“Man is the measure of all things; of things that are, that they are, of things that are not, that they are not.”
– Protagoras
… and whatever man called each living creature, that was its name.
– Genesis 2:19
Words refer to nothing but a value we ascribe them. – Anon
To “mean” – means also to divide. – Webster’s dictionary
“We are all suspended in language…” – Niels Bohr
… and the word was made flesh.
– John 1:14
The Set Which Represents All Sets
“There is no quantum world – only a quantum mechanical description.” – Niels Bohr
A Poly-tropic Description – the Many-storied Structure
AS SHAKESPEARE SAID BEFORE: “All the world’s a stage”. And as Plato tried to picture with his story of the cave: On the face of it – things are somehow more than what appears… While like a Holmes to our dear Watson (who would be searching for a “clew”) – some of us may find that we must ask ourselves again: What to name this “show” that we’ve called life..?
How shall we describe it?
Humans after all are somehow creatures seeking meaning – perhaps it’s nothing but a game of words ..? One might even call it: “Rose by any other name”… So that if you’d choose to frame it different (were one to frame it as a drama): It’s where the play of life’s performance is “scripted” like the plot-line of a zero-sum game, “staged” behind the curtain of an all or nothing backdrop – and “set” before the gamut of an unlimited realm of equivocality and equivalence…
And “we” is the common thread.
IN OTHER WORDS: IT WOULD ALL ADD UP TO NOUGHT (but for the language) …
And the devils’ in the details. *
Not this, not that… – The Upanishads
If this, then that… – The Buddha
“I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together…” – The Beatles
A Human Scale 
or the “Tongue” of a Balance?
A pan of merit, a pan of liability, and the tongue of decree deciding between them.
– Sefer Yetzirah 2:1
Squaring the Circle: A Logic Behind Every Conclusion 
A Multi-Storied Structure that’s a Frame which is referring to Itself. The Very Common Thread 
IMAGINING the Hard Problem of Consciousness (picturing “the All” of language)
“a mirror mirroring a mirror” – Douglas Hofstadter ...”running and returning” – Sefer Yetzirah 1:4
THE “FORM” OF LIFE IS A COMMUNICATION WITH ITS FEEDBACK: “In-formation” becomes language, language turns to information… And in a play of this and that (while it is playing that or
this), something like a reflex (with its every back and forth) – further inform-ation “points” to language. Like the picture of an echo in a network of response; some “where” at a crossroad – the ALL of in-formation turns to language… And in-between the One and “its other”, some “where” between language and itself, like a mirror in a mirror (in a mirror) – we are but as interlocutors in a dialogue.
An Enigma of Unity 
“Meaning is the joint product of all the evidence that is available to those who communicate.”
– Dagfinn Føllesdal
FOR INSTANCE “PICTURE” what it is that I am saying: “That” would be the point of what we’re “doing”. First – imagine space and time as the arena of life’s living stage… Okay – got it? Next, keeping the first image in (our) mind – on the one hand – consider a familiar trope like “the human condition” – then as the other – equate that picture with what (our) physical science today might likewise name “the material world”. Moving forward with this very “common” exercise (of ours) – say we were now to picture our two “figures of speech” and consider them both as if they were each “parts of a set” which could mutually include one another? So far so good one might imagine (i.e. not a pro-blem – I’d suppose)…
NOW if somehow you can “see” what I “mean” – let us say it’s now because we re-cognize that each of our terms would ultimately “point” (back) to the very same thing… So that (the) “what” I am meaning to say is (if it was broken down to “bits”): By being “figures of speech” (being mem-bers of the language which is “ours”) – such that they’re referring to a some “thing” framed by conscious-ness (which as a whole is – to its part – would be their “one”); they would likewise, in the end (which means in one way or the other) always point (back) to the “who” (who share the language) – which would be no-thing but our “what” that’s someway figured as the “One” (that’s “meant” by consciousness). And if you’d reckon this is so (by having found that we agree) – it’s cause that only now “this” re-presents our sharing of “that” picture through the mind’s “I”. So if you’re seeing what I mean – maybe this time ’round try to keep it in one’s mind, that in so doing (by making them mutually in-clusive) – we (now) CHOOSE to somehow real -ize (make in some way complementary), or to “say” as if we “see”: That what might seem to be a difference (which may “appear” between the two) – could just be somehow ONE and the same – something like a “rose by any other name”… Which would also mean to say (if we were “wholly” in agreement) – that both could smell as sweet… Because according to our very own LANGUAGE (which some might also call OUR COMMON TONGUE) – “we” – is the common thread.
