It is of course the quickest way to make value - when all else fail import an idea from another discipline, light the fuse and let the wild meaning rumpus start.
We so i all the time - metaphors from computing beyond neurology and visa versa); lessons of history become the stuff of modern politics and visa versa) - and all the while at ever point everything we do i being reduced to the language of the market - and money.
As disciplines merge we get a surplus of meaning.
This emergence surley comes in various forms, and types.
Firstly, and most deep are the problems of allegory. Problems then in one world are taken into and understood through the modes and manners of thought of another. Here is no direct conversion, so much as a wariness or at least a belief the world are of the same ilk As the porcupine spikes fire near and far, so it comes to represent to embody being here and there: wha else is the fabric of the expanding unverise as an expanding balloon, but an allegory?
Likewise no one but a fool mistakes the brain for a computer - but one one but an idiot does not see the tight allegory between the two. Allegory then allow one to navigate new words, and open new connections within this world. the create new approaches in thought - and allow one approach to bleed across numerous other disciplines.
and between these numerous possible disciplines various rules are then formed- the tool kit for common allegory generation - the rules that allow one not to fluff ones analysis - the what one is looking for. - the rule kit then of thoughts in this vein.
allegory provides a rich means t allow a simple idea many different lives - many different powers to mean.
Looped into this world of allegory - but clearly apart from it, is the world of maths - which both invents methods that support allegories (the mechanics ) of dimensions and networks) - but provides the rules to generating new analogies - new way one can find affinities between distinct forms and shapes and creates then for free a world allegory - and they provides the parallels and the rules by which it might be navigated. it provides then the allegory of allegories- the rules the allow one to navigate and predict within their shifting sands - the rules medieval thought so rich in allegory lacked.
But there are otherway to think beyond that box. One might want to draw direct symbolic analogy between different thoughts. It is not allegory as the connection is direct, fixed and arbitrary. one assigns then each element of the world a sign, and each movement another, and then watches how the signs change, treating them as if they were the thought. The world becomes translated into something else- se other language - in a direct or perhaps way.Meaning becomes the science of transaltion - the movement which shunts on from here to there - from one language to the next. -
this move also has its maths as meaning is clearly created where numbers are. collect numbers and one might see trends (or might not). But of course if one does not the itself might have meaning. The very act then of collecting figures creates extra meanings, and those unintended consequences which blight politics....
Next there rules of fiction which link into meaning - paradox of the now. The that any one piece writing needs to stand for many times - any differnent occasions, some present, some past and some to come. one cannot then simply write the plane truth of it - for the paradox is that truth is already in memory and already by powers of predictions of the future and multiplications of the past. it exists therefore already in many registers of time. the Great writers re then the ones that can encompass and use of these registers, all these powers and parts to time. As one cannot write for the here and now, one cannot write for the now- or if one does its meaning would be of limited pwoer and passion. Writing demands the fiction.
Meaning though is also endless infusing properties with their prime users. individuals or groups and what they do, and how they do it, becomes blended one into the other- caught up in the same same crystalline memory. A move that cuts both ways. On the one hand one has thee world of symbolic order- fast cars means you are successful, and special brew you are a tramp. But one can run just as well the other way, and carry elements from one bit of society into other places. The family then becomes a model for a wider social order- perhaps a society or possibly a community. That is world are made to collide because of their shared elements. This then becomes a principle for organization. Leagues of gentlemen friends become the organizing principle for elements within society, and bits that do not conform are forced into the pattern. So that elements of society actually radiate out, and expect to organize and drive other part other passions.
The cohersion element here can be made even stronger by collective agreement and action. it is of course the dominant myths of our times that the world is but a big market place, where everything ought to be understood through the myths of buying and selling; everything then not only has its price, but also ought to be understood as if it were merely a market stall in this magical kingdom of the market: everything is then trapped in the same paradigm and forced to compete one with the other.. a move tat then self perpetuates as meaning follows money: That is it follows the resources to make and manufacture it. Those then that conform to the rules if finance are give the here with all to manufacture mean meanings and those who lack finance wither and die.
Or again meaning is the stuff of our lives. Everything then that allows one to understand the torrent of feelings and thoughts that make a human from another another angle might be confused with meaning. This element might then be deep and encompass many times or thoughts or feeling or behaviours (psychology is the obvious example here). Or it might be merely shallow gossip that allows one to understand and locate ones current feeling and aspiration though the lives of another.
Behind all these translation is a double theory of meaning. There is general theory that states meaning is the ability to translate one world into another. The very act of translation, if done well conveys meaning; and if done badly is part of a meaning elsewhere.
But there is also a special theory, which states that humans use other humans to think with - either their lives or their thoughts. We then imagine them as us or thinking in our situation, and so change the world.
to look for meaning is then to look for thoughts beyond this mind and this bony box, or this context with this shifting lights, and find a thought that loops into many times, places or worlds - however one does that be it genius or cretinous.
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