From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.ecf!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!wupost!emory!gwinnett!depsych!rc Wed Feb  5 11:56:01 EST 1992
Article 3377 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: <VaeHFB2w164w@depsych.Gwinnett.COM>
Date: 1 Feb 92 19:50:30 GMT
References: <1992Jan31.003524.8293@husc3.harvard.edu>
Lines: 82

zeleny@zariski.harvard.edu (Mikhail Zeleny) writes:

> In article <DeJBFB4w164w@depsych.Gwinnett.COM> 
> rc@depsych.Gwinnett.COM (Richard Carlson) writes:
> 
> >silber@rug.Eng.Sun.COM (Eric Silber) writes:
> 
> ES:
> >> In DENOTATION, as I understand the royal decrees,
> >> A is linked to B, formally under the influence of an exterior causal-relat
> >> wheresas in CONNOTATION the linking function is , itself, expressing meani
> >> The insurmountable problem of infinite recursion when traversing intension
> >> links has been propounded by H.R.H.  Why cannot this problem be dispensed 
> >> 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.
> 
> RC:
> >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.
> 
> This observation has absolutely nothing to do with the question of
> representational function of a sign.  To begin with, it matters not at all
> whether meaning is taken to be a state, a thing, or a process, -- if your
> theory quantifies over meanings, as any theory of representation must do,
> they belong to its ontology, i.e. are bona fide objects.

I don't really understand this.  But I think I begin to see what
your objection is and I think you are being too abstract.  You're
seeing these "links" in too "logical" a light.  And you're not
thinking of what the links are in terms of content, which is the
really useable thing.

> If the semantic
> hierarchy is taken to contain loops, then some objects must refer in virtue
> of themselves, which is prima facie absurd; however I am willing to listen
> to any materialist explanation of such alleged phenomena.

Are you thinking about a chain (or links) of signifieds (or
connotations) of equal complexity?   That's what it sounds like
when you describe them looping back.  OK.  You look up a word in a
dictionary, say, "imbibe."  You find it means "drink," another
signified.  You look that up and find that it means "imbibe." or
"swallow."  I think this was the kind of looping back or
circularity you thought I meant.  But what I meant was the semes
(or semantemes or semantic elements) being referenced more than
once by a compound signifier.  I suspect that "drink" is itself a
seme and can't be further broken down.  Any further analysis would
be "artificial" so that if we were trying to write a Prolog
program that involved drinking and we "analysed" drink into
something like (ingest + liquid) it would be logical enough but
since drinking is a basic biological activity the meaning of
"drink" is probably stored in the brain as a readiness to drink,
possibly even with the kind of incipient muscle and glandular
movements which the behaviorists assumed would be present.

> As for "petering
> out", or time-limitations, they are ruled out by the direction of
> ontological dependence: without an expressed meaning or a causal link,
> there can be no reference, period.

In the sentence, "He would drink in the glory of the fabulous
tropical morning," the word drink is used in a metaphorical enough
sense that it has a chain of signifiers between it and the "drink"
of our prehistoric ancestors scooping handfuls of water into their
mouths at some crowded and dangerous waterhole.

Perhaps the seme for "drink" has to be partially occluded to
abstract out the sense of "absorb" or "actively allow" along with
the seme for "appreciate" or "enjoy."  In that sense the meaning
of an utterance is always in reciprocal relation with the meanings
of specific terms in the utterance.

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


