distinction is not relevant here. What is relevant is the centrality of the city,
in terms of economics, communication, transportation, etc. The more vital
the city is, in one of these ways, the more certain it will be to occur in both
the ASU and the USA.
In this geographic analogy, one aspect is very crucial: that there are
certain definite, absolute points of reference which will occur in nearly all
ASU's: New York, San Francisco, Chicago, and so on. From these it is then
possible to orient oneself. In other words, if we begin comparing my ASU
with yours, I can use the known agreement on big cities to establish points
of reference with which I can communicate the location of smaller cities in
my ASU. And if I hypothesize a voyage from Kankakee to Fruto and you
don't know where those towns are, I can refer to something we have in
common, and thereby guide you. And if I talk about a voyage from Atlanta
to Milwaukee, it may go along different freeways or smaller roads, but the
voyage itself can still be carried out in both countries. And if you start
describing a trip from Horsemilk to janzo, I can plot out what seems to me
to be an analogous trip in my ASU, despite not having towns by those
names, as long as you constantly keep me oriented by describing your
position with respect to nearby larger towns which are found in my ASU as
well as in yours.
My roads will not be exactly the same as yours, but, with our separate
maps, we can each get from a particular part of the country to another. We
can do this, thanks to the external, predetermined geological facts-
mountain chains, streams, etc.-facts which were available to us both
as we worked on our maps. Without those external features, we would
have no possibility of reference points in common. For instance, if you had
been given only a map of France, and I had been given a map of Germany,
and then we had both filled them in in great detail, there would be no way
to try to find "the same place" in our fictitious lands. It is necessary to begin
with identical external conditions---otherwise nothing will match.
Now that we have carried our geographical analogy quite far, we
return to the question of isomorphisms between brains. You might well
wonder why this whole question of brain isomorphisms has been stressed so
much. What does it matter if two brains are isomorphic, or quasi-isomor-
phic, or not isomorphic at all? The answer is that we have an intuitive sense
that, although other people differ from us in important ways, they are still
"the same" as we are in some deep and important ways. It would be
instructive to be able to pinpoint what this invariant core of human intelli-
gence is, and then to be able to describe the kinds of "embellishments"
which can be added to it, making each one of us a unique embodiment of
this abstract and mysterious quality called "intelligence".
In our geographic analogy, cities and towns were the analogues of
symbols, while roads and highways were analogous to potential triggering
paths. The fact that all ASU's have some things in common, such as the East
Coast, the West Coast, the Mississippi River, the Great Lakes, the Rockies,
and many major cities and roads is analogous to the fact that we are all
forced, by external realities, to construct certain class symbols and trigger-Minds and Thoughts^375