Truth (Was:Re: PROOF INFINITY DOES NOT EXIST!...)
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From: herbzet on 24 Jul 2010 22:41 Curt Welch wrote: > herbzet wrote: > > Curt Welch wrote: > > > Simple logic is not a good tool for understanding meaning. > > > > But it is the reverse that is the case. > > > > Though we may have some doubt about what precisely it means to assert > > "John has a big ego", it is indubitable that this proposition includes, > > and hence implies, the proposition that "John has an ego" -- regardless > > of whether or not John has a big ego, or indeed whether he has an ego at > > all. > > Well, yes and no. I agree with the idea you are suggesting, but meaning is > actually always more complex than that. Meaning to me is defined in two > ways. It's defined first by the physical chain of events which caused a > specific language stament to be produced (the senders meaning), and it is > defined by the physical effect it has on the universe (the receivers > meaning). > > There is no (absolute) "generic" meaning to a statement such as "John has > an ego". Each time the words are generated by someone, it has a different > meaning - the meaning which is associated with why that person spoke those > words. And each time someone reads the words, it creates meaning in the > receiver. That meaning will never be the same twice even for the same > person (even though it will likely be very similar for consecutive times). > > We can talk about the average meaning in a society - that is, what the most > likely average expected meaning of someone speaking those words in that > language to be. But in truth, meaning is so highly complex, and so > different from person to person, that there's little truth in talking about > expected meaning. > > If I hear a teenage girl say "John has an ego" in a conversation she is > having with another teenage girl that seems to be talk about boyfriends, my > brain will make all sorts of educated guesses about what the meaning of the > sender was. I might guess the real meaning might be closer to "I wish John > liked me". > > In a different context, I might be watching a spy movie and the see the > hero utter the words "John has an ego", and in response, a voice activated > door opens. In that context, my best guess as to the meanings of the words > are closer to "I want the door to open" and don't have anything directly to > do with someone named John, or his ego. Heh, good illustration of your point. > To suggest we can understand the meaning of such a sentence totally out of > context, or that the words only have one "real" meaning, would be > pointless. > > So how, given this complex landscape of language, could we assign a truth > value to the statement? We basically can't. At least at not without > making a huge set of assumptions about the sender and the receiver and the > entire context that caused the words to be produced. And even if we make > all these assumptions, the odds that our understanding being very accurate, > is poor at best. > > The only way to get a truth value from a sentence, is to make up ARBITRARY > rules of truth that roughly fits the default or standard meaning of the > words. Not the real meaning when used, but the sort of meaning which gets > taught in class when attempting to teach a language or the sort of meaning > found in a dictionary. And only when that meaning is extremely simple and > generally clear, does it work at all - such as when we say "John has two > peaches". > > When then use logic to verify that "John has two peaches" -> "John has some > fruit". Right. > But we had to make many assumptions about the meaning, that often > can't be made in real language use. Right. Logic cannot be applied without the meaning of the sentences, at least in part, being arrived at beforehand, somehow or other. As I mentioned before, logic presupposes meanings, truth, falsehood, are somehow already present, at least in principle. > Only in an highly artificial > interpretation of language (one that can never be used in the real world by > real people unless they want to be considered idiots) can such logic be > evaluated. And only in that highly artificial interpretation of meaning, > does the truth of X -> Y imply Y includes X become even close to valid. > > Ok, so writing the above has allowed me to think about this some more. Let > me now respond again to what you wrote above: > > > Nevertheless, the net effect is as I have described above: some > > (or all) of the meaning of X is preserved in the meaning of Y, > > with nothing being added -- regardless of what interpretation > > (meaning) we may subsequently assign to the abstract logical > > forms of X and of Y. > > Well, the meaning is not "preserved" as much as it was arbitrary > _assigned_. > > That is, for someone to declare that X -> Y, they first has to arbitrary > assign a meaning, and in stating X -> Y, they are not talking about meaning > the words might have had when spoken, but simply making a statement about > what sort of meaning they choose