Re: VMs: Re: Leo Levitov questions

[Jacques Guy <jguy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

15/10/2004 8:54:09 AM, elvogt@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:


>On a more serious note, why is it so difficult for people to understand that the
>thing is not the same as talking about the thing?

We in the West had to wait for Ferdinand de Saussure and his
"Cours de linguistique générale". But the Chinese had known
about it for almost 3000 years. In the words of one of their
philosophers (I can't remember the name, I thought he was 
Chuang-Tzu, but I checked in my Dover edition of his works,
and I could not find it): "When you point at the moon with
your finger you do not mistake your finger for the moon.
How is it then that, when you point at things with words,
you mistake the word for the thing?"


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