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| | | (Nietzsche, 'The Will to Power', S 666, 351). | | | (Nietzsche, 'The Will to Power', S 666, 351). |
| − | </pre>
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| − |
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| − | ====1.3.8. Rondeau — Tempo di Menuetto====
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| − |
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| − | <pre>
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| − | | And do you know what "the world" is to me?
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| − | | Shall I show it to you in my mirror?
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| − | | This world: a monster of energy, without beginning, without end;
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| − | | a firm, iron magnitude of force that does not grow bigger or smaller,
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| − | | that does not expend itself but only transforms itself; as a whole,
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| − | | of unalterable size, a household without expenses or losses, but
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| − | | likewise without increase or income; enclosed by "nothingness"
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| − | | as by a boundary; not something blurry or wasted, not something
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| − | | endlessly extended, but set in a definite space as a definite force,
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| − | | and not a space that might be "empty" here or there, but rather as
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| − | | force throughout, as a play of forces and waves of forces, at the
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| − | | same time one and many, increasing here and at the same time
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| − | | decreasing there; a sea of forces flowing and rushing together,
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| − | | eternally changing, eternally flooding back, with tremendous years
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| − | | of recurrence, with an ebb and a flood of its forms; out of the
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| − | | simplest forms striving toward the most complex, out of the stillest,
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| − | | most rigid, coldest forms toward the hottest, most turbulent, most
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| − | | self-contradictory, and then again returning home to the simple
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| − | | out of this abundance, out of the play of contradictions back
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| − | | to the joy of concord, still affirming itself in this uniformity
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| − | | of its courses and its years, blessing itself as that which must
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| − | | return eternally, as a becoming that knows no satiety, no disgust,
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| − | | no weariness: this, my Dionysian world of the eternally self-creating,
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| − | | the eternally self-destroying, this mystery world of the twofold
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| − | | voluptuous delight, my "beyond good and evil", without goal,
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| − | | unless the joy of the circle is itself a goal; without will,
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| − | | unless a ring feels good will toward itself -- do you want
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| − | | a name for this world? A solution for all its riddles?
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| − | | A light for you, too, you best-concealed, strongest,
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| − | | most intrepid, most midnightly men? -- This world
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| − | | is the will to power -- and nothing besides!
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| − | | And you yourselves are also this will to power --
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| − | | and nothing besides!
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| − | |
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| − | | (Nietzsche, 'The Will to Power', S 1067, 549-550).
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| − |
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| − | I have attempted in a narrative form to present an accurate picture
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| − | of the formalization process as it develops in practice. Of course,
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| − | accuracy must be distinguished from precision, for there are times
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| − | when accuracy is better served by a vague outline that captures the
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| − | manner of the subject than it is by a minute account that misses
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| − | the mark entirely or catches each detail at the expense of losing
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| − | the central point. Conveying the traffic between chaos and form
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| − | under the restraint of an overbearing and excisive taxonomy would
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| − | have sheared away half the picture and robbed the whole exchange
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| − | of the lion's share of the duty.
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| − |
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| − | At moments I could do no better than to break into metaphor, but
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| − | I believe that a certain tolerance for metaphor, especially in the
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| − | initial stages of formalization, is a necessary capacity for reaching
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| − | beyond the secure boundaries of what is already comfortable to reason.
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| − | Plus, a controlled transport of metaphor allows one to draw on the
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| − | boundless store of ready analogies and germinal morphisms that
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| − | every natural language provides for free.
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| − |
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| − | Finally, it would leave an unfair impression to delete the characters
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| − | of narrative and metaphor from the text of the story, and especially
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| − | after they have had such a hand in creating it.
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| − |
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| − | Even the most precise of established formulations cannot be protected
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| − | from being reused in ways that initially appear as abuses of language.
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| − |
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| − | One of the most difficult questions about the development of intelligent
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| − | systems is how the power of abstraction can arise, beginning from the
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| − | kinds of formal systems where each symbol has one meaning at most.
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| − | I think that the natural pathway of this evolution has to go
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| − | through the obscure territory of ambiguity and metaphor.
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| − |
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| − | A critical phase and a crucial step in the development of intelligent systems,
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| − | whether biological or technological, is concerned with achieving a certain
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| − | power of abstraction, but the real trick is for the budding intelligence
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| − | to accomplish this without losing a grip on the material contents of
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| − | the abstract categories, the labels and levels of which this power
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| − | intercalates and interposes between essence and existence.
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| − |
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| − | If one looks to the surface material of natural languages for signs of
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| − | how this power of abstraction might arise, one finds a suggestive set of
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| − | potential precursors in the phenomena of ambiguity, anaphora, and metaphor.
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| − | Keeping this in mind throughout the project, I aim to pay close attention
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| − | to the places where the power of abstraction seems to develop, especially
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| − | in the guises of systematic ambiguity and controlled metaphor.
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| − |
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| − | Paradoxically, and a bit ironically, if one's initial attempt to
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| − | formalize meaning begins with the goal of stamping out ambiguity,
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| − | metaphor, and all forms of figurative language use, then one may
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| − | have precluded all hope of developing a capacity for abstraction
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| − | at any later stage.
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| | </pre> | | </pre> |
