Hi Magnus and LilaQs,
Magnus wrote:
>A language is nothing without intellectual patterns,
> except maybe inorganic patterns. The egyptian hieroglyphs was just
carvings
> on papyrus before we knew the meaning of them, that is, before we knew
which
> intellectual patterns they represented.
>
> On the other hand, intellectual patterns *must* have a language to sustain
> itself. Otherwise it would effectively disappear....
I think find this unconvincing since I consider ALL patterns to require a
language to sustain them. It may not be a verbal language, but must
necessarily be a lexical construct of symbolic entities. Otherwise, you
can't call it a pattern!
I challenge Magnus to present an example of a pattern for which this does
not apply.
Though this may seem tangential to the topic of the month, it is actual
rather central. Metaphysics is all about finding a language to describe
reality. The Greeks deserve the credit for constructing what was probably
man's first well-defined language of philosophy, and other philosophers up
to and including Pirsig have used (and tried to modify) that language ever
since.
Jonathan
MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Thu Jan 17 2002 - 13:08:52 GMT