Re: VMs: Re: Leo Levitov questions [and more jawboning about OT postings]

[Jim Gillogly <jim@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Jacques Guy wrote:
> 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?"

I've seen this often mentioned vaguely as a Zen koan, but
I haven't been able to trace it to its origins in ten
minutes of googling.

Lewis Carroll's "Through the Looking Glass" (1872) was published
when Saussure was about 15.  The exchange between Alice
and the White Knight seems to cover this rather thoroughly:

  `You are sad,' the Knight said in an anxious tone:  `let me
   sing you a song to comfort you. ...  The name of the song is
   called "HADDOCKS' EYES."'

  `Oh, that's the name of the song, is it?' Alice said, trying to
   feel interested.

  `No, you don't understand,' the Knight said, looking a little
   vexed.  `That's what the name is CALLED.  The name really IS "THE
   AGED AGED MAN."'

  `Then I ought to have said "That's what the SONG is called"?'
   Alice corrected herself.

  `No, you oughtn't:  that's quite another thing!  The SONG is
   called "WAYS AND MEANS":  but that's only what it's CALLED, you
   know!'

  `Well, what IS the song, then?' said Alice, who was by this
   time completely bewildered.

  `I was coming to that,' the Knight said.  `The song really IS
   "A-SITTING ON A GATE":  and the tune's my own invention.'

(Alice noted later that the tune was not in fact his own invention.)

I suppose that having participated in a digression should logically
exclude me from complaining about digressions, but I suppose as the
list administrator I should update the members on my thinking.

1. The purpose of this list is to learn more about the Voynich
Manuscript and to decipher it if possible.

2. I would prefer for it to remain self-policing.  I would
appreciate it if before posting something the member could look at
what they're about to send and convince themselves that this message
will advance goal 1 in some way.  I suggest that if the manner in
which the message will be helpful is obscure, you may want to prefix
it with a sentence saying why you think your message is relevant.

I submit that "it addresses a flaw in someone else's message" is not
an adequate justification of your own, since the other one may be
equally off-topic.

3. While many topics from the 12th to the 17th century are
interesting in their own right, exploring them in detail on this
list is counterproductive unless it is clear that the discussion
advances our knowledge about the manuscript.  If a member thinks
studying a particular aspect of some branch of knowledge may
eventually inform us about the nature or contents of the manuscript,
I suggest that they go off-list with like-minded individuals and
actually explore the idea, then come back and summarize it after
it's matured a bit.

The reason I suggest doing it this way is that a discussion of actual
testable theories and measurable phenomena in the Manuscript gets lost
in the waves of verbiage associated with flow-of-consciousness speculation.

4. I would prefer not to moderate the list, since I would far rather
spend my time trying to crack ciphers than reading everything that's
being posted, then reacting to hurt feelings and claims that I'm
censoring people... but I recognize that moderating a discussion to
keep it on topic is *not* the same as censorship.  In these days of
cheap webbage everyone can make themselves heard somewhere... a free
press doesn't mean that you can get your screed published in the
Washington Post.

===============

If you doubt that this is a serious issue and think that your fingers
should fly freely wherever your feverish brain takes them, I suggest
that you spend a little time looking over some of the earlier years
of the list and seeing how much easier it is to find gold amongst all
the dross than in the archives of the last couple of months.

Cheers -
--
	Jim Gillogly
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