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Article 3282 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: rc@depsych.Gwinnett.COM (Richard Carlson)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: les decrets du roi de soleil
Message-ID: <DeJBFB4w164w@depsych.Gwinnett.COM>
Date: 29 Jan 92 15:55:00 GMT
References: <koboi4INNa3n@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM>
Lines: 36

silber@rug.Eng.Sun.COM (Eric Silber) writes:

> In DENOTATION, as I understand the royal decrees,
> A is linked to B, formally under the influence of an exterior causal-relation
> wheresas in CONNOTATION the linking function is , itself, expressing meaning.
> The insurmountable problem of infinite recursion when traversing intensional
> links has been propounded by H.R.H.  Why cannot this problem be dispensed wit
> by appeal to a concept of "delayed computation" within which meanings may
> be embedded in potentially infinite recursions, which in practice, the
> cogitator is never called upon to carry to a conclusion?   
> The computation always stops at a sufficient intermediate result.

I see three possibilities if meaning really is contained in such a
process (which it almost certainly is): 1) the chains of
connotational links loop back on themselves, 2) they peter out in
small and insignificant end branches, like capillaries, 3) they
are time-limited as you suggest.

There are empirical studies that could gather evidence for these
suspected mechanisms.  Have you ever had the experience of seeing
"more" meaning in a passage, say a poem or a text -- not a
_different_ "reading" in which you see the author saying something
other than what he seemed at first to be saying, but just _more_
meaning. That might arise when one takes or allows the time for
the linking process to continue further than it normally would in
the day-to-day communications we employ for practical purposes.
But then the process seems to come to an end and to dissolve into
meaninglessness.  (Carl Sandburg's poetry dissolves into
meaninglessness much faster than Shakespeare's.  Does that mean
that there was more meaning "in" Shakespeare's poetic text?)

--
Richard Carlson        |    rc@depsych.gwinnett.COM
Midtown Medical Center |    {rutgers,ogicse,gatech}!emory!gwinnett!depsych!rc
Atlanta, Georgia       |
(404) 881-6877         |


