The point is that radioactive is talked about as a property of Carbon-14, yet, as your definition demonstrates, it does not directly refer to anything about the atom which is currently the case. It refers to a property of the atom which is the case only once every 5,700 years. That is, its emission of a particle of beta radiation. — Isaac

Tell me what this has to do with meaning, and if I think you've made a good case for that, we'll talk about it in this rather than in another thread.

I'm neither saying that patterns of sound waves do not occur in the sounds themselves nor that the meaning of blue (you say "but none of this means anything") occurs in the cup.

Meaning is something different than other phenomena. Meaning isn't identical to color phenomena. It's also not identical to soundwave phenomena. And soundwave phenomena are not identical to color phenomena.

Intuitions are representations, not appearances — Mww

In Kant, what is the distinction there with respect to sensible intuitions?

But we don't talk about the instability of the configuration of protons and neutrons. We talk about the emission of beta radiation. We don't say that a property of Carbon-14 is that its neutrons are arranged in such-and-such a way, we say that it is radioactive, meaning, quite clearly, that it emits (in this case) beta radiation. — Isaac

A common definition of "radioactive" is "emitting or relating to the emission of ionizing radiation or particles," but in any event, that issue had nothing to do with meaning.

Assuming a material, causal universe it makes sense to treat the past as a material property, since all past states are embodied in the current state. However, that is a property of the universe in it's entirety. The current state of the universe includes it's past state, including the brain states of writers, but it does so only by virtue of including, by definition, every effect of every event. — Echarmion

That probably doesn't amount to something different than what I'd say, but I'd avoid phrasing it as "the past being embodied" etc. What's embodied is evidence of past states (which just amounts to present properties which are the effects of and from which we can deduce past states), but not literally the past itself.

In any event, the more important point is that "culture A used x to refer to y" doesn't make x refer to y outside of that particular historical context. But S would say that x refers to y (historical) context-independently.

Also, I wouldn't call the above meaning.

Tell me, what is the greatest strength of the human mind? Is it the ability to convey complex ideas? Perhaps the ability to formulate those ideas in the first place? Maybe it's the effect our will has on the world we inhabit? I would argue all of the above. — TogetherTurtle

I think I'd add understanding the difference between singular and plural grammatically.

I believe Kant's arguments for noumena were purely logical, or formal, not causal. Something along the lines that 'if there are appearances then logically there must be something which appears'. — Janus

It would be, "If there are appearances then there must be something creating or causing the appearances"

Re his formal comment, he's talking about, for example, the spatiotemporal form of the appearances in question.

Why "sufficiently complex" here? How is the meaning of a word being held in an AI any different from the colour blue? — Isaac

"Sufficiently complex" because quarks, hydrogen atoms, etc. don't appear to have minds. It appears to require more complexity than that. So there is going to be some minimum level of complexity required for mental properties, although complexity wouldn't be the only requirement.

Re the second question there, it doesn't make any sense to me. No meaning is the same as a color.

Re the color property question, I'd rather save that for a different discussion, as it has nothing to do with meaning in my view. (I don't want to sidetrack to a big tangent that has nothing to do with what I've (or for that matter what S has) been talking about in this thread . . . I also don't want to do multiple topics per post, really--and we already have two topics above this paragraph)

When I use "people" or "person" I'm actually thinking "creature, or just simply entity, with a mind." So not necessarily a human. Not necessarily something on Earth, etc.

I also don't like always equating mentality with brains for a similar reason--it might be possible for minds to be instantiated via other sorts of material, in other creatures, for example--maybe extraterrestrial, with very different sorts of anatomy, or in sufficiently complex computers or whatever, but that's too much to explain all the time.

Racist words, epithets, etc. hurt people's feelings. It's wrong to hurt people's feelings. — NKBJ

I don't at all agree with this. And in my opinion, the person whose feelings are hurt is the person who needs to work on themselves more.

I was talking about is what having an idea constitutes itself, — TheWillowOfDarkness

Phrases like "what having an idea constitutes itself" do not make any grammatical sense to me. So I don't know what to do with that.

Aside from that, we can just discuss whatever you'd like to discuss and forget about the earlier stuff, but try to write less "continentally" if you can or I'm just going to be stumped at most of it (in which case I won't be able to discuss much).

No, your problem is that you don't argue in good faith. You still haven't directly answered the questions I asked. — Janus

You're asking me if the interpretations are more or less correct. I said, "No, they're not more or less correct."