to assign the words. So what it tells us, > is not so much about some real meaning of the sentence, but instead, the > highly artificial meaning assigned for the purpose of attribution truth to > the statements int he first place, all in the context of discussing the > truth values of natural language statements. In the context of discussing logic, no doubt it is just convenient and customary to assume that the meaning of a statement has been fixed already, and bears some relation to its logico-grammatical structure. This part your post has been mostly devoted to an interesting discussion of how meaning, and hence truth-value, is assigned to sentences in the first place, which is more properly the topic of this thread. As I mentioned previously, the broader question of this thread, of how truth or falsity is assigned to sentences in the first place, has not been my concern here. I wasn't really following the thread at all until I saw Wolf K's post, which I read because I generally find his posts illuminating. I seized upon Wolf K's invocation of "logical truth" to ride my favorite hobby-horse about the nature of logical implication; Wolf has since dropped out of the conversation, no doubt concluding that I am irrepairably confused -- story of my life, but I digress. [...] > I guess I think meaning has little to do with logic. The only way we can > work with logic, (or math in general), is to define highly simple, and > highly artificial meaning to our words, and once we have done that, and > agreed to what we that assignment is, we can then have a worthwhile > discussion about the logic of the statements. Right, and this is utterly commonplace, especially in the construction of foundations of mathematics, a project that has strongly informed logic since Frege, at least. > And such understanding of logic, has little use in natural language, > except, when we are speaking a highly simplified, and highly artificial > form of language (which we do at times when we need to communicate > something that is highly structured and artificial - like math, and > science, and engineering, etc). I agree that logic is a feeble instrument when applied to most natural language transactions. One need merely try to apply formal logic to today's editorial in the Daily Rag to see how little logic figures in ordinary discussions. I don't mean that in a derisory way -- logic just doesn't apply much in a typical editorial -- editorials, and most natural language conversations, are not meant to be proofs. > Outside of these highly artificial and structured usage of lagniappe, logic > just doesn't have much of anything to do with meaning. Ack! I disagree! That's just what I've *not* been saying! What, then, does logic have to do with? -- hz
From: herbzet on 24 Jul 2010 22:38 Curt Welch wrote: > herbzet wrote: > > Curt Welch wrote: > > > Simple logic is not a good tool for understanding meaning. > > > > But it is the reverse that is the case. > > > > Though we may have some doubt about what precisely it means to assert > > "John has a big ego", it is indubitable that this proposition includes, > > and hence implies, the proposition that "John has an ego" -- regardless > > of whether or not John has a big ego, or indeed whether he has an ego at > > all. > > Well, yes and no. I agree with the idea you are suggesting, but meaning is > actually always more complex than that. Meaning to me is defined in two > ways. It's defined first by the physical chain of events which caused a > specific language stament to be produced (the senders meaning), and it is > defined by the physical effect it has on the universe (the receivers > meaning). > > There is no (absolute) "generic" meaning to a statement such as "John has > an ego". Each time the words are generated by someone, it has a different > meaning - the meaning which is associated with why that person spoke those > words. And each time someone reads the words, it creates meaning in the > receiver. That meaning will never be the same twice even for the same > person (even though it will likely be very similar for consecutive times). > > We can talk about the average meaning in a society - that is, what the most > likely average expected meaning of someone speaking those words in that > language to be. But in truth, meaning is so highly complex, and so > different from person to person, that there's little truth in talking about > expected meaning. > > If I hear a teenage girl say "John has an ego" in a conversation she is > having with another teenage girl that seems to be talk about boyfriends, my > brain will make all sorts of educated guesses about what the meaning of the > sender was. I might guess the real meaning might be closer to "I wish John > liked me". > > In a different context, I might be watching a spy movie and the see the > hero utter the words "John has an ego", and in response, a voice activated > door opens. In that context, my best guess as to the meanings of the words > are closer to "I want the door to open" and don't have anything directly to > do with someone named John, or his ego. Heh, good illustration of your point. > To suggest we can understand the meaning of such a sentence totally out of > context, or that the words only have one "real" meaning, would be > pointless. > > So how, given this complex landscape of language, could we assign a truth > value to the statement? We basically can't. At least at not without > making a huge set of assumptions about the sender and the receiver and the > entire context that caused the words to be produced. And even if we make > all these assumptions, the odds that our understanding being very accurate, > is poor at best. > > The only way to get a truth value from a sentence, is to make up ARBITRARY > rules of truth that roughly fits the default or standard meaning of the > words. Not the real meaning when used, but the sort of meaning which gets > taught in class when attempting to teach a language or the sort of meaning > found in a dictionary. And only when that meaning is extremely simple and > generally clear, does it work at all - such as when we say "John has two > peaches". > > When then use logic to verify that "John has two peaches" -> "John has some > fruit". Right. > But we had to make many assumptions about the meaning, that often > can't be made in real language use. Right. Logic cannot be applied without the meaning of the sentences, at least in part, being arrived at beforehand, somehow or other. As I mentioned before, logic presupposes meanings, truth, falsehood, are somehow already present, at least in principle. > Only in an highly artificial > interpretation of language (one that can never be used in the real world by > real people unless they want to be considered idiots) can such logic be > evaluated. And only in that highly artificial interpretation of meaning, > does the truth of X -> Y imply Y includes X become even close to valid. > > Ok, so writing the above has allowed me to think about this some more. Let > me now respond again to what you wrote above: > > > Nevertheless, the net effect is as I have described above: some > > (or all) of the meaning of X is preserved in the meaning of Y, > > with nothing being added -- regardless of what interpretation > > (meaning) we may subsequently assign to the abstract logical > > forms of X and of Y. > > Well, the meaning is not "preserved" as much as it was arbitrary > _assigned_. > > That is, for someone to declare that X -> Y, they first has to arbitrary > assign a meaning, and in stating X -> Y, they are not talking about meaning > the words might have had when spoken, but simply making a statement about > what sort of meaning they choose to assign the words. So what it tells us, > is not so much about some real meaning of the sentence, but instead, the > highly artificial meaning assigned for the purpose of attribution truth to > the statements int he first place, all in the context of discussing the > truth values of natural language statements. In the context of discussing logic, no doubt it is just convenient and customary to assume that the meaning of a statement has been fixed already, and bears some relation to its logico-grammatical structure. This part your post has been mostly devoted to an interesting discussion of how meaning, and hence truth-value, is assigned to sentences in the first place, which is more properly the topic of this thread. As I mentioned previously, the broader question of this thread, of how truth or falsity is assigned to sentences in the first place, is not my concern here. I wasn't really following the thread at all until I saw Wolf K's post, which I read because I generally find his posts illuminating. I seized upon Wolf K's invocation of "logical truth" to ride my favorite hobby-horse about the nature of logical implication; Wolf has since dropped out of the conversation, no doubt concluding that I am irrepairably confused -- story of my life, but I digress. [...] > I guess I think meaning has little to do with logic. The only way we can > work with logic, (or math in general), is to define highly simple, and > highly artificial meaning to our words, and once we have done that, and > agreed to what we that assignment is, we can then have a worthwhile > discussion about the logic of the statements. Right, and this is utterly commonplace, especially in the construction of foundations of mathematics, a project that has strongly informed logic since Frege, at least. > And such understanding of logic, has little use in natural language, > except, when we are speaking a highly simplified, and highly artificial > form of language (which we do at times when we need to communicate > something that is highly structured and artificial - like math, and > science, and engineering, etc). I agree that logic is a feeble instrument when applied to most natural language transactions. One need merely try to apply formal logic to today's editorial in the Daily Rag to see how little logic figures in ordinary discussions. I don't mean that in a derisory way -- logic just doesn't apply much in a typical editorial -- editorials, and most natural language conversations, are not meant to be proofs. > Outside of these highly artificial and structured usage of lagniappe, logic > just doesn't have much of anything to do with meaning. Ack! I disagree! That's just what I've *not* been saying! What, then, does logic have to do with? -- hz
