In a message dated 6/27/09 2:05:08 PM, [email protected] writes:
> In other words, cognition is essentially guesswork and make-believe, more > or less validated by experience. > I get roughly what you're after here, I think. My mind alters the line a bit to something it can get a better "handle on". I might change 'cognition' here to 'communication', and drop 'make believe' because I honestly have little idea what your notion is. None of this is meant to insult your locution. My guess is we both do this regularly: reword what we've just heard until it fits better with our labels for the notions we guess the speaker has in mind. The phrase I'd stress in what you say above is "more or less", if we can read that phrase as "to a greater or lesser degree". In other words, we're NOT saying, "Sometimes communication is achieved, and sometimes not" -- as in "Either it happens or it doesn't." Instead it's a matter of degree. If I say "Abraham Lincoln", much of what comes to your mind will more or less resemble what's in my mind, but I suspect you, being an Illinois man, will conjure notion from your acquired memories that is in many places different from mine. I presume we'd both accept as a commonplace that if we say 'slavery' to a black American scholar and to an Afghan woman under the Taliban (assuming they both speak English), different notion will flow through those two minds. What I want us to do is ask: Why? They both hear the same word, but different notion ensues. How come? ************** Make your summer sizzle with fast and easy recipes for the grill. (http://food.aol.com/grilling?ncid=emlcntusfood00000006)