Are you saying that you're asking me:

(a) are they more correct?

or

(b) are they less correct?

Where I'm only allowed to choose (a) or (b)?

If so, my response is that "correct" is a category error here.

Is arguing in "good faith" only saying things that you think I should say/that you're comfortable with, even if you don't agree with it? If I believe that "correct/incorrect" is a category error here, what am I supposed to answer? Am I supposed to give an answer that I don't at all agree with, just because that's the answer you'll be comfortable with?

I'm talking about the presence of a describing idea itself. — TheWillowOfDarkness

And you have to be kidding with crap like that. The whole post really. I can pick it apart, but what good is that going to do us? You're still going to keep writing like that.

Meaning is not independent of its idea. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Yeah, just ignore all of that stuff that I wrote in the last post addressed to you.

lol--so it's my problem "not being able to read" when it was a typo.

You haven't directly answered the question. I want you to say that both of the examples of interpretation of the sentience are equally valid or correct, if that is what you believe — Janus

But that's not my view. Validity is a very specific logical idea. Interpretations have nothing to do with that.

And if they're not more or less correct then they're not "equally correct." They NOT more or less correct. "Correct/incorrect" is a category error here.

Learn to read: I said not merely 'interpret' but 'interpret even more or less correctly' — Janus

You put ("even more or less correctly") in parantheses.

You mean not being able to correctly interpret what someone said? — Janus

Nope. Humorously, you don't know what I'm saying. Maybe we could have 50 more posts about it.

You understand the meaning of our descriptions to be nothing more than our fictions which have nothing to do with describing independently existing things-- i.e. a reification which only serves our one idea, rather than talking about a fact or feature of the independent world, — TheWillowOfDarkness

The phrase you used was "abstraction to an idea amounts to reification." Abstraction to an idea is an idea, right? It would be the process of abstraction (leading) to an idea.

What you just described above is not "abstraction to an idea amounts to reification"

So, neither of those example interpretations of the sentence I gave is more or less correct then? — Janus

How many different ways do I have to answer that? It's not like I haven't been straightforward about my answer. For the third or fourth time now, no, there are no more or less correct interpretations.

That would mean that neither of us can interpret (even more or less correctly) what the other is saying, — Janus

What?? I didn't say that people can't or don't interpret. I said that different interpretations are not more or less correct.

The notion meaning is "just a story"in our heads is something you have repeated in many arguments. — TheWillowOfDarkness

And what does that have to do with "When you take a position that abstraction to an idea (i.e. you have an idea about something) amounts to reification"?

When you take a position that abstraction to an idea (i.e. you have an idea about something) amounts to reification. — TheWillowOfDarkness

C'mon, man. I didn't say anything at all resembling that.

The "intentional fallacy" is the idea that a work perfectly mirrors the author's intentions; — Janus

"Wimsatt and Monroe Beardsley argue in their essay 'The Intentional Fallacy' that 'the design or intention of the author is neither available nor desirable as a standard for judging the success of a work of literary art'."

You didn't answer the question above about the two interpretations of the example sentence. Do you want to claim that both interpretations are equally valid? — Janus

Validity is a logical concept that has nothing to do with this.

There are no more or less correct interpretations. There are just different interpretations.

The author's intent isn't more correct.

Of course there may not be any such thing as an absolutely correct interpretation; would you also say that there are no more or less correct interpretations? — Janus

Yes, I'd say that there are no "more or less correct" interpretations.

It's not "correct" to match what the author says. I agree with the viewpoint known as the "intentional fallacy":

https://www.britannica.com/art/intentional-fallacy

So the meaning of the text, the correct interpretation, is "what the author had in mind"? Are you saying that texts cannot convey what their authors had in mind? — Janus

I said already that in my view there is no such thing as a correct interpretation.

Texts themselves do not have meaning. We assign meanings to things. Meanings can't be made something nonmental.

Authors can give us explanatory utterances, but can't literally express meaning. The explanatory utterances are just further sets of sounds or marks that individuals have to assign meaning to. We figure that we understand something when we can do that in a consistent, coherent, way with respect to events (texts,behavior, etc,) in a particular context (for example, from that author).

How can there be "consistency, coherence, etc." between texts if they are inherently meaningless — Janus

With respect to the interpretations.

For example:

I have one text: &@% that I interpret to read "Dogs are pets."

I discover a second text: !@(# that I interpret to read "The moon is not cheese."

