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

[Wonko <dplepage@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Quoth Glotmorf,

> 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.

Then the map is a physical representation of a fictitious territory; how
could one possibly claim that the map *is* a fictitious 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.

Okay.

> 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.

No - to quote it is to repeat the same pattern of letters. Which I did.
Whether or not the meaning is the same is entirely independant.

>  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.

Admittedly, a quote cannot be considered a quote without having something to
quote from; however, it does not have to mean the same thing as the quoted
passage.

> 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.

By your earlier definition of 'to quote' - "to repeat a brief passage or
excerpt from", combined with the above logic, if I go [[this]], then the
word "this" could never again have the force of law, as any usage of it
would be a repetition of something which is quoted.

The point is, it doesn't matter where text has been. What matters, according
to r8, is whether or not the specific instance of text in question is, at
that moment, encased in comment brackets. Although I may be quoting from a
comment, the quote itself is not commented. The quote exists independantly
of the text not quoted.


-- 
Wonko