Are words more than their symbols?
I recently discovered that others can think in words. Some have even admitted to hearing an inner monologue, not so much as an audio hallucination, but as a fundamental component of their thinking. Having been unable to find these words or hear these voices myself I naturally began to envy their powers and the company they keep.
For my own tastes, Ive always been of the mind that a word is a one-to-one ratio with its word form, and a voice echoes outside the face rather than within it. Ive observed enough brains to conclude neither words nor speakers exist in them, or anywhere else in the biology. But Saussures signs begins to haunt me. And since others have told me they think in words and with the aid of some little speaker I wonder if my metaphysics and biology is way off.
The basic question is this: are words more than their symbols?
But Id also like to read some opinions and anecdotes regarding the acts of thinking in words and inner-monologues.
For my own tastes, Ive always been of the mind that a word is a one-to-one ratio with its word form, and a voice echoes outside the face rather than within it. Ive observed enough brains to conclude neither words nor speakers exist in them, or anywhere else in the biology. But Saussures signs begins to haunt me. And since others have told me they think in words and with the aid of some little speaker I wonder if my metaphysics and biology is way off.
The basic question is this: are words more than their symbols?
But Id also like to read some opinions and anecdotes regarding the acts of thinking in words and inner-monologues.
Comments (134)
I mean, don't you find your brain rehearsing the kinds of shivering by which it might recognise and respond effectively to other speakers' likely comments about views you hold? Shivers that tend to proceed with time-intensity envelopes fairly analogous to word-sounds?
So, I mean, monologues aside, don't you even have quote internal dialogues unquote? (Not actual ones, agreed. Probably.)
Before the meaning of hieroglyphs was deciphered, hieroglyphs were to us word-forms devoid of known meaning and, therefore, could not be used by us to convey meaning. But we presumed them to be words all the same on account of their seeming to hold some sort of grammar. Hence, before their decipherment, they were not words to us - but merely word-forms, this, again, on the presumption that they had been words to ancient Egyptians.
Words in any language we (or anyone else, such as the ancient Egyptians) make use of convey meaning - otherwise theyd be visual, sonic, or tactile gibberish, and not words.
I thereby conclude: words = word-forms + associated meanings(s). Making words more than mere word-forms.
My problem is that if the word-forms conveyed meaning, wed know what they meant by reading them. It is precisely because they do not convey meaning that we do not understand them, not unless some Rosetta Stone or human being is able to supply them with meaning. The drift of meaning over time suggests much the same.
Yeah, Im sure I do. I get subtle movements, which could be described as shivers as you say. Is this what they mean by thinking in words or an inner monologue, where neither the act of speaking nor any actual words are involved?
There is nothing occurring that I could call a voice.
I'm not yet understanding how this conflicts with words being more than their word-forms. For example via analogy, red is just a color. But cultures will associate certain psychological states of being to the color red: passion (be it love or anger) in most of the West and, for example, luck and happiness in China, or else peace and/or justice in Japan. It's via these associations that the color red can then symbolize particular psychological states of being - this, for example, in paintings or on actor's faces or clothes. Same I find holds for word-forms: they're meaningless until a group of people associate the word-form to a meaning (or to a set of such).
Apropos, by "word-form" I so far understand the strictly perceptual aspect of words, be this via sound, or via sight, or via touch. Am I mistaking what you mean by the term?
No, youre right, and we agree on most. Word-forms are meaningless until people associate them with meaning. But this, to me, means that people are meaningful, not the word-forms. People convey the meaning, and stand ready to supply it should they come across word-forms they understand.
That difference may be slight, but I think it has large implications for how we think about language. As objects or soundwaves or whatever, the symbols are completely innocent, and need not be feared nor revered. They need not be defaced or censored or glorified.
There's no reason to assume that consciousness is the same for each of us - and a growing body of evidence that it isn't.
Meaning is constructed across minds, between and external to them as much as within them.
Quoting NOS4A2
It's very unclear what "word-form" is.
"Word" can have a couple of meanings. It can be actual sounds or marks, or it can be an abstract object expressed by these physical events.
We know the two are logically distinct because a variety of utterances (the sounds or marks) can all express the same word.