From: Don Stockbauer on 25 Jul 2010 13:58 On Jul 24, 9:38 pm, herbzet <herb...(a)gmail.com> wrote: > Curt Welch wrote: > > herbzet wrote: > > > Curt Welch wrote: > > > > Simple logic is not a good tool for understanding meaning. > > > > But it is the reverse that is the case. > > > > Though we may have some doubt about what precisely it means to assert > > > "John has a big ego", it is indubitable that this proposition includes, > > > and hence implies, the proposition that "John has an ego" -- regardless > > > of whether or not John has a big ego, or indeed whether he has an ego at > > > all. > > > Well, yes and no. I agree with the idea you are suggesting, but meaning is > > actually always more complex than that. Meaning to me is defined in two > > ways. It's defined first by the physical chain of events which caused a > > specific language stament to be produced (the senders meaning), and it is > > defined by the physical effect it has on the universe (the receivers > > meaning). > > > There is no (absolute) "generic" meaning to a statement such as "John has > > an ego". Each time the words are generated by someone, it has a different > > meaning - the meaning which is associated with why that person spoke those > > words. And each time someone reads the words, it creates meaning in the > > receiver. That meaning will never be the same twice even for the same > > person (even though it will likely be very similar for consecutive times). > > > We can talk about the average meaning in a society - that is, what the most > > likely average expected meaning of someone speaking those words in that > > language to be. But in truth, meaning is so highly complex, and so > > different from person to person, that there's little truth in talking about > > expected meaning. > > > If I hear a teenage girl say "John has an ego" in a conversation she is > > having with another teenage girl that seems to be talk about boyfriends, my > > brain will make all sorts of educated guesses about what the meaning of the > > sender was. I might guess the real meaning might be closer to "I wish John > > liked me". > > > In a different context, I might be watching a spy movie and the see the > > hero utter the words "John has an ego", and in response, a voice activated > > door opens. In that context, my best guess as to the meanings of the words > > are closer to "I want the door to open" and don't have anything directly to > > do with someone named John, or his ego. > > Heh, good illustration of your point. > > > > > > > To suggest we can understand the meaning of such a sentence totally out of > > context, or that the words only have one "real" meaning, would be > > pointless. > > > So how, given this complex landscape of language, could we assign a truth > > value to the statement? We basically can't. At least at not without > > making a huge set of assumptions about the sender and the receiver and the > > entire context that caused the words to be produced. And even if we make > > all these assumptions, the odds that our understanding being very accurate, > > is poor at best. > > > The only way to get a truth value from a sentence, is to make up ARBITRARY > > rules of truth that roughly fits the default or standard meaning of the > > words. Not the real meaning when used, but the sort of meaning which gets > > taught in class when attempting to teach a language or the sort of meaning > > found in a dictionary. And only when that meaning is extremely simple and > > generally clear, does it work at all - such as when we say "John has two > > peaches". > > > When then use logic to verify that "John has two peaches" -> "John has some > > fruit". > > Right. > > > But we had to make many assumptions about the meaning, that often > > can't be made in real language use. > > Right. Logic cannot be applied without the meaning of the sentences, > at least in part, being arrived at beforehand, somehow or other. > > As I mentioned before, logic presupposes meanings, truth, falsehood, > are somehow already present, at least in principle. > > > > > > > Only in an highly artificial > > interpretation of language (one that can never be used in the real world by > > real people unless they want to be considered idiots) can such logic be > > evaluated. And only in that highly artificial interpretation of meaning, > > does the truth of X -> Y imply Y includes X become even close to valid. > > > Ok, so writing the above has allowed me to think about this some more. Let > > me now respond again to what you wrote above: > > > > Nevertheless, the net effect is as I have described above: some > > > (or all) of the meaning of X is preserved in the meaning of Y, > > > with nothing being added -- regardless of what interpretation > > > (meaning) we may subsequently assign to the abstract logical > > > forms of X and of Y. > > > Well, the meaning is not "preserved" as much as it was arbitrary > > _assigned_. > > > That is, for someone to declare that X -> Y, they first has to arbitrary > > assign a meaning, and in stating X -> Y, they are not talking about meaning > > the words might have had when spoken, but simply making a statement about > > what sort of meaning they choose to assign the words. So what it tells us, > > is not so much about some real meaning of the sentence, but instead, the > > highly artificial meaning assigned for the purpose of attribution truth to > > the statements int he first place, all in the context of discussing the > > truth values of natural language statements. > > In the context of discussing logic, no doubt it is just convenient and > customary to assume that the meaning of a statement has been fixed already, > and bears some relation to its logico-grammatical structure. > > This part your post has been mostly devoted to an interesting > discussion of how meaning, and hence truth-value, is assigned to > sentences in the first place, which is more properly the topic > of this thread. > > As I mentioned previously, the broader question of this thread, of how > truth or falsity is assigned to sentences in the first place, is not my > concern here. > > I wasn't really following the thread at all until I saw Wolf K's > post, which I read because I generally find his posts illuminating. > > I seized upon Wolf K's invocation of "logical truth" to ride my > favorite hobby-horse about the nature of logical implication; Wolf > has since dropped out of the conversation, no doubt concluding > that I am irrepairably confused -- story of my life, but I digress. > > [...] > > > I guess I think meaning has little to do with logic. The only way we can > > work with logic, (or math in general), is to define highly simple, and > > highly artificial meaning to our words, and once we have done that, and > > agreed to what we that assignment is, we can then have a worthwhile > > discussion about the logic of the statements. > > Right, and this is utterly commonplace, especially in the construction > of foundations of mathematics, a project that has strongly informed > logic since Frege, at least. > > > And such understanding of logic, has little use in natural language, > > except, when we are speaking a highly simplified, and highly artificial > > form of language (which we do at times when we need to communicate > > something that is highly structured and artificial - like math, and > > science, and engineering, etc). > > I agree that logic is a feeble instrument when applied to most > natural language transactions. One need merely try to apply > formal logic to today's editorial in the Daily Rag to see > how little logic figures in ordinary discussions. I don't > mean that in a derisory way -- logic just doesn't apply > much in a typical editorial -- editorials, and most natural > language conversations, are not meant to be proofs. > > > Outside of these highly artificial and structured usage of lagniappe, logic > > just doesn't have much of anything to do with meaning. > > Ack! I disagree! That's just what I've *not* been saying! > > What, then, does logic have to do with? What does love have to do with it? - Tina Turner
From: Curt Welch on 25 Jul 2010 17:34 herbzet(a)cox.net wrote: > Curt Welch wrote: > > herbzet wrote: > > > Curt Welch wrote: > > > > > Simple logic is not a good tool for understanding meaning. > > > > > > But it is the reverse that is the case. > > > > > > Though we may have some doubt about what precisely it means to assert > > > "John has a big ego", it is indubitable that this proposition > > > includes, and hence implies, the proposition that "John has an ego" > > > -- regardless of whether or not John has a big ego, or indeed whether > > > he has an ego at all. > > > > Well, yes and no. I agree with the idea you are suggesting, but > > meaning is actually always more complex than that. Meaning to me is > > defined in two ways. It's defined first by the physical chain of > > events which caused a specific language stament to be produced (the > > senders meaning), and it is defined by the physical effect it has on > > the universe (the receivers meaning). > > > > There is no (absolute) "generic" meaning to a statement such as "John > > has an ego". Each time the words are generated by someone, it has a > > different meaning - the meaning which is associated with why that > > person spoke those words. And each time someone reads the words, it > > creates meaning in the receiver. That meaning will never be the same > > twice even for the same person (even though it will likely be very > > similar for consecutive times). > > > > We can talk about the average meaning in a society - that is, what the > > most likely average expected meaning of someone speaking those words in > > that language to be. But in truth, meaning is so highly