RE: virus: MS Weapon

Robin Faichney (r.j.faichney@stir.ac.uk)
Fri, 10 Oct 1997 13:52:49 +0100

> From: Richard Brodie[SMTP:RBrodie@brodietech.com]
>
> On Thursday, October 9, 1997 8:46 PM, Nathaniel Hall
> [SMTP:natehall@worldnet.att.net] wrote:
> > Two atoms of hydrogen and one atom of oxygen make one molecule of
> water. Is
> > this an example of one of those patterns which don't exist?
>
> You are confused when you say "don't exist." Patterns are labels,
> distinction-memes, and they exist in minds.
>
Maybe we're up against definitions again. That's certainly
not what I understand by "pattern". Looks like you're
limiting it to the mind by definition, in which case it doesn't
tell us much.

> The substance that we
> approximate by calling it a water molecule certainly exists, but the
> map is
> not the territory.
>
Nobody wants to confuse maps with territories, but you
can't have substance without form, any more than you
can have form without substance[1], and on *my* defn
(apparently like that of some others around here) form
is just another word for patterns.

Robin
[1] If there was a substance without form, we wouldn't
know about it, because it's the *form* that *informs* us.
(That's from my epistemological proof of the existence
of information[a], if you're interested.)
[a] Another word for patterns, of which memes are, of
course, a subset.