My perspective is that the concept of a word is part of an analysis of communication. We dismantle it and put the pieces out on a table. Don't worry over abstractness. It's a result of this analysis.
A cool fact about words: in Vietnamese, the word expressed by a sequence of sounds is selected by the melody of the utterance. So you can say "mah" one way and it means ghost. Say it another way and it means iron. Or something like that.
Do you mean there are people who don't?
We talked about this on a different thread. Only some people have it.
I'm not sure what this means. Where is this meaning across, between, and external to minds?
Yes, I guess that's confusing. I didn't know it had a technical usage. What I mean is the form of the word, like the sound or scribble it takes. Maybe a sign?
They don't. Words do.
Quoting NOS4A2
We do not read word-forms. We read words, and not always all the words, and we can still understand what is said.
This has been demonstrated by the ability to reading words even when the form is jumbled: For example and typoglycemia
Quoting NOS4A2
Those who know a language can convey meaning through the words they use, but that meaning cannot be conveyed to someone who does not know the language.
Quoting NOS4A2
The symbols may be innocent but the words are not. Words are not simply a combination of letters or sounds. They are a way of saying things. Some things that some people say should be feared. One reason is not simply because others may revere and glorify them, but because they believe them and may act on them. They can be inspired by words and lied to and deceived by words.
Use.
I cannot believe words transport meaning from A to B because I have not been able to witness this occur. No one has. No one has looked at a symbol and seen anything called meaning.
But they are simply a combination of words and sounds for the reasons I mentioned. They are passive. They cannot do anything more than be there. They cannot act upon a person anymore than any other scratch on paper or articulated guttural sound. Unless a sign falls on someones head, not a single person can be affected by a word. Its wrong to treat them as powerful or transporters of nefarious goods because it lays blame at the wrong feet, and it makes weak everyone who might come across them.
The meaning must be acquired before we start using words or else we have nothing to associate them with. Meaning is prior to use.
Are words more than their word-form? Yes, they are also what we do with them.
Yes, and everyone reverts back to metaphor. Meaning is across, between, and external to minds, but as soon as I look it isnt. Now its what we do with them, but what you do with them is type them out.
Well, yes. When a written mark (word) enters in a specific con-text, such as the story of a book, where it is related to other written marks (other words), it stops being simply an isolated mark and becomes the story (just like an individual enters in relation with others individuals and become society, the individual becomes [I]something more[/I] than individual: a citizen). The whole is the story, and the signifiers (the parts) are retroactively affected by the story. A sign always, in a certain sense, "stands in place of something else"; It can be said that it refers us to something absent. And it becomes absent when it enters into relation with another sign that affects. For example, a descriptive language is in place of what it attempts to represent; and in this case what is represented seems to unfold, extend its essence beyond what it actually is. In this sense, a sign is not only a sign in itself, but a thing virtualizing itself and becoming another, surviving in the other, like a sign becomes a story in its relation with other signs.
I agree.
And so long as you don't consider what we do in writing them out, you cannot progress.
I supose it is your extreme individualism that prevents you seeing how words build the social world, one of promises and contracts and obligations and derision.
There are people who don't use language to think by themselves?
If that does happen, how can personal testimony work as a reliable report of such a lack of experience?
When somebody says: "This does not happen to me", where is the contact point between the diverging experiences? There has to be enough shared experience to point at a breaking point of difference if such a proposition does anything.
It's what they mean by "sub-vocalisation", at least.
Quoting NOS4A2
Why not, if it resembles speech in respect of its graph of intensity against time?
Quoting frank
I think they are either confused by the unwarranted emphasis on sub-monologue to the exclusion of sub-dialogue (far more typical I expect) or they are reacting consciously or otherwise against the unwarranted inference to actual internal speech.
I think there's a spectrum. NOS seems to be so far on the side of not thinking in words that he doesn't quite understand what's going on with people who have it. He's mystified.
I'm more in the middle of the spectrum because I can do it at will, but at baseline, there's no internal voice. I experience things, but those experiences can't be fully captured by words. It's like words are a net and some of my experience falls through the holes. My memory of it is in feelings. A metaphor I use is the feelings are like music. There are base notes, treble, harmonies, and recurring themes. But it's not music. It's emotional tones.
