Nominal Mechanics
I. The World of the Nominal
There is a world where all mechanics is a matter of citation, trust, and imitation. It is enough to invoke something that people have accepted, or trust that a new thing is equal, or imitate a form on paper, and the new imaginary machine begins to rattle and turn, fueled by faith and sheer imagination.
One part of that world is nominal in the sense of being artificial; it simply fills in the gaps of functionality. Yet there is another form of the nominal that is more profound. In that place an invention is a letter of the alphabet, which can be combined in nearly infinite ways to form more articulate machines, which are themselves letters within a still greater alphabet.
Each of these "machines" is really a symbol, the functional exterior form for a deeper nature, the armor of mirror or bones, the shape of which determines the most effective role. Within the armor? Neumena, bright shadows, weary ghosts? On the carven stones of knowledge do devils play dice? Would it be more terrible if it were a child?
II. And Poetics
Nominal mechanics and poetry is a more complicated issue, in part because a poem must have a more than nominal value before we pass judgment.
In this case we might say that the nominal is the literal, yet it may still be possible to break a poem into separate parts, each of which puts a particular spin on the mechanics of the poem. That would be a more nominal approach, where each part is like a letter, which has some equivalency to similar usages by other poets. The process of uncovering the mechanical symbolic connections amongst poets could be called meta-nominal.
A poem is metaphorically any machine of meaning, representing a thought system, whether or not it is grounded in reason or experience. Thus an appreciation of nominal mechanics, of relatively surfacial purposes for elements of such a system, is essential to mapping the "majesteria" of thought, the zones which gain import through being more "deeply interfused" with one another, through logical inference of categories.
More about such categorical usage can be found above under "Iterative Philosophy", and below under "Meta-Extension" and "Meta Precis".
NOTE:
meta: relating to metaphysics and / or metaphor, particularly the joining of metaphysics and metaphor within an iterative philosophy of transformative meanings.
Implicit is the notion of abstract metaphor, the idea that individual personal experiences, objects, or meanings may each serve as a metaphor for the entire system of meanings. Since each of the individual elements is a constituent of the system, or becomes a constituent within the individual's frame of reference, the system can be extrapolated from the experience, by comparing categories through ameliorative transformation.
For my most complete attempt at the method, you may refer to Unity.
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