Re: Botanical questions

On 11 Jun 2006 14:55:32 -0700, "UC" <uraniumcommittee@xxxxxxxxx>
posted:

[snip a bunch to get to 'Eco quotes'.
4.3 WILD CATEGORIZATION
At the level of NC (nuclear content) there is a continuous organizing
and reordering of "wild" categories, most of which spring from the
recognition of constant precategorial features. For example, in the
Western world the chicken is considered one of the edible animals while
the dog is not, but in some Asiatic regions the dog is a fully fledged
member of the edible category and is kept around the house much like a
turkey or a pig in the West, in the knowledge that at a certain point
it will have to be eaten. But it is in the specialized sector of the MC
(modal content) that negotiations become more punctilious.

Let to show what NC and MC are.

[snip]

but there is no doubt that people were recognizing insects before
taxonomists decided to label a certain class
ARTHROPODS.

[snip]
rings). The "wild" category of insects still has such strength that we
commonly give the name insect to many animals that zoologists do not
recognize as such, such as spiders (which are ARTHROPODS but ARACHNIDS
instead of INSECTS).

Note: spiders *are* ARTHROPODS.
[snip]

directory of minerals, just as when we are told that Ayers Rock is a
mountain, we go to look in the wild directory of mountains (and if they
had told us that it was a stone, we would have gone to look in a
directory where we would not have found good instructions for its
identification).

I'm a little confused by this as an example. It is called 'Ayers Rock'
not 'Ayers Mountain'. One of the reasons it is of interest to us is
that though we might be tempted to classify as a mountain we would be
wrong to do so. And you have to know the difference between a rock and
a mountain to appreciate it. It is of interest to us because it is a
size outlier in the catagory 'rock'.

[snip]

The features of a scientific taxonomy cannot be deleted, because they
are organized into a series of embedded hyperonyms and hyponyms: if a
spider is an ARACHNID, it cannot not be an ARTHROPOD, otherwise the

Should be INSECT, not ARTHROPOD. Some technical editor made a mistake.

entire categorial system would collapse; but precisely because a spider
is an ARACHNID, it cannot be an INSECT at the same time.

[snip]

were to appear in our lofts, we would be terrified. On the other hand,
chickens have been listed among farmyard animals for millennia, while
that directory (if not already for us, at least for our descendants)
will sooner or later contain only one species of chicken, known as
free-range, while all its kin will be classified as factory-farmed
animals. On the level of MC, a chicken is a BIRD and cannot not be one,

There we have it. Eco says that BIRD is an MC term. Game, set, and
match.

while on the level ofNC, a chicken (a bird up to a point, but certainly
less so than an eagle) mayor may not be classified among the farmyard
animals.

[snip]
--
Don Cates ("he's a cunning rascal" - PN)

.

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