I've known people who have an internal voice constantly, from the time they wake up till they go to sleep. I couldn't grasp that when I first discovered some people like that. I thought I would shoot myself if I had an internal voice all the time.
Everybody seems to think we're all the same. It's really hard to grasp that we aren't.
Touche.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/oct/25/the-last-great-mystery-of-the-mind-meet-the-people-who-have-unusual-or-non-existent-inner-voices
I'm towards the nonexistent inner voice side of things myself. Though I can relate to experiencing an inner voice to some extent, it's not an aspect of my normal experience, let alone something that seems necessary for thought in my experience.
I don't look at 'internal discourse' as an excess of an activity.
Talking too much limits perception. That is a condition we can observe. Personal conditions are both too close and too far.
But do these limitations tell us anything about thinking through language?
:100:
I found this bit of the article I linked particularly interesting:
By my appraisal, we so far seem to agree in full. If you care to further this:
As with ideas universal to a populace - such as that of a circle - words (by which I mean word-forms + their associated meaning) embedded within a particular language exist independently of individual minds, although being simultaneously dependent on all minds which hold understanding for the given word(s). They are not intra-subjective realities/actualities - such that they perish together with the individual mind that apprehends them (as would personal memories of, for example, some sentiment experienced during a certain time in childhood). They are instead fully intersubjective, pertaining to all within a certain populace while not being dependent on the individual mind of any within said populace.
So, any particular word is such due to the meaning all people in a community deem it to have - a meaning which children learn to assimilate into their own mind/being via trial and error. But the word will continue to persist unaltered with the passing away of any one individual mind within the populous which speaks the particular language in which the word is understood. Given enough time wherein babes assimilate the words of their born-to language and in which mature minds of the language community pass way, the words will themselves often enough change - in both word-form and in meaning. This can be exemplified by the reading of Beowulf in its original form (preferably, maybe, with an adjacent modern English translation).
Hence, like the reality of a circle as idea, words will all be mind-dependent but not dependent on individual minds. Unlike the idea of a circle, however, given enough time, words can change - again in both word-form and meaning - with the passing of generations; whereas the idea of a circle gives all indications of being unchangeable regardless of time-span and number of generations.
Summarizing this via different terminology, each word will then present itself as a far more plastic (or else dynamic) and as a far less ubiquitous universal than the universal of, for example, the idea of a circle, the latter giving all indication of being perfectly static across time as well as perfectly ubiquitous to all beings across the cosmos which are able to engage in sufficient abstractions. Notwithstanding, each word would thereby yet be a type of universal strictly relative to the language speakers concerned: dependent on all of their/our minds while being dependent on no one particular mind in question.
Then, going back to ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, once we deciphered them via the Rosetta Stone, we then grasped the words - else expressed, the language-specific universals of that culture - which hieroglyphs as word-forms likely conveyed by comparing, assimilating, and translating them with the language-specific universals of our own language(s) - which we convey via our modern word-forms.
Hey, throwing this out there for debate and critique, what else.
I don't either. I just don't have it all the time. It's not a judgement, it's just the way my consciousness is. I wasn't aware of it until I met someone who had an internal voice all the time. It's through contrast that things come into awareness.
You repeatedly witness what you deny you witness. When you profess not to believe that words transport meaning you mean something by that and hope to convey that meaning. When you are told you are wrong you get the message and respond with words. But not randomly with just any words. You cannot make arguments you hope will convince others if any mark or sound is just as effective or ineffective as any other.
You attempt to persuade others that:
Quoting NOS4A2
and by saying so you hope to do the very thing you deny can be done.
How would you characterize what happens in your head when you think? Like whenn trying to solve a problen?
Since people are different, Im here speaking only for myself. Ive been this way (without an inner voice) in periods of my adult life. One appraises, judges, compares, and decides upon (etc.) concepts with an active cognizance of what the concept(s) at issue arethis in manners fully devoid of what maybe could be expressed as the phenomenal aspects of words, aka word-formsi.e., devoid of the imaginary sounds that are not apprehended via physiological sensesbut strictly consisting of meanings, or else the content of concepts (rather than their labels).
