[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Mike Brady writes:
This has happened a lot. I typed the a certain set of letters (M i c h
a e l) so that you would get the notion in your head to address me by
the same letters. I gather that you think your name-notion "Mike" is
equivalent, and thus equal, to my name-notion, "Michael." This has
happened a lot. I'd appreciate it if you would conform your notion to
my notion a bit more carefully, if you get my meaning.
...
"And further, such artifacts contain a meaning in their structure,
such as
the markings on the plaques. I cannot see how they don't."
Mike has at no time described what he has in mind when he says
"meaning", but
I suspect those last two lines veil a deep confusion. I HAVE
described what
I'll have in mind when I use the word "meaning", and it's always
notion --
the notion in the speaker's mind and the notion that arises in the
listener's
mind. Markings on a plaque may OCCASION "meaning" in a
contemplator's mind, but
all reasons for thinking the markings ARE "meaning" are confused (in
the
contexts displayed on this forum so far). No one so far has
described his idea of
"meaning" in a way that justifies believing it can ever be a non-
notional
entity.
See remarks at the end.
Mike writes:
"I believe it is correct to say that Linear A, a prehistoric script
from Crete, is meaningful, is full of meaning --"
Pause. I see those two qualifiers as different. I could buy
'meaningful' if
you have in mind something like "occasioning recognizable notion in a
contemplator's mind". But to equate that with being "full of"
undefined "meaning" seems
unjustified.
Word play! It's word play. Simple etymology: meaning + ful = full of
meaning
" -- because it exhibits all the evidence of an intentionally
produced form
of written
communications."
I conceded at the top I'd accept this as one of the reasons why you
might
call something "meaningful". But that's no argument for believing it
"IS"
anything I'd call "meaning", or has anything IN it I'd call
"meaning". Two lost
hikers separately light fires. One lights it to keep warm, the other
intending it
to "signal" his presence. Searchers rescue the second guy right
away. The first
guy staggers out of the woods a week later, finds out about the
second guy's
experience, and asks the searchers, "How come you didn't come get me
too?" One
searcher says, "Because we could see the meaning in the second guy's
fire."
Another searcher says, "Because his fire WAS meaning."
Very poor example. No rescuers searching for lost hikers would
interpret two otherwise identical signals (which have in your example
have only one interpretation, not the more flexible communicating of
meaning that we are talking about) differently. That's why pranksters
get results from pulling the fire alarm: the fire department always
responds.
would you like to try your hand at describing this entity you call
"meaning"? I hope I've persuaded you that it won't do simply to say
"The capacity
to occasion recognizable notion IS meaning." And then perhaps you'd
describe
the activity -- what you think an object is allegedly doing when it
"means"?
I'll invite you to try your own hand at reading what I already wrote
to the list, which exactly responds to your invitation. Didn't you get
my earlier message, which read in part:
-----------begin quoted material ---------------
"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."
[Cheerskep] 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."
------------- end of quoted material ---------------
I left something out (or rather, it was tacitly assumed, and not made
explicit): Both parties must have the code, must know how to interpret
the information. I must be able to read and understand English, a
museum-goer must be able to parse the structures of museums in order
to frame the information in the paintings, the audience member must
know how to construe the activities and words of the people on the
raised floor in front of the auditorium, etc.
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Michael Brady
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
