In a message dated 4/24/08 12:56:25 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
> Word is coded information.
>
No. A word is simply an occasion for memories -- which will vary with the
associations of all the various people who contemplate the word. Picture a
tree-stump on the side of a country road. The tree was sheered one night when
you
were driving, veered off the road, hit the tree, and a friend with you was
killed. Every time you drive by that stump a flood of associated, bloody
memories
of that night come back to you. It is, say I, absurd to say the stump is
encoded information. It is similarly absurd to say that a word, like 'carrots',
because it is the occasion for your mind to associate, is "encoded
information".
> If it is sensed it acts.
>
No. It does nothing. It is inert. It's the sensor that is doing the "acting"
-- your mind, associating.
> Words have power.
>
Oh? Say 'carrots' to a shepherd in the Andes. Nothing ensues. It has no
"power" there. If you're inclined to say that's because he doesn't know
English,
realize that all learning English is, is this: the piling up of memories of
experiences associated with the word's previous appearance in your life. So the
alleged "power" of a word is actually the power of the associating mind.
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