RE: [-empyre-] fwd from Andrew Murpie re fundamental.

["Deborah MacPherson" <dmacp.mail@verizon.net>]

Writing is symbol, encoding is symbol, a rose IS a rose WHEN IT IS A REAL
ROSE otherwise it is just rose symbols. I further state that it does not
matter what alphabet or language the encoding is, assume there is a little
certain something there that works and makes us think rose or conjure up a
memory of a rose but if all life disappeared and someone was on a space ship
describing a rose to someone else, even a perfectly scaled rose hologram
combined with the precise aroma, a scratch from a thorn, accurate chemical
information and all other conceivable representations - they only capture
reductionist aspects of the rose and not the rose itself and maybe that is
ok - it makes the actual rose much more valuable, worth keeping. 

In the quest to preserve, understand or share information about natural,
non-duplicatable things roses, we need new ways to combine as many cues as
possible.  Computers may be able to "see" or "understand" or even "remember"
aspects of a rose but it won't take a scratch from it and does not have many
tools to assemble wholes on their own. 

Debbie
a museum designer obsessed with the real and leaving town for a day

-----Original Message-----
From: empyre-bounces@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
[mailto:empyre-bounces@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au] On Behalf Of Jim Andrews
Sent: Saturday, November 08, 2003 12:59 AM
To: soft_skinned_space
Subject: RE: [-empyre-] fwd from Andrew Murpie re fundamental.

Thanks, Andrew. I will check out Brooks and Varela.

It would be fascinating to hear an alternative clearly stated. I will look
for that in Rodney Brooks and Francisco Varela.

OK, I've had enough of this debate with Alan. It would be nice to hear from
other people.

ja


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