To emphasize, not to in any way equate any human to lesser animals, but lesser animals do not hold any language (in the sense of grammatically ordered words) and can yet arrive at Eureka moments of great ingenuity after being presented with puzzles. Needless to add, all of this thinking/cogitating about and discovering of solutions for them always occurs sans language and, hence, sans any internal voice. Included is one video to this effect after a quick scan on youtube (great apes can also do some astounding things requiring puzzle solving and hence abstract thought, thought which is again languageless).
All humans have far greater abilities of abstraction that any lesser animal. So to me its in no way bizarre that some humans can engage in very complex, abstract thought without in any way making use of an internal voice. From this vantage, the internal voice of thought could be viewed as a type of cognitive crutch that assists in going from one state of mind to anothersuch that the crutch is not necessary, at least not in principle. In many ways akin to discerning quantities without counting via use of words.
Dont want to be overly vulgar in this, but think of the act of sex; some have a hard time with it unless they talk throughout; others might deem the sensual intensity of the experience to be unpleasantly diminished via constant verbalizations of the emotions and thoughts experienced (or were their inner voice to be active during the activity). Same rough parallel, I think, could be made to the variety of ways in which people think.
Would you say these are like specific experiences? With phenomena? Its strange because I don't think I can express meanings without words so it is not clear to me what active cognizance of wordless meaning could be like in the moment.
Well, they're most definitely experienced. "Phenomena" technically translates into appearances perceivable through the physiological senses. In this sense, then, they are devoid of phenomena. Also, the meanings are not expressed to oneself but, instead, directly dealt with.
A different way of expressing it, this via words of course, is that it deals with appraising, manipulating, and deciding upon understandings.
I imagine that most can discern two dots on a blank page without needing to count them. Here, then, one understands the quantity involved without the need to use words. Then, were there to be two circles, one with two dots and one with three dots, a person could discern that the circle with three dots contains a greater quantity of dots simply via the faculty of understanding. This without a need to use words in the thought process. One can of course use words to count the dots ("one", "two", "three") but this in a sense slows down the process of discerning - as I was previously saying, being a kind of cognitive crutch in the process of thought.
Differently exemplified, the word "animal" evokes a fairly complex abstraction which is understood. Mammals, insects, lizards, fish, birds, these are all types of animals, while trees, and mushrooms, and rocks are not. The understanding of what "animal" conveys is grasped without the use of words by adults - else a thorough verbal listing of all concrete types of this abstraction would be required in addition to a verbalized categorization of what concrete types fit into what subcategories (cat is a type of feline which is a type of mammal which is a type of animal). As with discerning and contrasting quantities, a person could then discern the meaning/abstraction/understanding of what via words is expressed as "animal" - as well as the various types this category contains - without the use of words. So doing being wordless thoughts. As with counting by use of words being a kind of crutch in discerning quantities, so too can be said of using one's inner voice to now express the word "animal" to oneself so as to address the concept which the word is understood to convey.
Don't know if I could express it much better than this, but I find that words are only the very tip of an otherwise massive iceberg. Words (or, maybe better yet, what in this thread has been termed "word-forms") are appearances and, in this sense, phenomenal, whereas the iceberg beneath the waters consists of meaning which cannot be perceived, neither via the physiological senses nor via imaginings of one's mind. Even when one thinks via one's inner voice, one is still using word-forms to appraise, manipulate, and decide upon the icebergs beneath the waters - so to speak via a limited analogy.
So, so far I am describing thinking in words that can have a (very muted) auditory or 'auditory' aspect. I generally identify with these. That's me working away on something. And also I can hear or 'hear' words/sentences sometimes that seem, for example, to be addressing me, even with my own name.
For example, just as I might out loud say something like 'You're such an idiot, John.' I can have a similar thought arise, within me. I don't experience doing this second kind of thought, though generally I consider it a part of me. IOW I don't experience the agency aspect of this second kind of thought voice.
These are not, by the way auditory hallucinations. I have a lot of experience with meditation, phenomenology of mind-type research, and introspection, so I think I actually notice these very rapid often quite subtle phenomena, where others might not.
I also mull/contemplate/think a lot without words and I think this gives me a contrast to notice these things.
I suspect that many people if they slowed down would hear or 'hear' these things also.
I hope I've understood the OP correctly and am topic. I could go from there to respond to the more philosophical end of the OP, but I think that's a focused start.
