Self-Managed Grammar
This glossary entry used to be called "Lýsingarháttur nútíðar" (a grammatical term in Icelandic)
Ultimate Purpose
- Some religions depict the world as having an ultimate purpose (e.g. the Christian idea of a 'Day of Judgement').
- However, evolutionary biologists generally tend to refute the idea that Nature is teleological.
Design discourse is teleological
- Whereas Aristotle's ancient definition of design is strongly teleological, metadesigning welcomes a grammar/discourse/belief system that is more attentive to the present moment than to the future.
Languaging the present
- How do living systems sustain themselves?
- They manage the relationship between their internal identity and how they are perceived.
- They do so by languaging their equilibrium.
- In the above sense, as systems, they therefore 'create' themselves.
- This is what is meant by the idea of autopoiesis.
Languaging one's mood
- The Icelandic word lýsingarháttur loosely means 'participle' in grammatical terms.
- So it is usual to distinguish between lýsingarháttur framtíðar (future tense), lýsingarháttur þátíðar (past tense).
- The notion of lýsingarháttur nútíðar (present tense) therefore raises questions about how one defines the grammatical structure that pertains to one's immediate present.
- Hence, in Icelandic, lýsingarháttur nútíðar may be translated as 'describing one's mood'.
- If this is a self-reflexive process, it is also a possible (controversial) way to adapt to one's environment, perhaps for survival purposes.
- One example is what we call radical optimism.
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