From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Reply-To: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: "Synonyms"
Date: Tue, 21 Oct 2008 11:45:05 EDT
Michael wrote:
"Two words from different languages that point to the same referent (even a
conjunction, i.e., a syntactical function) are called exact translations."
In response to which I wrote:
"Your mind does all the doing and pointing. You contemplate the words, and
the scurrying lump of links in your head retrieves lots of associated
memories
from its soft hard-drive.
In response to which Michael wrote:
" What difference does your metaphor make
("scurrying") compared to mine ("pointing")?"
Michael, tell me you see this absolutely critical difference: You and I are
ascribing the action to two different agents. You think the "words" ARE
DOING
something. I say it's the mind/brain that does all the "doing". Words do
nothing. They don't POINT. They lie there, inert ink on paper. Your brain
"scurries", quickly finding associated notion in its inventory of memory.
Consider the
activity in your head when, say, you can't remember a name, or a title of a
movie. That quick "dashing about" in your inventory is what suggested the
word
'scurry' to me.
Forget which word or "metaphor" we use. I look at a word, and my mind goes
to
work associating. It "recognizes" the word -- i.e. by noticing its
resemblance to similar assemblages of ink on paper seen in the past. My
mind
then
summons up earlier associations with the observed occurrence of the word.
The
point:
ALL the ACTIVITY is carried out by the mind. The word DOES NOTHING.
You may want to say, "A word is more than just ink on paper!" What more?
Yes,
it's a particular sort of ink on paper: it comprises what we call letters
in
a particular order. But so-called "letters" are the same as words in this
sense: they are an arrangement of ink (or sound) that is not INTRINSICALLY
connected to any mind-independently "correct" notion. We early-on build up
associations with particular notions (e.g. visual or aural "images" of the
letter or
word). But all the associaTING and resultant associaTIONS are in the mind.
Consider this particular arrangement: "sang". Now consider the different
associations with that "word" that will accrue depending on whether or not
you're
a child growing up in America or in France.
Now we can look at your own "analogy" for this activity:
"Why not use the analogy of the shoe salesman ("Here's a nice pump image
that
might fit your word. Try it on. No? Okay, try this sling-back image. Oh
dear,
it chafes. Here's a loafer." Etc.), constantly seeing which bundle of
neural
activity best conjoins with the incoming jangle of sensory stimulation."
Notice: The word (the "incoming jangle", the "foot") is doing nothing. It's
the "shoe salesman" (the mind hunting through its inventory) that's doing
everything.
In the earlier posting I quoted you: "The utterance doesn't have meaning,
it
provokes the meaning in the listener -- in this case, a good or reliable or
perfect translation."
To which I said nay: "The word doesn't "provoke" any more
than it "points"."`
To which you replied:
"Then why bother with what was written at all? It [whatever the "meaning"
of
"it" is] is all in my mind, a notion. Why should I not just notion up what
you
would say and save you the trouble of typing the message and me the trouble
of reading it?"
Then you yourself "answer" that query:
"Because you want to provide me with the tools that construct what you hope
will be a reasonably congruent notion in my head, and those tools are
words,
and they chisel or nail or hew or point or provoke that congruent notion.
Not
that they have any animate existence, but that their nature enables such a
response in me."
But your "answer" has it critically wrong. The words don't chisel or hew or
point or provoke. They are indeed inanimate, insensate, inert. It's fairly
harmless to say its "nature" is ink on paper. But it's not "in the nature"
of
any
word that certain associations "come to mind". Those associations are the
result of earlier juxtapositions of the words (i.e. the visual or aural
mental
images) in the mind. E.g. "sang".
The words "out there" are doing nothing when my eye contemplates them; my
eye
picks up insensate light waves, and conveys sense data that my mind then
processes. Your mind, when it contemplates the same word out there, may
receive
sense data "identical" with my raw sense data, but my mind will process it
differently. The succeeding notion in my mind may be very close to the
notion
in
yours -- or quite different, depending on our differing inventories of
associatable memories. "Sang".
Sherlock Holmes may say, "The white powder on his shoes tells me he is a
diabeticb&" but Sherlock is talking figuratively there. The white powder
"tells"
Watson nothing, because his memory-inventory, his "knowledge", contains
none
of
Holmes's medical "knowledge", an inventory in which Holmes is able to find
association with white powder on shoes.
Show the same words to a shepherd in the Andes. How come the words don't
"point" for him?
You write:
"At some point, in some way, a notion similar to a notion that was in my
head
was caused to arise in yours. How did that happen? The only way, short of
telepathy, is via speech or writingb&"
I'll buy that (though I might add gestures, expressions, drawings etc). But
you go on: "b&and those words possess the
capacity to in-form."
The notion behind "capacity" there is muddled. It suggests the ability
"to
do" something. No. If you walk into a door and break your nose, and you
say,
"That door broke my nose!" I'd "understand" what's on your mind, and I'd
nod
--
unless you went on to insist the door actually DID something. If your
mother
died of Alzheimer's, you might say, "To this day that word brings tears to
my
eyes." I would volunteer to be the defense attorney for that word. The word
did nothing. Your associating mind brings the tears to your eyes.
The writer of hate-literature can be held guilty of DOING something. If his
works are burned it will not be because THEY are doing anything, but,
rather,
because they are the potential OCCASION for a reader's doing something.
