 'fixed' by syntax. (That's the reason why I'm sticking to the odd looking formulation 'non-word' here.)

Here it looks like I've contradicted myself, inasmuch as I've said that the relation between word and non-word is both 'free' and 'fixed.' But this just means that Semantic Rules are 'free' solely with regard to a specific language, but 'fixed' with regard to the speakers of that language. In order to see how forcefuly these 'free' rules are 'fixed' upon us, try saying 'hat' whilst meaning 'antelope'!

So we can say semantic rules are 'free' in three ways.

1) In terms of whether or not the particular non-word is an Extantial Imbuant or a Modal Informant.

2) In terms of the particular phonetic form fixed to the a non-word (and thus also it's written form.)

2) In terms what is named. Obviously, a 'limit' is imposed upon what can be named, but not strictly by language itself. I guess all languages will have a word for 'eye,' but not necessarily for 'elephant.'

Again, the relation between natural languages and 'forms of life' - a language will have the words that those who speak actually need (this is obviously a feed-back process). But all languages need forms of syntax as well.

Syntactic Rules.

Syntactic rules, like semantic rules, are 'free' with regard to form, but not to function. Roughly speaking, the function of semantic rules is to establish a relation between word and word. But since semantic rules have already established word and non-word, syntactic rules simultaneously establish relations between non-word and non-word.

Now here we have to remember that these relations are the 'forms of life' that the sentences themselves describe. It's like the fact that, when were doing sums, we don't get hung up about the fact that "+" and "=" aren't themselves numbers, but allow us to talk about relations that numbers themselves actually have.

So obviously syntactic rules have a 'semantic content.' And the specific word-forms that that these rules employ, are not somehow 'more abstract' than the words that obey semantic rules.

Take "Mavis's hat..." On the one hand, the genitive(?), the " 's", allows us to establish that we are talking about the "hat" and not "Mavis." We are saying something about 'the hat that belongs to Mavis.' But notice that 'ownership' is itself a 'form of (human) life.' Maybe if it wasn't, we wouldn't have this particular syntactic rule - we'd have no use for it. Or maybe here the 'form of life' is determined by language?

Anyway, notice that the genitive(?) doesn't establish whether "Mavis's hat..." is an Extantial Imbuant or a Modal Informant. It look's as if its already on the way to being an Extantial Imbuant, but that's because sentence formation is already under way, so a limit has already been placed upon the kinds of transformations that can be made. You can do:

"Mavis's hat is deepest red."

or:

"I am struck by the redness of Mavis's hat."

Here "Mavis's hat" functions as an Extantial Imbuant purely to help out The Modal Informant. (A verb phrase that requires a noun-phrase complement as its indirect object?)

But notice again that both sentences say the same thing. In the second, the extantness of "Mavis's hat" is stated, but is immediately transferred by the Modal Indicant to my own extantness, as part of my current mode.

But suppose Mavis is famous for her red hats (the redness of Mavis's hats is an established form of life). So sentences like:

"I am Mavising."

"Tommorrow, I am going to Mavis."

But since these kinds of syntactic rules generally hunt in packs, they don't allow us to say "Mavis's hatting."

This really is the most important point about the freedom that langauge allows with regard to its rules. Semantic rules have to be free to the extent that they are, in order to allow us to name new things "microprocessor" etc., and syntactic rules in order to allow us to talk about the relations between these new things. But this is because the evolutionary function of language is to allow us to alter our forms of life (to bypass genetic evolution, as it were).

So language has to give us enough rope to hang ourselves. It allows us to say things like: "Language is the house of being," if that's what we really want to do, and leaves it up to us whether or not this says anything about our forms of life. If it didn't do that, we would be able to say things like: "Thou shalt not kill," or: "Energy equals mass times the speed of light squared."

[I was going to say some stuff about abstract nouns like 'space,' 'time' and 'nothing,' and also I need some info from Cat about whether the irregularity of verbs can be linked to their function as Modal Auxilliaries (is that OK as part of our terminological base?) but I'm going on a bit here, so I'll press on.]

Previously:
Cat often correctly points out that the 'to be' is what allows us to interact with the fact of our own consciousness. What I'd
add to this is that the 'to be' is also what creates the fact of our own
consciousness. This is why I find the words 'continuity' and
'discontinuity' useful. Perhaps we can call the 'continuity' the particular direction' that the 'mapping relation' opens out.

