Re: [-empyre-] n-dimensional cobwebs of meaning

[John Hopkins <jhopkins@uiah.fi>]

> Definitely. I wrote these notes a while ago:
> "One of the features of a conceptual relation is the very fact that 
> it defies spatial and temporal constraints; for example, one person 
> might find Roman gladiators and contemporary boxers to exist in 
> conceptual proximity. This revelation might also bring certain 
> related concepts together (the boxing ring may suddenly seem similar 
> to the Coliseum), while others gain no ground (the Roman's thumbs 
> up/thumbs down judgment having no obvious corollary). What has 
> happened is that a sort of wormhole has formed between two galaxies 
> of thought, a span of billions of miles suddenly folding into a few 
> short steps. One wormhole is hard enough to visualize -- how can one 
> depict a journey through a universe of concepts when every step in 
> the path is a wormhole to a different location in timespace?"

But I think this also begs the issue that there are not temporal or 
spatial constraints on any abstracted / representative system within 
a specified social field.  There seems to be a slight (or more 
profound) oscillation in the text above that is equating the 
representation to the thing itself -- I think there is a fundamental 
separation, and that this should not be lost in the discussion of 
this liken-language-structure -- it is another representative system. 
(the representation of a boxing ring and a representation of the 
Coliseum)...

whatever it does, it does in a representational space which may or 
may not have any relevance to embodied/phenomenal lived presence...

just a note...

jh