Tweetstorm in seven parts, wherein the author explains how a mistaken ancient metadata led to misunderstanding the term meta.
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Replying to @MakerOfDecision
"Meta-" in modern usage means that which describes something else, or abstracts from it; metadata is data about the data.
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Replying to @MakerOfDecision
The Greek "μετά" is the source for "meta", but in Greek it doesn't mean abstracted - it means that which is after or beyond something else.
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Replying to @MakerOfDecision
The facile, ahistorical interpretation of the title "Metaphysics" is that meta means it is abstracted, i.e. beyond reality, describing it.
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Replying to @MakerOfDecision
That's wrong. In fact, it comes from a misreading of an editor's non-title of a collection of Aristotle's writings on "First Philosophy."
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Replying to @MakerOfDecision
The non-title was "Metaphysics" - the book after physics. Ironically, it's philosophy concerning that which is not abstracted from reality.
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Replying to @MakerOfDecision
Of course, a title is meta-data about a book, as is position in a sequence. So the confusion came from confusing which metadata was which.
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Thus ends our non-meta "meta" tweets, our foray into linguistics, and another round of continuing attempt to clarify things unnecessarily.
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