In a message dated 4/18/08 7:17:52 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
> Is it your contention that fuzziness is the prevailing and permanent > condition of human communication? Is it a good thing? Bad thing? Or > just neutral, like gravity (like it or not, it's there)? Are we doomed > to walk around in a fog, talking with cotton in our mouths and badly > smudged glasses? > I have to figure out an effective, memorable way of saying this: Fuzziness is a matter of degree. Yes, all notion is to some degree fuzzy, and the words we use to convey something that's on our mind will always succeed only more less. (You may recall my mantra: All notions are IIMT -- indeterminate, indefinite, multiplex, and transitory.) BUT IT'S A MATTER OF DEGREE. My assertion -- that all notion is fuzzy -- is repeatedly misinterpreted as saying "Therefore no communication whatever is possible." But lines like, "Pass the carrots, please," or "Turn the tv on, please," usually serviceably convey what's on our mind. Here's a Peircean assertion: What we have in mind when we utter a simple line like those two is "an anticipated future experience". However, the exact "imagery" of that anticipation will vary with each of us. One guy will imagine only the "end product" -- he anticipates having the carrot bowl in hand, perhaps. Another guy may picture George handing the bowl to Carol who hands it to the guy. Ralph may playfully slide the bowl the length of the table, surprising the guy -- but Ralph may respond to the guy's gasp by saying, "What? I passed the carrots!" Some people may maintain a simple utterance like, "Cleopatra!" will occasion a perfectly clear notion in lots of people who hear it. But it never will. Indeed, it inherently can't, for many reasons. Still, the image can be serviceable. Imagine having six portraits of famous figures on a table in front of you. The examiner asks, "Which one is Cleopatra?" You pass over the pics of Lincoln, Madonna, George Clooney et al and point at one. "That's Cleopatra." One judge says, "Silly Michael! That's not Cleopatra -- that's only a picture of Cleopatra!" The examiner says, "I meant Cleopatra when she was four years old." She then turns to the judge and says, "Besides, Cleopatra had brown eyes, that's a picture of someone with green eyes." "Now listen, you twit! That still qualifies as a picture of Cleopatra --" "'Qualifies'? I'll decide what qualifies -- I wrote the exam." "But I'm the judge --" Etc. When it gets to lines like, "Definite descriptions pick out the objects they signify, just as names do," the stirring notions in an audience will vary wondrously, and every one of them will be marked by different degrees and forms of fuzziness. The more abstract the subject of an utterance, the greater the variation and fuzziness. "Let there be justice in China!" You're an artist, Mike. Could you honestly say the notion that comes to your mind when you hear "Picasso!" is determinate, definite, unvarying? And yet you could use the utterance serviceably: "Who painted that picture?" "Picasso." This response is far too jiffy -- your question is worth a chapter. Throughout the chapter three motifs would recur: Every notion is fuzzy, but only to a degree, and often the notion we convey is serviceable. ************** Need a new ride? Check out the largest site for U.S. used car listings at AOL Autos. (http://autos.aol.com/used?NCID=aolcmp00300000002851)
