From: BrettMan35@webtv.net (Brett Robertson) Date sent: Wed, 2 Jun 1999 17:14:37 -0500 (EST) To: virus@lucifer.com Subject: Re: virus: The naming of parts. was RE: virus: Technology (was manifest science) Send reply to: virus@lucifer.com
> I have stated that, as I believe, words come to be defined a certain way
> because definitions (meaning) is "defined" (or prescribed) by objective
> characteristics.
>
And not Brettsterian delusions, confusions and whims.
>
> At least, one should observe, that if a word FAILS to
> apply to reality (when the understanding of it is applied TO reality);
> then, the word is useless for communicating ideas.
>
Most of your words fall within this category.
>
>Thus, merely taking
> the "meaning" of a word from the context of other (thereby inherently
> meaningless) words seems a poor way to "define" it.
>
A sound is inherently and essentially meaningless. This means
that any meaning we attach to it when we label a particular sound
a specific word is at root arbitrary and by intersubjective convention.
>
> This especially becomes tiresome if one is bound by an infinite regress
> of words to which one would strictly adhere such that EACH must then be
> defined in turn to support ones arguments.
>
This is known as the vicious semiotic web; definitions of definitions
of... can proceed indefinitely. However if we take a language
synchronically, as an interdependent and mutually defining whole,
rather than unravelling a diachronic one-definition-after-another
string, it all hangs together pretty cohesively.
>
> As such, statements like "MW
> says that apples are typically RED fruit (strictly a made-up example,
> don't go check)"-- when used as an argument against a statement like "I
> ate a green apple"-- are no more valid than the paper they are written
> upon... and certainly less valid than a logical exposition which
> supplies an ordered reasoning for WHY a word is such that it is and/or
> HOW such an understanding of the word helps one talk about complex
> issues.
>
There IS no why; words and their meanings are arbitrarily paired
(except for onomatopoeic ones, like hiss for the sound a snake
may make).
>
> Brett Lane Robertson
> Indiana, USA
> http://www.window.to/mindrec
> MindRecreation Metaphysical Assn.
> BIO: http://members.theglobe.com/bretthay
> ...........
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>