W: This is heavily snipped, but it represents a précis of your statement.
Is it enough to say you are in severe disharmony with practically every
semantician ever born? Sounds, um, almost mystical....(from Wade)
List,
It is not mystical...perhaps "magical" (some more splitting of hairs...but
see http://www.tctc.com/~unameit/magic.html).
In simplified terms, I am only saying: The object "ball" has a
characteristic "spherical" which might apply to "earth" as well...the size
of ball is a necessary logical extension of spherical--"small" as opposed to
"large", etc. One might assume that as the characteristics of an object are
delineated, the characteristics of the words which are used to describe the
object have likewise been compared and contrasted as they relate to various
objects and thereby have an objective quality themselves. The statement
"words have a specific relationship to [...] objects which we uncover but do
not create" takes on an implication of words as having necessary
characteristics (notwithstanding their semantic roots or existence as "pure"
forms). So, I must say, that I have no beef with semanticians born or
otherwise:)
The same characteristic (necessariness) might similarly be applied to
numbers--which though symbolic cannot indiscriminately stand for diverse
relationships ("2 trees" applies to *two* trees, not three or four...and it
is the relationship between the symbol and the object which makes this
"meaning" work, not the definition applied to the number "2"). It is the
ordered quality of the (numeric) symbol which allows us to formulate
mathematical equations. Similarly, the ordered quality of words allow us to
formulate logical relationships--not the relatively arbitrary
interpretations applied to them by people in compromising situations with
other people.
Though *people* may not notice as readily as I, the idea of "meme" is being
compromised by assigning human desires (to conform, to edify, to agree, to
honor, to be thankful...) to the person or people who coined the word (or to
the list) rather than to the idea as a logical entity which suggests its own
(memetic) propagation.
Brett
http://members.tripod.com/~Brettman35/index.html
ICQ &MindRec "Chat" UIN 6630756
If you only have a hammer, you tend to see every problem as
a nail.-- Maslow