“IT FROM BIT”
– John Archibald Wheeler; Theoretical physicist and coiner of the term “Black Hole”
The Mirror of Language that’s in “A-Maze” of its Metaphor: The Reflexive Bond between Word & Image
A “Tangled” Hierarchy (effects which may precede their cause)
“A mechanism can at most, presuppose a mechanic.” – Alfred North Whitehead
EX NIHILO ALIQUID (Something from Nothing)
AND THEN it’s somehow et voila – there you go: And that’s what you call IMAGINATION. And the “what” it somehow means for us – is something just like magic – cause in a meaningful turn of a phrase – one can now equally refer to both and say something like this: IT IS FATE that each of us find ourselves “caught” in life’s circumstance. “Ending” in (a) birth – re-turning thru death – and with every-thing (else) stretched “in-between” – by likening fate both to one’s predicament and the make-up of the world: In the metre of a poetic image – man correlates THE UNIVERSE.
It’s as if ONCE UPON A TIME – we’re “stuck” – mired in the glue of life’s “unbounded” metaphor (“caught” within its grip); that having suddenly “found” the words, we sud-denly find our wings… And then, it’s somehow just like presto – “appearing” as out of thin blue air – that having suddenly found the words (as if once they were somehow “lost” then un-forgotten), we can now say things like this: Fate’s “circle” entwines us – as if it were the shape of life’s mortality… And like the fibers of a rope or the forges of a chain – strung together in a “play” of words and meaning; as if by fate – we are each encompassed by the “form of inevitability”. A some-thing which is “in and of” itself – that operates upon our (own) respective lives – like the tangles of a net, the closing of a noose, or the twisting of a knot upon its “string”.
“Clotho colum retinet, Lachesis net, et Atropos occat.” – Ovid 
We are all in the grip of life’s curious sort of “stranglehold”. And as it circumscribes its metes & bounds for what has – or can – be “said”, that being someway in its “tangle” – it would somehow predicate the contour of fate’s constructive measure; such is the “frame” of language. Holding the narrative of our lives within a warp & weft of its spun-out fabric – all at once containing us – while we are equally constrained within its web of CHOSEN words… In life’s imaginary form of pass-time – ONE could choose to say: The living of its language –“performs” before our eyes – as “the picture which we have”; and some would call that consciousness…
*BUT LET THE BUYER BEWARE: Cause if we’re living in the language of its zero-sum game (where “this” may equal “that” – because it’s we’re the common thread) – by running like a plot line, “the measure of our meaning” could run something like a syntax for its one and only rule.**
Cause only NOW it’s in reverse.
And why is that – you ask..?
BECAUSE IT’S “THEN” (when looking back) – as if “to come” as our surprise – while after only haven chosen might we real-ize …
IT IS SOMEHOW AFTER ALL’S BEEN SAID (or done)… 
SOME “WHERE” in the turning of a phrase: IT’S SOME “THING” like a blade which cuts both ways (or somehow fate’s uncanny “twist”); when in some funny kind of way it’s “found” – that we’ve been recompensed (in-turn) – by an “allotted measure” of our own choosing…
Until somehow we are …
Every single one (of us) …
Requited by the “tale” of our own respective end. 
AS THE STORY OF OUR LIVES – or as lines from a well known script – our “play” of words has prompted an endless variety of personal responses. So much these days for the proverbial wis-dom which says THE WORLD IS WHAT WE MAKE OF IT. 
Continue on to Chapter 4: “A RUBRIC OF REFERENCE”
Ixion Bound to the Wheel
* Caveat Emptor
** If “this” – then that … (with somehow all things being equal)
the telos of history 