Sandra:

This sounds good. (Remember if it is direction with force then it is
called a vector! Ha! One just has to make the arrows darker or put
a line of the arrow to show direction with force).

Jon:

Double ha! This set me thinking about the Modal Indicant as a vector, Victor!

From the symbol stuff, it's time directed, but this has to do with something like 'force of intentionality.' In other words, our attention/intention is time-directed by the Modal Indicant (maybe this has to be 'helped out' by the application of syntactic rules within verb formation?). Obviously, I need to do more work on this.

Previously:

So when we say "I am thinking" this strictly means "I am mapping." But
we can see that this actually means "I map to mapping," or even "My mapping is currently mapped to my mapping." This kind of formulation certainly allows us to clarify the structural confusion that is part of the baggage of the little word "I."

Sandra:

Okay, now I am little lost - probably because of the above where I
asked for a specific example. I will map outloud here. I first want
to say "I map to thinking". Now is thinking equal in value to
consciousness? Thinking is an activity 'of' consciousness (some might say of the unconscious), separate from the rule, to me. Again, I am thinking outloud here . . . maybe you can explain more.

Jon:

What I'm getting at here (I've talked about it before), is that, in terms of its use, the "I word" is a bit of a moveable feast. I think the best way to get at this is through the idea of a language-game by means of which we learn to say our own name. Now the main rule of this particular game, which allows us to play it, is that "I" must be equal to "Sandra," "Jon," etc.

So when you say: "Jon is typing," This is equal to my saying: "I am typing." Most of the time, this kind of stuff just sails past; it's part of the basic conversation this rule allows. The problem arises when we forget, or don't know, that this language-game is designed for converstions with others, and for certain kinds of conversation with ourselves.

Where it breaks down, in other words, is for conversations with ourselves about our selves. As I said above, a semantic rule establishes a relation between a word and a non-word. But in order for this rule to work within a particular language-game, we have to be able to apply it in a definite fashion.

The sentence: "I am typing" works OK, because, really, the 'I-word'

Now compare my saying to myself. "Who is Sandra?" with my saying: "Who am I?" to myself.

I can answer the first in the same way as if I was asked it by someone else. I can say: "That's Sandra over there!," or I can talk about what I've experienced of Sandra, 'intelligence,' 'sense of humour,' etc. I can begin to do this with the second question, but I immediately run into the problem that I no longer have a definite rule within which I can apply the 'I-word.'

Basically, my asking of the question: "Who am I?" also falls under what it is I want to be able to name with the 'I-word,' in a way which doesn't happen when I ask: "Who is Sandra?" So some sort of feedback loop gets introduced here, which, in turn, also falls under what it is I want to be able to name with the 'I-word.'

When it comes down to it, we just don't have a language-game that allows us to answer this question. But what we do have, is quite a lot of language-games (forms of life) that allow us to talk about the fact that we can't answer it: Art, Religion, etc.

Previously:

Another point here concerns our 'behaviour' (this is a generic term that
I use to cover both 'bodily activity' and 'perception,' with the
implication that no hard and fast distinction should be drawn between the two). Our behaviour can perhaps also be called an 'unspoken mapping.' The fact that it is nevertheless a 'mapping' means that it, too, has 'continuity': It opens out its own particular series of directed relations toward co-domains, each of which is determined by the one preceding it.

Sandra:
Okay, I agree about the 'no distinction between the two'. What about
'unspoken mapping' being synomous with 'true identity'? I like 'unspoken mapping' much better!!!!! 'True identity just leads into arugments about 'true'. 'Unspoken mapping' cuts through the chase! Excellent!

Jon:

Hmm, not sure what you mean by 'true identity' here (see above). But I think what I said above about a word functioning as a 'vague set' makes things interesting here. What I mean is, our behaviour generally maps us to things in the same way. So if you pick up a shoe, your behaviour is already on the way to the stuff like 'socks,' 'feet,' 'walking,' etc., that belongs to the vague set 'shoe.'

Actually (credit where it's due), I'm developing this from Heidegger's notion of the 'ready-to-hand.' What I'm saying is that behaviour, too, functions, as a vague set, or maybe as a vague set of vague sub sets, that we would generally call 'bodily activity' (Dreyfus would call this our 'repertoire of coping skills'). Actually, the idea of 'body language' is a good one here, although we generally only apply it to the way we can 'talk to each other.' I'm kind of saying that much (not all) of our 'bodily activity' is a kind of 'talking to things.'

