On Aug 26, 2008, at 4:31 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
I agree with Michael's basic point here -- when we read the words, there arises in our minds notion somewhat like what the author had in mind.
How does one know what is in another's mind, and how can one compare the notion in one's head with whatever is in the other person's head? We cannot put the two notions side by side.
Telepathy, so far as we know, doesn't exist. We MUST use an intermediary, some means of communicating between the two notions. In information theory, this consists of a channel and a signal. The signal ISN'T in any strict sense the meaning, but it carries--conveys-- the meaning as it was encoded by the sender, which is then decoded by the receiver. Not everything can been coded (all those other things you're thinking about, Cheerskep), nor does the receiver always decode it perfectly. And the decoded message often lacks certain degrees of refinement of the original. All that noise and lost-in-transmission stuff, not to mention the physical limitations of the channel and signal.
We have to posit the condition that the signal (painting, typescript, sound recording, etc.) preserves a sufficient structure so that the decoding party "gets" a suitable amount of intact information so that the "meaning" of the sender is consider received. In casual parlance, that structure is referred to as the "meaning of the words."
In my finicky way, however, I'd insist the words themselves do nothing.
Not so. See above. The words are a code that triggers certain responses. Words MUST be minimally legible or audible, that is, decodable. Otherwise they lose their word-ness and fail to convey the message. (The noise destroys the usability of the signal.) Unless your finickiness extends to the verb "do": Words literally do nothing, but they serve in a practical way to accomplish the task of communicating meanings, that is, notions, from on person to another.
If the word is 'pitchfork', and we've had many earlier encounters with the word and the generic object it is regularly juxtaposed with, our associating mind summons up notion no doubt quite close to the author's notion -- even if he's using it metaphorically. But what Michael thinks of -- quite understandably -- as the word's action -- he says the word "conveys" -- is actually an action of the observing mind. The word itself is inert.
Sometimes words or other external representations don't even come close. "What does a banana taste like?" "Here, try this one. That's what a banana tastes like."
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Michael Brady [EMAIL PROTECTED]
