RE: spoon-discuss: Re: spoon-business: [[Avoiding Entropy]]

["Glotmorf" <glotmorf@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 5/1/02 at 11:42 AM Gavin Doig wrote:

>"The map is not the territory". The quote is not the comment.

These two statements do not have an analogous relationship.  Except in the instance where both of them are wrong.

A map can in fact be a territory, if the territory is fictitious, an element of a novel.  In that instance, the territory does not exist except as defined by the story elements, one of which is an illustrative map.  Thus, the map is the territory, because the map defines the territory.

A quote of a comment is in fact the comment, repeated.  A quote is, according to the dictionary, an instance of quoting, and to quote something is "to repeat a brief passage or excerpt from" it.  Since the something being quoted is a block of text, an expression of a concept, then to quote that thing, to repeat it, is to re-express the concept.  Therefore, if something is a quote of something else, then the quote is a second instance of that same something else.  The same combination of words is not necessarily a quote, since the "to repeat" part of the definition implies intent.  An identical combination of words can exist independently of what it's identical to, but a quote has a direct explicit dependent relationship to the text being quoted and cannot exist as a quote without it.

Therefore, when Wonko is quoting eir comments, e is explicitly creating a second instance of the original comment.  Since r8 says that comments not only do not, but also "shall not", have the force of rule, if e creates multiple instances of what's originally a comment, by making each instance an explicit quote, then those instances must fall under the same "shall not" restriction.  Meaning Wonko's quotes of comments carry the same burden the comments themselves do.  And therefore can't be adopted.

						Glotmorf