So when we're 'up to something,' a vague 'behaviourial sub-set' maps to a thing as 'vague set.' So our activity can often procede in a kind of 'word association' fashion. Obviously, what I'm talking about is 'habitual activity,' but it's to do with behaviour as modal. Again, I need to think more about this.

Previously:

Again, we also tend to attach the word "I" to our behaviour. What is
curious here, I suppose, is that we are capable of a kind of 'bi-polar mapping' (I don't know whether 'bi-polar' is a good description of this). Here I'm thinking (mapping to) your example of showering whilst considering a maths problem.

Sandra:
Hey, I don't remember telling this secret! Oh well. Yes, I believe the
bi-conditional works. Also, in my Communicative Diagram (Friendship
Diagram) above, one can have diagonals as well, say from E to B or D, etc. What about tri-polar, . . . on up to n+1-polar.

Jon:

Got it! We are capable of bi-communicative mapping!

Again, I need to say more on this, but I'll sign off since this posting already represents about three days work.

Anyway, thanks for all your insightful stuff. I think we're getting somewhere with this :-)

Cheers, Jon.

Reply | Forward | Messages in this Topic (1)

#2 From: "Jon Neivens" <jon@...>
Date: Sat Feb 24, 2001 1:56 am
Subject: Thoughts on Mapping jon@...
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Hi Sandra,
Sorry to take so long to get back to you, but many thanks for the material
you sent, which has certainly sent my mind scuttling down all sorts of new
alleyways.

One thing that occurs to
me: One of my maths teacher's at school always said that we were studying
three languages, English, French, and Mathematics. I'm only now beginning to
understand what he meant, although I'm afraid I too am pretty much a
mathematical illiterate. Then again, for the most part I'm equally baffled
by Cat's grammatical terminology.

I suppose whatever intelligence I may or may not have is pretty much
'verbal.' But I like the way you've been fighting your corner on the whole
maths = abstraction thing; I think you're right to point out that
"abstraction is as abstraction does."

Maybe, it's interesting to note that for Beethoven music was strictly what
happened with the arrangement of 'symbolic notation' on paper. He generally
regarded the Concert Performance
of his work as the 'abstraction,' and didn't give a tinker's cuss whether
what he wrote was even 'playable.'

When people use the word 'abstract' in the manner of an implied criticism,
this usually contains the added implication that 'abstraction' is something
'cold,' which is just silly.

To me, 'the joy of abstraction' consists in the way it allows us to return
to what the pedants laughably call 'reality' from out of left field.

I guess if we insist on attaching labels, we can call what results from this
'arriving back' "Poetic," but it's difficult even to say this without making
it look as if some kind of hierarchy is being imposed.

The problem with taking Heidegger too seriously in these kind of questions
is that he tends to lead himself astray by his mixing of metaphors.

Anyway, enough on this..

I love the idea of 'co-domains,' and from the very little that I can grasp
of 'set theory,' it fascinates me.

One thing though. When you speak of 'mapping' as a 'function,' does this
mean that mapping creates the relations between the terms over which it
ranges, as well as describing them?

This sense of "creative description" is pretty much how I see the Modal
Indicant or, perhaps more accurately, "creative description" is what the
Modal Indicant allows.

This diagram caught my eye:
    C -> B -> D
     |^   |v
    E <- F <-> G
Suppose this is taken as "how things look to B," in terms of a particular
'function' (e.g., 'a friend of'). So F ^ (is) 'a friend of' B, or so it
seems to B, at any rate (F probably has his own view upon this).

What I like about the 'set' idea, generally, is the idea that whenever we
say the 'to be,' we are mapping whatever we are talking about (which the
sentence in a certain way 'creates' as extant) onto some particular (past,
present or future) vague co-domain.

BTW - this idea of a 'co-domain' also allows me to answer Kalev Pehme's
eloquent point concerning 'modality' in posting #1246. The idea of a 'mode'
also covers the general area of 'accidental properties.'
    "The hat is red."

Within the particular sentence, the 'vague co-domain' is also 'created' as
extant. Or, more accurately, it is allowed by the Modal Indicant to 'borrow'
the extantness of the Extantial Imbuant for as long as the sentence itself
'hangs in the ether.'

It is this 'allowing to borrow' that we have already discovered to be the
function of the Modal Indicant.

