Words have no Meaning

What?
I really do not follow the statement: "Objects as symbols are not objects"
And I'm having semantic difficulty with: "A word is not an object".

Can you clarify (or can he) what "Some symbols can take form" actually means? A symbol can be formless? How can something formless be a symbol?
 
sowhatifit'sdark said:
If you are thinking of something, or thinking about it, this is not the mental object.
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It's not? What is "thinking of something" then, if it's not mental?
sowhatifit'sdark said:
The mental object is about that thing not the thing itself.
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What's "the thing itself"?
 
Vkothii


I am thinking of the spoken word being a symbol.

A word written in the sand, is a particular configuration of grains of sand, but it is not a thing in itself.
We brush away the sand spread across a surface, and the negative space can create letters and words.
We can carve out wood from a board, and the empty space forms words.
We can use moving flags or blinking lights as semaphore, to make letters and words.
In all cases, it is not the method of forming letters or words which carries the meaning, it is the symbolic representation, whether it has substance, is a thing, or has no substance.

If you want to argue that the spoken word has substance, let’s jump to the chase and say, for the sake of the argument, that it does.
Certainly in most cases words have a substance.
Does it matter?
 
In all cases, it is not the method of forming letters or words which carries the meaning, it is the symbolic representation, whether it has substance, is a thing, or has no substance.
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I disagree completely with "symbolic representation, whether it has substance, is a thing, or has no substance".
A symbol simply cannot exist if it isn't a thing, whether that thing be a real physical shape, or an imagined one (imagination is substantial).
A symbol has substance or it's nothing at all.

Does it matter? Well, only if it means you can call anything (including nothing whatsoever), a sign or symbol of some kind. I guess, on the face of it, anything substantial, including thoughts, can be symbolic.

A symbol needn't be a static shape, it can be an event, say, an omen. A pigeon's or a rabbit's intestines are a signal (they were important omens back in Roman times, like before a battle), if you're a pagan.
Anything can be a symbol, sign, omen, important, unimportant, etc.

A symbol is anything that conveys that old chestnut: "meaning".
 
Vkothii I disagree completely with "symbolic representation, whether it has substance, is a thing, or has no substance".
A symbol simply cannot exist if it isn't a thing, whether that thing be a real physical shape, or an imagined one (imagination is substantial).
A symbol has substance or it's nothing at all.

Does it matter? Well, only if it means you can call anything (including nothing whatsoever), a sign or symbol of some kind. I guess, on the face of it, anything substantial, including thoughts, can be symbolic.

A symbol needn't be a static shape, it can be an event, say, an omen. A pigeon's or a rabbit's intestines are a signal (they were important omens back in Roman times, like before a battle), if you're a pagan.
Anything can be a symbol, sign, omen, important, unimportant, etc.

A symbol is anything that conveys that old chestnut: "meaning".
Click to expand...

If you want to say a thought has substance, and the spoken word has substance, then on those conditions, certainly all symbols have substance.

This substance is of course not the substance represented by the symbol.
A symbol has one substance, and represents another. It may even be that some symbols have the same substance they represent. If the word cheese is spelled with pieces of cheese, the substance of the symbol is the same as the representation.

I do not believe we can get everyone to agree that the spoken word has substance, but certainly we are free to put that chiaracteristic to the word.
If we are to explain this to someone who disagrees with us, how are we to explain the substance of the spoken word?
 
Right. Symbols represent something (have meaning).

Anything that can be conceived (Fairies, unicorns, glowing blue lines, a black "space") is symbolic because it has a "mental" substance.
Generally, we look for symbols or signs externally, and then internalise, rather then the other way around.

Symbology and meaning are a thing called Semiotics. Not sure about "semiology", that would translate as "the word - logos- of meaning" - a bit circular perhaps.
Semiotic means "of meaning".

The word "represent" implies a re-iteration of "present", or "give". So it means "to give again".
 
BeHereNow said:
sisyphus__

The usage of words can have meaning. Or not.