Yes, I assume others can read what I write. Yes, I hope to convey what Im thinking to others. But sometimes they dont understand the words in the same way. We quibble about what a word means, for example. Why is that?
The reasons our understanding of a word rarely aligns is because I meaning something is not the same as the words meaning something. I am conveying meaning; you are conveying meaning; the words are not.
People and words are two entirely different types of beings. One has power, conveys meaning, thinks, speaks, writes, readsthe other is just the fleeting echoes of this being and His activity. In the case of the spoken word, the words dissipate with the sound wave. Text lingers much longer, as much as any other mark on that medium, but it has not been shown to be endowed with some invisible and magical property called meaning. Your inconsistent wavering between the two beings as the conveyor of meaning may satisfy your own understanding, but I cannot get past it. I start to trip up on your words the moment I see them. Maybe to you it comes naturally. My assertions appear to you nonsense, perhaps rightfully so. But in every single case not a single ounce of meaning has jumped from me to you or vice versa, and our disagreements, misunderstandings, fallacies etc. are only further evidence of this.
You are reading the words. You follow the sentences with your eyes, left to right, top to bottom, according to your understanding, and endow them with your own meaning and at your own leisure. They are not doing anything to you. You are doing things to them. And the idea that meaning exists between or external to the beings who mean is fatuous piffle.
This is quite different from your claim that:
Quoting NOS4A2
If sometimes there is misunderstanding then sometimes there is understanding.
Quoting NOS4A2
As Alice was told:
Now you, like Alice, might think that they say or mean the same thing. They don't. If you fail to understand the difference that is not the fault of the words.
Quoting NOS4A2
Once again, one way in which one conveys meaning, and here on this forum the primary way, is with WORDS.
Quoting NOS4A2
There is no inconsistency or wavering. The one conveys meaning via the other. Without words one's power to convey meaning is greatly diminished.
Quoting NOS4A2
This is simply wrong. First, when reading English is do not read left to right and top to bottom according to my understanding. I read them this way because that is the way English is written. It is a convention that I was taught. Second, I do not endow sentences with meaning. Although I am free to give sentences any meaning I wish, that is not the way language works.
Quoting NOS4A2
If we endow meaning, then I might endow 'fatuous piffle' with the meaning 'exactly right'.
Quoting NOS4A2
Yes, that's a way communication can misfire; we have different "internal dictionaries". My first, intuitive, reading of the thread title took "word-forms" as meaning grammatical variations of a word, such as case or number, or tense. That didn't make much sense so I half-arrived at the intended meaning before clicking the thread title. So that particular difference in meaning simply caused an initial hiccup, but no major lasting problem (or so I think).
I don't think in words, either, but I do think with words. It's difficult to explain. I can think words, but I don't bother with the sounds. If anything, I think the production-part of my brain may be active? (I fancy sometimes my tongue twitches, or my throat tightens, but it's barely noticable, and I'm really not sure.) I think there are two main uses I have for language: first, in more complex thoughts I might use words as memory crutches, whether they fully express what I'm thinking or not. Second it's a form of projection of a social situation: how can I make myself understood? A form of rehearsal. And third, there's an aesthetic aspect to it; I just like words so I sometimes formulate stuff in my head, the way I would write a short story or a poem.
Obviously, when I'm reading words are involved, but how? I'm not really sure. I certainly not having them in my head as sound, as I'm reading more quickly than I would be able to speak. Also, I'm reading a lot on the train, and sometimes I catch myself reading but listening to conversations at the same time, and I find I have no idea what I've been reading - that is I've taken in the words but not their meanings. In that case, I usually go back until I find a paragraph I remember reading, and I start "reading aloud" in my head. That's really hard to describe; I both read as a normally would, but I'm also hyper-aware of the words as they would sound [I have no inner voice so they still don't sound like anything]. Crucially, this actually makes it harder to understand the text, but the point of the excersise is to block out words I'm hearing and to focus on what's written; eventually, I just stop this "reading aloud in my head" thing and just read normally - faster, and with less comprehension trouble.
