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i-so-mor-phism n.
1. Biology. Similarity in form, as in organisms of different ancestry.
2. Mathematics. A one-to-one correspondence between the elements of two
sets such that the result of an operation on elements of one set
corresponds to the result of the analogous operation on their images in
the other set.
3. A close similarity in the crystalline structure of two or more
substances of similar chemical composition.
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I'll admit I had to look up isomorphism- I ain't a mathematician, nor a
biologist, nor a chemist, or even, Random Quanta forbid, a crystal-rubber.
So H. sees meaning arising because two similar things are compared? Is
this not simple metaphorical description, and as such an elementary
statement about the function of language?
Or is he going for the _third_ level of information produced by this
comparison- the symbols which can begin to stand for all things likely to
be this way? and is that not simple pattern finding? Even, gasp,
statistical reduction?
I'll admit I have not read Hofstadter, so please excuse this, but so far,
with what I have seen of the simple 'meaning emerges because of an
isomorphism' I see only jargon and obviousness if applied in other
directions.