This question is about this, relatively new, use of the prefix (in, for example, metadata and metatheory) the consideration of older words containing it, such as metaphysics or metaphrase is therefore not likely to be relevant. You see how one is again nested within the other? That is why it is called Meta-Stackoverflow and not Newname.First, it should be noted that in the twentieth century the prefix meta- acquired a relatively specific function, which it did not have before, and which is only loosely related to its original meaning in Greek language. In logical language, SO is SO(programming), and M-SO is SO(SO(programming)). So M-SO operates on SO the same way as SO operates on programming. Meta-Stackoverflow is a website with questions and answers about Stackoverflow. Stackoverflow is a website with questions and answers about programming. Because his Metaphysica were about causality and other principles at work behind the physical world, it seems people later interpreted the "meta-" in Metaphysica as meaning "on a higher level than", and that is where our use of "meta-" came from. Later Greek scholars catalogued this work as "ta meta ta PHusika": "the things after the Physica", because they came after his Physica in their catalogue. And he wrote the Metaphysica, which he called "The about prime philosophy" - physics was the secondary philosophy. Aristotle wrote the Physica, which were about the workings of nature: physis/phusis is Greek for nature. In "metaphysics", the prefix "meta-" is used in its original sense in ancient Greek, which is here "after". Note that meta-x is always relative to its object: metalogic is not "meta-" in relation to, say, pottery. The reason why it is called "meta-" is that logic studies language and thinking, which makes logic an abstract operation and a theory and metalogic studies logic, so that it is on a meta-level in relation to logic. I'd put metalogic in the second category mentioned above - similar to but not exactly the same as - but I am not sure. I think I can feel what you mean, but I am not sure I'd phrase it like that. So I do not have full confidence in its strength and meaningfulness. Of course this distinction between "identical" and "similar" depends on definitions, which may be somewhat arbitrary. They are nested, but in two slightly different ways. In logical language, we could describe language as Describes(world), and grammar as GrammaticallyAnalyses(Describes(world)). Sequential subtraction = sequential subtraction grammar is a language, but language is not always grammar. I think this what your quote means, the difference between identical operation on the one hand and similar-but-not-identical operation on the other. Now what is the difference between grammar and sequence 3? We could say that grammar does not do exactly the same thing with language as what language does with its object, because grammar cannot, for example, refer to a physical thing directly. (You could even use meta- with things that aren't theories or abstract operations, but that is normally not done, except as a joke - suppose you had a brush to clean the floor, and a rag to clean the brush then you might jokingly call your rag a meta-cleaner.) X should be something vaguely similar to a theory, some abstract operation. In this manner, we could call anything meta-x as long as x is a theory and meta-x is a theory about x, even if x and meta-x operate in different ways. Grammar describes, too, but it only describes language, not the world or anything. Normal language describes the world, ideas, anything. On the other hand, consider grammar and normal language. In logical language, we could define 2 as SeqSub(sequence 1), and 3 as SeqSub(SeqSub(sequence 1)). We could say that 3 operates on a meta-level in relation to 2. Both the operations carried out by 2 and 3 can be defined by the same name, sequential subtraction. Sequence 2 does with sequence 1 exactly the same thing (sequential subtraction) as what sequence 3 does with sequence 2. 0, 2 (sequence 3: sequential subtraction, with as its object sequence 2).Then I could make sequence 3, with de differences between the numbers from sequence 2: In this case, is it correct to understandĪ simple example: I could look at a sequence of numbers and make a new sequence of numbers in which each number is the difference between two consecutive numbers from the first sequence:ģ, 3, 5 (sequence 2: sequential subtraction, with as its object sequence 1) I am trying to figure out the meaning of prefix "Meta-" in English.
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