When I'm typing a post like this, what mean to say and what I think I might end up saying is never quite the same. I'm always sort of uncomfortable with my words. They always only feel like approximations of what I'm really thinking, and they also feel... sort of rigid, while the real thinking is more of a flow. But words do have cognitive function: they can... lead me down I direction I don't actually want to go. I've often developed an argument, only to find that at some point I've become alienated from what I'm now saying. This happens when writing posts, too, which is why I type up more of them than I end up posting.
Basically, when I'm thinking words they're neither sounds nor letters; they're just somehow in my head. I have this idea that vestigal jaw-tongue-throat movements might be involved, though I'm not sure. Also, thoughts that I've already formulated I often feel a little alienated from. The more complex the thought the more likely and the more intense the alienation. I have a strong urge not to post this reply, because I partly think it's all nonsense (but there's still something in it somewhere that I think I want to say). But for once, I think that very confusion is sort-of on topic, so I force myself to click "Post comment". If you've been reading this, I have.
I appreciate your effort to verbalize this, and I'm glad you did post because I find this sort of stuff fascinating.
What meaning have I conveyed with this word?
Might those not be words, then? Might they be something else?
Thanks for sharing.
Perhaps its time we gravitated away from the metaphors, for instance hear, and focused on the actual. When it comes to the philosophy of mind and language its littered with figurative and almost superstitious language, and is largely speaker-centric.
I am not sure what exactly is meant by that, but maybe you are hinting at the type-token distinction? For which I recommend reading https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/types-tokens/
Also, as a point of curiosity, if you don't have an inner monologue, how do you think? Typically people without an inner monologue also can't produce images in their mind's eyes, ¿is that your case too?
I'm not sure what "those" refers to. My post is definitely full of words.
You mentioned that when you think with words they're neither sounds nor letters; they're just somehow in your head. Might those not be words, then?
I just think. I dont hear any voices. Perhaps I could describe what it feels like but I have no sort of auditory or visual hallucinations.
Given...
1. The complexity of our brains and the physical processes occurring therein.
2. The idiosyncratic differences between each of our brains. (Differences in biological factors and in experiences resulting in learning)
3. Our level of technology being well below what would be needed to get a remotely comprehensive 'picture' of what is going on in our brains.
...I don't see how it could be otherwise.
Still, there is progress. A huge amount has been learned over the decades I've been considering the topic and the pace of that learning has been accelerating as old guesses get replaced with new, better educated, guesses.
Quoting NOS4A2
Good luck with that. I can recommend getting some education in electrical engineering, as an aid to trying to wrap one's head around the subject.
For engineering and building purposes I usually use a pen and paper and a measuring tape.
What you have conveyed is your real or feigned lack of understanding how words work. Once again, you have confused words and the form they might take in a particular language.
If it is a word, and if I knew the language, I might know or figure out by context or look it up or ask someone who did know the language what it means.
Ah, I see what you were referring to now. I think of those "things" as words. I mean if I recognise the word cat when spoken as the same word when written, I must have something inside of my head that triggers with either stimulus. So I'm just retrieving whatever is triggered, without it being triggered, and without me bothering to decide (either consciously or unconciously) whether that thing's supposed to be heard or seen. Straight to the source. It makes sense to me to think of this as a word.
Also, if I'm right, I associate that "word" with activity of the speech apparatus instead; which would make sense to me, since I'm producing it, and not recieving any input. So if I'm right about this it's not "naked word"; and if I'm wrong about this it is a naked word.
If what I'm thinking of is not a "word", then what is it instead? And how should I make sense of it?
***
Curious: if you think of words as just their form, then what about sentences like this:
Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana.
"Flies" occurs two times in the above, and so does "like". The forms (as in the visual stimuli) are the same. Is "like" one word used in different ways?
Thats a word. What meaning has it conveyed? If it hasnt conveyed any meaning to you, its because it doesnt convey meaning.
If you read my words and are capable of understanding you will find the answer. If you are not capable, that is not the fault of the words. Unlike that word, my words are in English.
Thank you, this has been very insightful!
I understand the words because Im capable of supplying meaning to the symbols youve typed out. Its true; its not the fault of the word. The fault, the misunderstanding, the lack of meaning that can be conveyed is yours, not the word.
Exactly. If you point to its location, the result is no doubt biological. And no doubt the being youre pointing to is you.