So, for as long as we are speaking or thinking, there is continuous 'light
show' of fluctuating mapping relations; a constant shifting and overlapping
movement of co-domains. What does remain constant, however is the 'act of
mapping' itself, to which we usually attach the label "I."

Here's what I mean. Cat often correctly points out that the 'to be' is what
allows us to interact with the fact of our own consciousness. What I'd add
to this is that the 'to be' is also what creates the fact of our own
consciousness. This is why I find the words 'continuity' and 'discontinuity'
useful. Perhaps we can call the 'continuity' the particular direction' that
the 'mapping relation' opens out.

So when we say "I am thinking" this strictly means "I am mapping." But we
can see that this actually means "I map to mapping," or even "My mapping is
currently mapped to my mapping." This kind of formulation certainly allows
us to clarify the structural confusion that is part of the baggage of the
little word "I."

Another point here concerns our 'behaviour' (this is a generic term that I
use to cover both 'bodily activity' and 'perception,' with the implication
that no hard and fast distinction should be drawn between the two). Our
behaviour can perhaps also be called an 'unspoken mapping.' The fact that it
is nevertheless a 'mapping' means that it, too, has 'continuity': It opens
out its own particular series of directed relations toward co-domains, each
of which is determined by the one preceding it.

Again, we also tend to attach the word "I" to our behaviour. What is curious
here, I suppose, is that we are capable of a kind of 'bi-polar mapping' (I
don't know whether 'bi-polar' is a good description of this). Here I'm
thinking (mapping to) your example of showering whilst considering a maths
problem.

As a final point concerning the idea of mapping as a 'creative description.'
What is 'created' is the 'relation.' The co-domain that is mapped to is
fixed by the language itself. Although, obviously, when we learn a language,
we are primarily learning to negotiate an already fixed (already mapped)
landscape of relations. But this needs a lot more
thought.

Anyway, I don't know if this kind of rambling discourse was what you had in
mind (was the co-domain you were mapping to) when you introduced this idea,
but please, please, please let me know what else you have in your
wonderful toy cupboard :-)

Thanks for this stuff.
Cheers, Jon.

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#1 From: "catweasle" <Jud@...>
Date: Fri Feb 23, 2001 4:42 pm
Subject: Analytical Indicant Theory, (AIT) Basic Terminology. Jud@...
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Hi Jon and fellow members!

To launch the list, (and for this we give a sincere thank you to Jon Neivens
I  thought I'd paste up the three basic terms we use in A.I.T to describe
the function of the "to be" complex.
I plan to write a longer piece on individual each term  later.

Analytical Indicant Theory, (AIT) analyses  statements thus:

(1) Take the sentence:
"Mary is sitting on the riverbank."

Maps as:
"Mary, imbued with existence, is in a present mode of existence which
consists of sitting on the riverbank."
Thus:

Maps as:
"Mary"> extantal imbuant > "is" > modal indicant > "sitting on the
riverbank." > modal informant >

Indicant Theory is  not at all concerned with  the truth or falsity of this
statement. We are only interested in the syntactical logicality and semantic
veracity of the sentential structure

(2) Take the statement:.
"Nicky Hancock is the King of France."
Analytical Indicant Theory, knowing that there is no such thing as the King
of France,  is not concerned with the falsity inherent in this statement,
but is concerned simply with the acceptability of the statement as a true
sentence syntactically. Thus:

"Nicky Hancock"> extantal imbuant > "is" > modal indicant > "the King of
France.." > modal informant.


Nomenclature:
'Extantal Imbuant.'
The term illustrates the fact of 'existential incorporation'  that the
'subject' has as  an 'a priori existence,'  [for extantal imbuant is just
our way of saying - "the subject that already exists,"]

'Modal Indicant.'
Our new description of the 'copula.' The 'is' word is a pseudo-verb, which
does not impart existence to the Extantal Imbuant,  [subject,] but is an
'enabler,'  which indicates or allows the modalities of existence of the
Modal Informant  to be attributed  to the Extantal Imbuant.

'Modal Informant.'
The 'particular' modality of existence contained in the extantal imbuant
which gives a character, essence, manner etc.

For the Analytical Indicant Theory to be finally accepted it has got to be
shown that the human mind works this way, (with certain understood
variances,) universally even in remote languages far from civilisation.

Cheers!

Catweasle

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