complex, and > > so different from person to person, that there's little truth in > > talking about expected meaning. > > > > If I hear a teenage girl say "John has an ego" in a conversation she is > > having with another teenage girl that seems to be talk about > > boyfriends, my brain will make all sorts of educated guesses about what > > the meaning of the sender was. I might guess the real meaning might be > > closer to "I wish John liked me". > > > > In a different context, I might be watching a spy movie and the see the > > hero utter the words "John has an ego", and in response, a voice > > activated door opens. In that context, my best guess as to the > > meanings of the words are closer to "I want the door to open" and don't > > have anything directly to do with someone named John, or his ego. > > Heh, good illustration of your point. > > > To suggest we can understand the meaning of such a sentence totally out > > of context, or that the words only have one "real" meaning, would be > > pointless. > > > > So how, given this complex landscape of language, could we assign a > > truth value to the statement? We basically can't. At least at not > > without making a huge set of assumptions about the sender and the > > receiver and the entire context that caused the words to be produced. > > And even if we make all these assumptions, the odds that our > > understanding being very accurate, is poor at best. > > > > The only way to get a truth value from a sentence, is to make up > > ARBITRARY rules of truth that roughly fits the default or standard > > meaning of the words. Not the real meaning when used, but the sort of > > meaning which gets taught in class when attempting to teach a language > > or the sort of meaning found in a dictionary. And only when that > > meaning is extremely simple and generally clear, does it work at all - > > such as when we say "John has two peaches". > > > > When then use logic to verify that "John has two peaches" -> "John has > > some fruit". > > Right. > > > But we had to make many assumptions about the meaning, that often > > can't be made in real language use. > > Right. Logic cannot be applied without the meaning of the sentences, > at least in part, being arrived at beforehand, somehow or other. > > As I mentioned before, logic presupposes meanings, truth, falsehood, > are somehow already present, at least in principle. > > > Only in an highly artificial > > interpretation of language (one that can never be used in the real > > world by real people unless they want to be considered idiots) can such > > logic be evaluated. And only in that highly artificial interpretation > > of meaning, does the truth of X -> Y imply Y includes X become even > > close to valid. > > > > Ok, so writing the above has allowed me to think about this some more. > > Let me now respond again to what you wrote above: > > > > > Nevertheless, the net effect is as I have described above: some > > > (or all) of the meaning of X is preserved in the meaning of Y, > > > with nothing being added -- regardless of what interpretation > > > (meaning) we may subsequently assign to the abstract logical > > > forms of X and of Y. > > > > Well, the meaning is not "preserved" as much as it was arbitrary > > _assigned_. > > > > That is, for someone to declare that X -> Y, they first has to > > arbitrary assign a meaning, and in stating X -> Y, they are not talking > > about meaning the words might have had when spoken, but simply making a > > statement about what sort of meaning they choose to assign the words. > > So what it tells us, is not so much about some real meaning of the > > sentence, but instead, the highly artificial meaning assigned for the > > purpose of attribution truth to the statements int he first place, all > > in the context of discussing the truth values of natural language > > statements. > > In the context of discussing logic, no doubt it is just convenient and > customary to assume that the meaning of a statement has been fixed > already, and bears some relation to its logico-grammatical structure. Right. And to some extent, when we make comments about the logic of the language, we are creating a context to help define/communicate just what that fixed meaning of the words are. So, if I write, "Bob is a bachelor, all bachelors are men, so Bob is a man", and I assert this creates a logically true statement, it creates a context to allow us to make an educated guess about the meaning of those words. We can rule out that "bachelor" is a reference to Bob's education because we know all people with a bachelor's degree are not men so the words and the logic don't make sense in that context. The other meaning of the word as "unmarried man" does fit the logic, oo when we state something about the logic of the words, are are creating a context to help people understand the intended meaning. > This part your post has been mostly devoted to an interesting > discussion of how meaning, and hence truth-value, is assigned to > sentences in the first place, which is more properly