Cheerskep: If I may metacommunicate: I'm not sure what the aim of all this
is: to win minds and hearts to the non-noun side, to have invigorating and
vigorous discussions, to triumph over the naive. Or something else.
Whatever the aim, I DO understand that you discriminate between a verb and
an object or noun, which I, if not you, associate with each other. To me, it
is nonsense to affirm a verb and to simultaneously deny its product or
result or consequent. I understand that you do. I'm willing to leave it at
that.
I DO accept that it is our minds that do the acting and that words are an
agreed-on way of communicating something like what we mean to others. I
think that the "something like" is pretty similar when men are propelled
into outer space and return or when brain surgery is performed. You, of
course, are free to disagree.
Geoff C
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Reply-To: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Connecting and "relationships"
Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2008 15:42:13 EDT
Geoff writes:
> Cheerskep: Good luck on convincing many of us on the concept that minds
can
> operate to "associate" but that that does not mean that the product, in
> person's minds, of "associating" is not "associations".
> Geoff C
>
> Again-- my failure to be as clear as I could have been (though I did
suggest
I was aware I was keeping it unsatisfactorally brief.) Granted: we use the
word 'associations' in two different ways.
Try this: Distinguish between the act of associating and its "product", the
way you would distinguish between an author's act of writing and his
resultant
"writings". I infer you what you have in with the word 'product' is
indeed
an entity, albeit a notional one -- the notion subsequent to the act of
associating. Unfortunately for me, we are used to using 'association' both
ways.
Compare "She uses association to summon up her associations." to "She
uses
association to summon up her poetic imagery."
What we have in mind when we talk of the act of associating is not
identical
to its product. The first is an action, the second an object. The alleged
act
of "relating" is not identical to either of the allegedly "related"
objects.
Indeed, I'm going beyond that. I'm saying that the alleged act of
relating is
chimerical, just as the alleged acts of "referring to", "signifying",
"naming" (when imputed to the "name") and "meaning" are chimerical.
Not totally clear, but clearer maybe?
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