Then I discover a third text: &@(% that my previous interpretations suggest would be "Dogs are not pets"

Especially if I have a reason to believe that the texts were written by the same person, that they were trying to describe generalities, etc., I might assume that my interpretations are inconsistent and that I haven't actually cracked the code. On the other hand, if my interpretations are consistent, coherent, etc., I might conclude that I cracked the code. My conclusions in both cases might not at all resemble what the author had in mind.

That's implied by your position. If my ideas and concepts have nothing to do with any thing in the external world, how can any of the states of the world be reflected in my ideas? — TheWillowOfDarkness

What's implied by my position? I have no context re what you're responding to. Where did I say anything at all like "your ideas and concepts have nothing to do with anything in the external world?"

What does "... as if it's not just an idea" mean here? What do thunk we might actually do with potentiality if we talk about it as existing which would cause us a problem which could be avoided by not treating it that way? — Isaac

You might claim things that aren't true. If you don't care about that, then <shrug>

You're saying we shouldn't consider abstract exist because abstracts don't exist. — Isaac

Reification is taking something that is just an idea and projecting it into the external world as if it's not just an idea. The reason you shouldn't do that would be because you don't want to make logical mistakes, you don't want to say things that aren't true, etc. (And this isn't an argument per se. Just an explanation.)

Re the radioactivity question, you're proposing that radioactivity is just an idea? wtf?

But that's begging the question. It's only ontological nonsense if we don't reify it. You still haven't answered why you think we shouldn't. — Isaac

??? Potentials don't exist. The idea of them amounts to what I explained about possibilities. If that doesn't count as an explanation to you, you need to give your criteria for explanations in general.

"potentials only exist...", and in the second "potentials do not actually exist..." — Isaac

The first part says "in the sense of . . ." --hence, they don't actually exist. We can't reify them. It's another way of saying that something isn't impossible (and we're usually referring to a limited subset of the not impossibles).

It's important not to posit ontological nonsense. Hence why we shouldn't reify them.

can you demonstrate here that the expression of racism is a category error? — Anaxagoras

Again, I'm not saying that the expression of racism is a category error. I said that it's a category error to classify beliefs and expressions as subject to moral/ethical evaluations.

No, but neither does the hammer. All use is contingent on a user. If you prefer we could refer to the hammer's potential use. It's still a property of the hammer (that it is potentially used to drive nails) and we still derive what that use is from its history (even if only a minute ago), not its current state. — Isaac

If use doesn't obtain absent people, then use is NOT a property of the hammer, at least not alone. (Remember that above, when you asked me about this, I said: "No, that wouldn't just be a property of the hammer. It would be a property of the hammer, the nails, the air between the hammer and the nails, the person or machine swinging the hammer, etc.")

Re potentials, they only exist in my view in the sense of something not being impossible (and "potential" is usually used to denote a subset of not impossible things) . . .which means that potentials do not actually exist per se, and it's important to not reify potentials.

As something moral/ethical. Because morals/ethics aren't about people merely having beliefs or expressing things. They're about performing actions on each other, directly or indirectly, actions that "do something" to someone else (as in "physically" or practically affecting them) or their situation.

Yes, I'm not sure what you want me to take from that. I'm saying, in the above, that the ink-mark pattern (a word) has a use (to pick out a dog in a sentence). That use is its meaning. It 'means' what it is successfully used for. — Isaac

So, for one, the ink marks do not have a use in the absence of people, do they?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category_mistake

Because in my view no beliefs or expressions of beliefs, preferences, etc. are unethical. I see that as a category error.

Subjective: that upon which reason acts.
Objective: that upon which reason reacts. — Mww

I don't know what the act/react distinction would be in the context of reason doing x to y.

So when you analyze it, you realize that hammers and wet noodles and nails and so on have different tensile/rigidity properties, different extensions/shapes, and so on, and that what we're doing when we say something about utility is making an assessment of those properties (a) relative to each other and (b) relative to our desires/preferences with respect to accomplishing certain things.

So utility is a property, but what it's primarily a property of is our minds (our brains functioning in particular ways) making an assessment.

But the counter point will be.....no sense can be made out of something exists but has no utility. Which may be true, but that doesn’t make it a property. Properties are necessary; utility is contingent on properties. — Mww

Hence why we need to analyze what we're really claiming/what's really going on ontologically. "X has utility"--are we saying that x, some object, like a hammer, literally has properties that are identical to what we're calling utility? If not, then what exactly is utility ontologically? I can give you my analysis of it, but it's worth thinking about this.