Squad
Your choice of topics is below.
As the call for topics was slightly delayed I'll close the voting a day later this time,
so you've got until midnight GMT on 1 Sept.
To vote simply reply to this message and state the number of your choice. New members
are very welcome to join in.
cheers
Diana
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1.
(Mark Butler)
"Fortunately our existence and language don't quite tie us
down to such an extent [q.v. Orwell's '1984' and Newspeak]
and the open-endedness can be sufficient to prise open the
conceptual barriers. In the context of Zen, koans are this
method, I guess. In the much more freewheeling western
culture you need books like ZAMM and Lila and www.moq.org
to prise the lid off the metaphysical cookie jar, 'cos
we're not too hot on pithy aphorisms anymore."
(Hamish Muirhead, letter to MOQ Focus, Sat Jul 29, 2000)
How specifically might 'the open-endedness of language
prise open its own conceptual barriers for the benefit of
our free-wheeling western culture'?
2.
(3WD)
In their books ''Metaphors We Live By'' and "Philosophy In The Flesh"
George Lakoff and Mark Johnson make the following points: "The mind is
inherently embodied. Thought is mostly unconscious. Abstract concepts
are largely metaphorical."
According to Lakoff, metaphor appears to be a neural mechanism that allows
us to adapt the neural systems used in sensory-motor activity to create forms
of abstract reason. "If this is correct, as it seems to be," he says, "our
sensory-motor systems thus limit the abstract reasoning that we can perform.
Anything we can think or understand is shaped by, made possible by, and
limited by our bodies, brains, and our embodied interactions in the
world. This is what we have to theorize with."
Assuming there is value to this theory: Let's explore the relationship
between metaphors and the MoQ ? Are they primary to its development? If
so, which ones, how many, etc? The goal being
if an understandable metaphor or a series of metaphors could be found it
might possibly be the elusive "catechism of the MoQ"
MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org
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