This is because the meaning of the word is not in the word itself, it is in the mind of the reader or listener. When the word enters the mind, it gains meaning. No mind, no meaning (other than the obvious physical existence of the compositition making the letters).
Some words that enter the mind are meaningless (a foreign language, for example).
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Yeah.
P-e-o-p-l-e understand my "meanings", in very odd ways.
If you had noticed in my writing it is very almost similar to reikus in a semantical pragmatic perspective like but infact it is not quite so.
The point I am making is that in the post I had made (where's it at?), I had clarified a whole lot if not most of the debate as to where a further debate would remain.

Other th an the actual truth of how the words themselfs having some deep meaning which you are refering to here, I wouldn't know, hardley would care at the moment,

Anyway. Just attempting to find out what this wasteland of a debate is all about


:p
 
Vkothii said:
It's not? What is "thinking of something" then, if it's not mental?
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It seemed like you were saying that the mental object was 'about' something. It is not about itself. It refers.

I looked back at the post. You said 'thinking of something'. It is that 'of' that crawed in my stuck. If you had said 'thinking something' I might not have quibbled.
 
glaucon said:
In fact, it is indeed the mental object you are operating on.
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I felt like he was adding confusing with the preposition 'of'. If you are thinking of something you distinguish the thing and the thought of it. If you are thinking something, no prep., that is something else. Mental objects are taken as referring, not always, but in the context he set up.



This makes no sense.
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In a sense I am making a distinction between sensing/perceiving and thinking of.
 
glaucon said:
Not while thinking of it, that would be impossible.
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Why don't we then say 'I am experiencing Mary, right now.' When someone asks why we are looking off, our eyes misty.

How is it that there is a difference between the two states?
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To be crass, the difference between fantasizing about sex with ___________ and having it.

I find thinking of has a quality of ephemeralness and quasi existence. This is only more so if the thinking is verbal.
 
Vkothii said:
Yes, watch out for the abstraction vortex (it looks a bit like the cookie monster).
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How do we avoid infinite regress?

If we are not experiencing things in themselves, but our thoughts. From what vantage to we experiences our thoughts. Is it really the thoughts in themselves we are aware of or their shadows on the cave wall?

I feel like I just feel backwards down my spine.
 
sowhatifit'sdark said:
Why don't we then say 'I am experiencing Mary, right now.' When someone asks why we are looking off, our eyes misty.
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I don't see your point.

When considering something, there can be no distinguishing between the thought object and its attendant material object (if there is one..). The act of thinking cannot be disparate.


sowhatifit'sdark said:
To be crass, the difference between fantasizing about sex with ___________ and having it.
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I don't believe that the analogy holds. You seem to be taking the position that thinking can be 'extracted' from perceiving....

The difference between fantasizing and acting is just that; the two are different acts. But the one common element to both is the activity of thinking. There's also the distinction to be made between thinking in general, and imaginative thinking. The latter being an extremely specialized form of the former.
 
To add to what Glaucon said above:

sowhatifit'sdark said:
To be crass, the difference between fantasizing about sex with ___________ and having it.

I find thinking of has a quality of ephemeralness and quasi existence. This is only more so if the thinking is verbal.
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There is obviously the difference between expectation/fantasyand experience.

If a person doesn't train their imagination very much, then their expectations will, in comparison to their experiences, be incomplete - in that in the expectation/fantasy, much of the sensory input will be absent but which is usually present in the experience.
 
glaucon said:
I don't see your point.

When considering something, there can be no distinguishing between the thought object and its attendant material object (if there is one..). The act of thinking cannot be disparate.
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I have the feeling we are writing at cross purposes somehow. But I will try to find that. I don't confuse my thought of my car with my car.





I don't believe that the analogy holds. You seem to be taking the position that thinking can be 'extracted' from perceiving....
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Actually I think I am. I can then percieve my thought object, but I do not confuse this experience with perceiving the object.

Probably my fault missing something obvious in what you said earlier.
The difference between fantasizing and acting is just that; the two are different acts. But the one common element to both is the activity of thinking.
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There's brain activity. But I would say I can act without thinking. To me thinking has a meta quality to it which perceiving does not. I am conscious that I am referring.
 
greenberg said:
There is obviously the difference between expectation/fantasyand experience.
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This sounds to me like you are agreeing with me.

If a person doesn't train their imagination very much, then their expectations will, in comparison to their experiences, be incomplete - in that in the expectation/fantasy, much of the sensory input will be absent but which is usually present in the experience.
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I don't think even with training it can ever reach parity.
 
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