William wrote:
-- "That is not to say those objects have meaning but in fact it's almost the
same thing because we can't sense the world without a-priori experiencing it
as "meaningful"."
It would be crucial to know what William has in mind when he says
"meaningful". I hope I myself would never use the word, but I can imagine some
notions
users might have in mind. For example their idea of "meaningful" might be:
"occasioning notion in a contemplating mind".
Another user might require the arising notion to be, call it, "recognizable",
familiar, before he'll call the occasioning object "meaningful". (A third
user might say the arising notion needs to be "understandable", which is a
misnomer, but what he might have in mind is that new sense data is "meaningful"
if
the recipient is inclined to say, "I get it!" -- even if in fact he's not
"getting it" at all.)
With the first definition above, all sensations a little baby received could
be called "meaningful" because the sensation itself is notion, part of the
baby's conscious stream. Someone else might say they wouldn't call them
"meaningful" unless they "lead to" further notion that the baby "recognizes" in
the
sense of inducing the baby to expect a further, familiar sensation.
Here's what it seems to me happens in the mind of an infant. Much initial
sensation is stored in memory. But the baby also remembers sequences,
juxtapositions: The sight of the bottle is regularly followed by a feed. A
network of
associated notion is building in the mind. Eventually the baby, upon seeing the
bottle, anticipates a feed is about to come. The baby's mind has associated
that sight with another sensation that usually follows.
I can sympathize with those who may want to say such things as: "To the baby,
the sight of the bottle means feed to come." Then the word 'sight' gets
dropped: "To the baby, the bottle means feed to come." And then 'to the baby'
gets dropped: "The bottle means feed to come." This, I think, is the sort of
process Kate has in mind when she says "we place meaning IN the object".
But all the associations are in the baby's mind. There is no new entity
whatever IN the bottle.
William's line, "That is not to say those objects have meaning but we can't
sense the world without a-priori experiencing it as "meaningful"," is hard for
me to grapple with because I find so unclear and possibly even circular.
Perhaps what he has in mind is something like this: The baby can't "assign
meaning
to" the bottle until the repeated experience of seeing the bottle and then
getting fed creates in the baby an association between the bottle and the feed
that makes the bottle "meaningful" for the baby. Which is in essence my view,
though I take all the business about "assigning meaning" as misleading
figurative language suggesting an action and an entity that don't exist.
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