Telnet to pmcmoo.org oom meme essay (#15951) [_chaosmosis_ (#824) ]

oom meme essay

Date: Wed, 24 Sep 1997 18:24:04 -0400 (EDT) To: spacing@jefferson.village.virginia.edu Subject: Re: SPACING: BOUNCE-ing Heather, for gotten she is.

This spacing posting hit me in the solar plexus, rather than reproduce it here, I will just trim it down to the salient problem and the two proposed hermeneutical horns (so to speak).

> The problem then is : should we think of "virtual" and "real" as two > worlds? It seems to me we could give the question two answers of diverse > hermeneutical usage.

> 1/ Analogy : "real" and "virtual" are two different worlds, in as far as > they reprensent two orders of causality, one privileging invention, the > other physical and social necessity.

> 2/ Continuity : "real" and "virtual" are one single world, one single > experience of one's self trying to elaborate as writer, inventor, player > -- or whatever.

How can we get our minds around these two possible worlds, Analogy and Continuity, which are actually prescriptions for thinking about two particular actual worlds. Let us borrow a practice from the realm of logic called hypothetical deliberation. Using a device called conversational accomodation, one simply moves the mind's attention to the set of possible worlds which makes an utterance true. Holding the mind's attention `fixed' on those worlds, one then can then examine other interesting or relevant aspects. Perhaps in a coolaborative experiment we can, as a group, focus our collective attention alternatively between the two worlds Paulindicates and then make some utterances about what we find `there' . . .

As my mind moves to the possible worlds in which `Analogy' answer is true, it seems that the virtual world is seated precariously on top of the real world. This two layer cake presupposes a rootedness of virtuality in reality. Where our virtual textual existence offers freedoms and a creative boundedlessness, our real existence has immediate, concrete and tangible boundries. This in not to deny that the virtual gives shape to a future real, yet there is a seeminly undeniable beginning with the real as given (like a zen slap perhaps). Further, even this future real is merely a particular virtual which is singled out by some accessibility relation to the real.

Now as my mind swings across to where the `Continuity' answer is true, it seems that there is only one stuff, being, and we merely conceive of it in various ways. Not to drift to far into Spinoza, yet using those ideas to gain some measure of the distance between the virtual and actual. If the virtual is a way of conceptualizing the real, then we do it by noticing similarities and differences. For example, `red', `apple', `brown spotted' or`golden' . . . as related to some medium sized particular object as discovered on the kitchen counter or hanging from yonder (possibly forbidden) tree. The energy that consitutes the medium sized particular object is no different than the energy used to render this text on your screen, or form the electrochemical pattern in my brain as I consider `golden apples' . . . Could it be a matter of scale ?

Take a deep breath and try to see the two sets of possible worlds simultaneously, other than being a bit distressed at not yet having a name for the world in which Analogy and Continuity worlds both exist, it does not seem to take much effort. Particularly, after the mind has already envisioned two worlds, virtual and real, in juxtiposition. Do we all now see a world, which contains two distinct worlds, each of which contain the original two worlds addressed directly in the previous posting?

Does it make sense to recast Paul's original `problem' using the result of our hypothetical deliberation?

"The problem then is : should we think of "Analogy" and "Continuity" as "two worlds? It seems to me we could give the question two answers of "diverse hermeneutical usage.

Is this an iterable process, and if so what would be the dimension of the space that is traced out by its iteration?

more, l8r, v

BTW, there is a possibly relevant tangent offered by Ontolingua at

http://java.stanford.edu/strand/ontologies/point-set-topology/index.html

and

http://www-ksl.stanford.edu/kst/what-is-an-ontology.html

oom moo