On 02-09-98 Mark Bloss wrote to Day Brown... 
 MB>  A classic Homeric metaphor is the "perfect resemblance of two 
 MB> relations between totally dissimilar things".   
 
 MB>  but the all too human concourse of the will itself.  The key to the 
 MB>  answer (why this comparison between the Will and the Wave is NOT a 
 MB>  classic metaphor) is the the Will and Wave are not dissimilar things 
 MB>  -but rather are precisely the SAME THING.  
 MB>  ...  Thereby, Neitzsche is not comparing resemblances between 
 MB>  two dissimilar things - but concluding that a wave in the sea is 
 MB>  PRECISELY THE SAME THING as the will in the soul of a human.  In 
 MB>  other words, the appearances of the world have become a mere symbol 
 MB>  for inward experiences, with the consequence that the _metaphor_ 
 MB>  (originally designed to bridge the gap between the thinking - or 
 MB>  willing - ego, and the world of appearances) collapses! 
 
 MB>  Neitzsche was quite fond of using fundamental anthropomorphisms.  For 
 MB>  example: "All the presuppositions of mechanistic theory - matter, 
 MB> pressure 
 MB>  and stress, are not 'facts-in-themselves' but interpretations with 
 MB> the aid of physical fictions." 
Pretty cute Mark. tanx. I havta wonder what Friedrich would have 
made of the idea of 'virtual reality' or a 'holodeck', or whether 
he had ever read the Bagavad Gita's idea that the world was just 
an idea or dream of God's.  From that standpoint, he is right on 
target- the forms we see are the *effect* of the software that is 
generating them in three dimensions.  therefore, whether the form 
in question is a man or a wave, at a calcuable integral of time, 
or the process over time of it's motivation, is moot. 
 
In both cases, I see a dynamic dance of the form adapting to all 
the other forms affecting it, and see my own ego, or that of any 
other man, as just part of the same vast sea of 'wills', all of 
us togather riding on the surface of God.  Where the world of the 
appearances does not collapse, is in the fact that the software 
that generates it does exist [god], and that each subroutine is a 
unique thought form.  If you can perceive that, you have an kind 
of 'appearance' that is inviolate and as Pythagoras suggested, is 
the true essence of things. 
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 * OFFLINE 1.58 * So cheap he tatooed the wedding ring on her finger. 
--- Maximus 3.01
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