To be honest, I thought you meant fruit flies like a banana, as in fruit takes flight like bananas do. It wasnt until your clarification, and you telling me it was in two different senses, did I understand. So maybe it isnt the use at all.
You can conceptualise a sculpture by the rock it's formed of or by the empty space chiselled out to make it. Either way you have a structure. So, there's a sense, yes, that words are empty but they are the emptiness that allows for the structure we call "meaning". They're nothing and everything at the same time. The way to resolve this then is not to look at form, which may lead to paradox, but process. Not what they are, but how they function. And they do function...
Do you arbitrarily supply just any meaning?
The fact is, you follow the same conventions the rest of us do. In using language you do not get to have words mean whatever you want them to. That is not how language works.
Of course. Listen to your inner voice as it now speaks the word concepts. Words are merely signs for concepts. Concepts are built on the vast internal model of the world that we constructed throughout our lives.
Yeah, I probably both picked a bad example (too complex), and didn't phrase my question properly. Basically, I was asking about your intuition; in this example, without thinking much, do you think of "like" as one word that can be, say, a preposition one time and a verb at another; or is the preposition "like" a different word from the verb "like". I intuitively see two words, here, that happen to sound/look the same.
I'd have to think of very different answers depending on your answer to this question, because the scope of the word "word" is different.
As for the example, it's a common example in linguistics when talking about the ambiguity as a language; not as common, though, as the simpler "We saw her duck." (We saw her, as she ducked. We saw her water foul. We apply a saw to her waterfoul.)
Interpretation of language occurs in real life situation and is (almost?) never the only thing going in such a situation. Given a particular context people usually filter out interpretations that are unlikely. Most out-of-context ambiguities aren't a problem in context. The time/fruit flies example started as a pair of sentences in the context of teaching a computer parse a sentence: what people do easily is very, very hard to teach a computer to do. Later, those two sentences got drawn together, used outside of linguistics as a joke (attributed sometimes to Groucho Marx, probably falsly), and inside of linguistics as an example for garden path sentences (sentences where the likely intitial interpretation is false - hence your alternate interpretation isn't surprising, and I should have used a different sentence).
Unsuccessful communication events don't, I think, cause much of a problem for "meaning of a word is its use in the language", as once you pin down the misunderstanding you understand two potential uses, and crucially you'll be able to tell how the situation played out. Use can be pretty complex, especially since any use carries traces of past usage, including "mistakes" and usage you witnessed.
I agree that meaning resides only in brains and not in words. But language is most often a social transaction, and the way I connect meaning-as-use and meaning-in-brain is via interaction, by shifting focus from "similarity of meaning" to "compatibility of meaning as played out in successful communication events" (where success is sort of the degree of satisfaction of the participants).
This has been a bit of a phenomenon recently.
Apparently, about 60% of people have no internal monologue https://irisreading.com/is-it-normal-to-not-have-an-internal-monologue/ (good explainer).
I've found the inverse of your position baffling. I can't work out how to interact with the world if there is no internal symbolic representation of the most common and apparently effective communication mode. Perhaps this accounts for a differential in critical, systematic thinking between the two groups.
With regard the OP question; I think that inhabit minds and cause more than their form implies, but aren't that themselves.
I like your thinking. There is a lot there to mull over and it inspires me to look more into the topic. I'm not sure I can accept the "meaning-as-use" theory yet (or any theory really) because it lacks any biological accounting of meaning (as far as I know). I don't think staring at sentences or searching for answers in "blocks", "pillars", or "slabs" of text will lead anyone closer to any theory of meaning. Then again I'm not so read up on the topic and could be missing some key insights. So thanks.
That's what I was wondering as well: can the two opposing ways of thinking account for differences in ideology, philosophy, behavior? Who knows, but a very interesting topic.
For my own tastes, I think I'm in the extreme. I think my lack of inner monologue, such as it is, can explain in part why I believe certain things about language, metaphysics, ethics, politics, for instance my disdain of censorship and my defense of free speech absolutism. As such, I project that the opposite leads to opposing views, which to me hinge on a kind of superstition regarding language and its effects. Then again, we could all be thinking in the same way and just be using different metaphors to describe the same phenomena.