the topic > of this thread. > > As I mentioned previously, the broader question of this thread, of how > truth or falsity is assigned to sentences in the first place, is not my > concern here. Yes, you did clearly start with that. I'm not so sure however we can take that stance without ignoring important factors because what we say about the logic of the sentence has as much to do with arriving at the meaning, and hence the truth, as does other forms of context we create. > I wasn't really following the thread at all until I saw Wolf K's > post, which I read because I generally find his posts illuminating. Yes, they often are. > I seized upon Wolf K's invocation of "logical truth" to ride my > favorite hobby-horse about the nature of logical implication; Wolf > has since dropped out of the conversation, no doubt concluding > that I am irrepairably confused -- story of my life, but I digress. :) No, that's my role here! > [...] > > > I guess I think meaning has little to do with logic. The only way we > > can work with logic, (or math in general), is to define highly simple, > > and highly artificial meaning to our words, and once we have done that, > > and agreed to what we that assignment is, we can then have a worthwhile > > discussion about the logic of the statements. > > Right, and this is utterly commonplace, especially in the construction > of foundations of mathematics, a project that has strongly informed > logic since Frege, at least. > > > And such understanding of logic, has little use in natural language, > > except, when we are speaking a highly simplified, and highly artificial > > form of language (which we do at times when we need to communicate > > something that is highly structured and artificial - like math, and > > science, and engineering, etc). > > I agree that logic is a feeble instrument when applied to most > natural language transactions. One need merely try to apply > formal logic to today's editorial in the Daily Rag to see > how little logic figures in ordinary discussions. I don't > mean that in a derisory way -- logic just doesn't apply > much in a typical editorial -- editorials, and most natural > language conversations, are not meant to be proofs. > > > Outside of these highly artificial and structured usage of lagniappe, > > logic just doesn't have much of anything to do with meaning. > > Ack! I disagree! That's just what I've *not* been saying! > > What, then, does logic have to do with? Well, in that sentence, I was just trying to communicate basically the same point you made in the paragraph above. But looking at it again, I would say that the logic of the statement is one very small part of the total meaning. Such as my example above about the bachelor. By declaring the logical implication of the statement, the reader has gotten a small (but very important) clue about what the intended meaning of the entire sentence is. The meaning of "Bob is an unmarried male", is a very different from "Bob is a person who might be male or female with a Bachelor's degree" but yet the simple logic we defined allows us to quickly pick which of these two meanings is most likely the intended meaning. Natural language meaning (all meaning, even non-language) is best understood in my view as a huge set of probabilistic associations between micro concepts which is implemented in the brain with a neural network with billions of associated interconnection weights. The "micro concepts" I'm talking about are the smallest level of representation implemented in the brain - maybe something as simple as a single neuron firing - like a pixel on a computer screen are the "micro concepts" that make up the full image. But where as a computer screen might have a million or so pixels to make up the full image of the screen, the brain might activate some combination of 100 million neurons to represent the perceived meaning of some small sentence. The total amount of information in the meaning of a small natural language sentence for a single human brain might be a terabyte of data about the associations and their activation levels the sentence triggers. Whatever the number, it's certainly very large. The logic alone, in my example sentence represents some very small amount of information - maybe 5 bits of data about meaning? Only a few bits no matter how you count it compared to the billions of bits of total meaning we extract when we read it. So the logic is part of the meaning, but a trivially small part of the meaning in terms of total information content. But it does create a context that the can have large effect on how the meaning is selected. -- Curt Welch http://CurtWelch.Com/ curt(a)kcwc.com http://NewsReader.Com/
From: casey on 25 Jul 2010 18:46
On Jul 25, 12:38 pm, herbzet <herb...(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > I wasn't really following the thread at all until I saw Wolf K's > post, which I read because I generally find his posts illuminating. Well he doesn't seem to suffer from verbal diarrhea, a condition suffered by some the other posters. JC |