Changes

====5.1.1. Casual Reflection====

====5.1.1. Casual Reflection====

Recall that an ''ostensibly recursive text'' (ORT), already encountered a bit less formally in discussing the issue of the informal context, is a text that cites itself by title at some site within its body.

Recall that an "ostensibly recursive text" (ORT), already encountered a bit less formally in discussing the issue of the informal context, is a text that cites itself by title at some site within its body.

Consider a "text in progress" (TIP) at its growing edge, anywhere that it joins new text to a body of work already established, anywhere that it sends out buds and shoots from a secular truncation of its author's intention.  Here is where a growing text advances through its media of language and communication, the potentially nurturing environments and the invariably constraining surroundings that make a definite array of resources available to a text, grant it certain options for continuing its development, and limit the effects of meaning that it can achieve.  A text that can form in such a medium is part of what one has in mind whenever one opens a sentence with a phrase like "A text that can ..." and continues by elaborating on a text's "abilities", "capacities", or "intentions" as if this text is not a fixed or a static entity but one whose free selection and future development are still open to question.

Consider a ''text in progress'' (TIP) at its growing edge, anywhere that it joins new text to a body of work already established, anywhere that it sends out buds and shoots from a secular truncation of its author's intention.  Here is where a growing text advances through its media of language and communication, the potentially nurturing environments and the invariably constraining surroundings that make a definite array of resources available to a text, grant it certain options for continuing its development, and limit the effects of meaning that it can achieve.  A text that can form in such a medium is part of what one has in mind whenever one opens a sentence with a phrase like “A text that can ___” and continues by elaborating on a text's ''abilities'', ''capacities'', or ''intentions'' as if this text is not a fixed or a static entity but one whose free selection and future development are still open to question.

A text that can cite itself by title is a limiting case of a text that can cite itself by chapter and verse, in other words, a text with a sufficient degree of articulation that it can make appropriate references to its own parts and sections, and can thus invoke the objects, the functions, and the structures that are represented in them.  This should go to explain the interest I am taking in ORT's, their kin, and their generalizations.  These kinds of texts exhibit an aspect of self reference that is usually taken for granted, to the point that it is hardly recognized as such, but one that is implied in all attempts "to make infinite use of finite means".  A program is generally a text of this sort.  A non trivial program, one that wraps an infinite object in a finite sign, whether it numbers its lines and directs its execution by means of instructions that have its interpreter "go to" this or that place in its own text, or whether its modules call on each other by name, is always "recursive" in this sense.

A text that can cite itself by title is a limiting case of a text that can cite itself by chapter and verse, in other words, a text with a sufficient degree of articulation that it can make appropriate references to its own parts and sections, and can thus invoke the objects, the functions, and the structures that are represented in them.  This should go to explain the interest I am taking in ORTs, their kin, and their generalizations.  These kinds of texts exhibit an aspect of self reference that is usually taken for granted, to the point that it is hardly recognized as such, but one that is implied in all attempts “to make infinite use of finite means”.  A program is generally a text of this sort.  A non trivial program, one that wraps an infinite object in a finite sign, whether it numbers its lines and directs its execution by means of instructions that have its interpreter ''go to'' this or that place in its own text, or whether its modules call on each other by name, is always ''recursive'' in this sense.

The deeper that one looks into a species of text, the further that one's interest tends to shift from the distinctive features of individual texts to the properties of the medium that supports their growth.  Although a medium is initially conceived to be a source of texts or a constraint on their production, that is, as a generative facility or a generated space, it is often possible to formalize it as the full grammar of a discursive language, in other words, as a comprehensive theory for that species of texts, accounting for their syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic aspects.

The deeper that one looks into a species of text, the further that one's interest tends to shift from the distinctive features of individual texts to the properties of the medium that supports their growth.  Although a medium is initially conceived to be a source of texts or a constraint on their production, that is, as a generative facility or a generated space, it is often possible to formalize it as the full grammar of a discursive language, in other words, as a comprehensive theory for that species of texts, accounting for their syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic aspects.

Still, what is the status in reality of these conceptual constructions:  a medium, a grammar, or a theory for a species of texts?  They have no meaning apart from the texts that they admit to exist.  They are only known by means of the texts that they allow to subsist in them, that they enable to live and to grow, and everything that is learned about them ultimately needs to be expressed in a text, or something like it, even if not always a text of the very same order or species.

Still, what is the status in reality of these conceptual constructions:  a medium, a grammar, or a theory for a species of texts?  They have no meaning apart from the texts that they admit to exist.  They are only known by means of the texts that they allow to subsist in them, that they enable to live and to grow, and everything that is learned about them ultimately needs to be expressed in a text, or something like it, even if not always a text of the very same order or species.

=====5.1.1.1. Ostensibly Recursive Texts=====

=====5.1.1.1. Ostensibly Recursive Texts=====