Michael writes: "Lissen up, Cheerskep. Geoff's comment is succinct and on point. That's pretty much what I tried to say in my long-winded, rococo way."
Okay, I'll lissen up as Geoff writes: "I think that you undervalue the role of words. There are a dictionary full of words for our minds to work on. Our minds don't work, don't do (in terms of communicating/receiving language) until a word is perceived. Our minds don't reach a meaning alone - it takes the stimulus of a particular word." Let's start with the last sentence first: "Our minds don't reach a meaning alone - it takes the stimulus of a particular word." I want to believe we all agree there are no extra-mental "meanings" -- i.e. there is no mind-independent entity that is "the meaning of" a word. We can defend the use of the word 'meaning' in the phrase "the meaning for a given person" when what we have in mind is the notion that arises in the receiver's mind when he hears the word. Of course, the utterer of the word also had in mind a notion, and he groped for a word he hoped would, when heard, occasion the rise of a serviceably similar notion in the hearer's mind. If he sees a certain feline, his associating mind links up to the word he's always associated with cats like that. The word 'tiger' comes to his mind. >From which I hope you'll see Geoff's last line is wrong because in fact a notion often arises in a speaker's or writer's mind before he has "the words for it". "Let's see, how shall I say this. . .? Hannah Arendt's assertion that "All thinking is in words. Speechless thought cannot exist," is in my view abysmally dimwitted. Writers struggle to choose the best words -- how could that be if their thoughts are in words? How could you ever mis-speak yourself? Rock-climbers, chefs, chess-players, even tennis-players -- they're thinking all the time, just not with words. Effectively the same mistake is articulated in Geoff's earlier line: "Our minds don't work, don't do (in terms of communicating/receiving language) until a word is perceived." Of course they do. Our minds are working constantly. (To forestall irrelevant objection, let's say "at least while we are conscious".) Rock-climbers, cooks, etc. . . "Ah, but Geoff said 'in terms of communicating/receiving language'!" Okay if I substitute 'words' for language? So Geoff says: "Our minds don't communicate words or receive words until a word is perceived." I shall keep a straight face and simply say that seems true enough to me. When we see a fire and want to communicate the notion of "fire" to Dad, we hunt around in our mind for the word that has always been associated in our mind with what we're seeing, and, luckily, by association it comes to us, we "perceive" it in our mind's inventory of words. "Fire!" we shout. Dad, luckily, has a similar association in his mind between the word 'fire' and a notion of flaming stuff. He receives the word. The notion comes to his mind. He is not a philosopher, so he doesn't say, "Son, your utterance has occasioned in me the notion of flaming stuff." He says, "Where?!" As for Geoff's telling me, "You undervalue the role of words. There are a dictionary full of words for our minds to work on," I might reply, indeed there is more than a dictionary. I myself have invented neologisms, though not as many as Shakespeare. As for my undervaluing the role of words, I wonder what makes him think this? One of the scripts currently on my website has, on my hard drive, more than two hundred rewrites of various portions -- not mainly to impose new characters or actions, but to get the words "right". Sorry, Michael, but I feel Geoff either got it too succinct or not succinct enough. ************** New MapQuest Local shows what's happening at your destination. Dining, Movies, Events, News & more. Try it out (http://local.mapquest.com/?ncid=emlcntnew00000002)