Interesting. I have an unstoppably verbose internal monologue, to a serious fault (insomnia, I am able to induce mental illnesses etc...) and share those concerns.
Is your inner-voice hard on you? Does it tear you down and criticize you? Or is it more of an advocate and defender?
Thanks for sharing. Perhaps it is controllable in the end.
Controlling one's inner mono/dialogue is very difficult, particularly for someone oddly perceptive, or quick to discern patterns. I have quite a high IQ and have been told this contributes to both the intensity of my internal mono/dialogues, and my ability to rationally calm it down.
I'm unsure its a reasonable expectation of someone who has both an intense internal mono/dialogue and does not have that level of rationality available.
Should you not have put down "meanings" rather than "symbols'?
Symbols? - sounds like pictorial entity. Words are made of the alphabets, and has meanings, not symbols.
I mean pictorial or verbal units known colloquially as words. Im not sure of the technical term.
On the other hand, if they didnt convey meaning then how could I learn something new by reading?
For example, Chinese words are based on the pictorials of the worldly objects, but they still have meanings, and it is the meanings they communicate on, not the pictorials.
If you are talking about the pictorial symbols with meanings, then they wouldn't be words, but would be sigils.
Thanks, but Im talking about words.
I know, hence the suggestion :nerd:
If they have meanings, where would the meaning be located? Or how how do we explain where the meaning is?
Articulation and hearing of what's spoken happen in and through human bodies, though. (Just as writing and reading does) Language, although we often refer to it in the abstract, is grounded in the biological, surely?
(In passing; one's own voice echoes inside the head rather than outside it, which is why one's own voice sounds odd when heard, externally, from a recording, because normally one hears through one's bones)
Words/symbols are just one unit we define to divide up the language. It's hard to parse 'more than', or indeed 'less than' here. Speaking, writing, listening, reading are acts. We mostly make sense to each other by engaging in these actions, using spoken or written signs. From semaphore upwards, a sign tends to stand for something other than itself, as well as being itself.
Whatever happens in a person's imagination is secondary to the exchange of talk or writing, and different people will learn to assimilate and reflect on it differently.
Very useful. It should be right on the OP. In fact most of this thread would not exist had everybody read that.
I think Im with you on this one. Meaning, or at least to mean, is an act of biology. My complaint is that philosophers spend an inordinate amount of time divining meaning from text without ever explicating the biology.
I alluded to Saussures signs in the original post.
I am not into linguistics, so my ideas on it would be that of a total layman's. I would think that in the primitive times when there was no language as such, people would see some events such as rain, and then whenever they see the rain, they would shout out "rang rang rang" or something like that. And then they would come to a word "rain" eventually for an example.
So, I would reckon, words are the entities which are very much embedded with some situations, events or object perceptions into the naming etc in daily lives of the people which gave the solid meanings to the words.
Even now, many words seem to be being manufactured in the similar way (from the real life situations) or copied and modified from the existing words into the new words.
If you read Wittgenstein, I am sure he would have a proper and philosophical way to describe about it.
Absolutely. You do not need an inner monologue to conclude this. First, there are many words that have multiple meanings through definition alone.
The word 'crane' can mean a bird, or it can mean a machine that you use to lift heavy objects. What this logically leads to is the meaning of the word is based on 'context'. Context is based on the environment, your previous words, and conveyed intentions. With context, we can take the word crane and use it for something it was never intended to, like a pun or a person's name.
"Crane was so good at operation, it was is the crane flew."
The multiple meanings of words suggests to me that people have suppled various meanings to the words rather than the word supplying various meanings to them. The context or use may hint at your intention, your meaning, but the meaning itself is not present in the word, context, or use itself.
So where is the meaning?
So far Im gravitating towards a biological account of meaning, or rather, an act of biology.
It's not biological in the way of a leaf or of a toe bone. They have locations.
So, where is the meaning?
This is true. A word without any meaning is simply a noise. Once meaning is applied to a word, then communicated to others it becomes part of a shared language between the two. If this expands out, this can become part of the shared language of many people like slang. Eventually it can be recognized as a valid word with definitions as part of a full blown language.
Quoting NOS4A2
If context is the involvement of people's intentions, environment, culture and state of being, I'm not sure what's left after its elimination. Perhaps what you are intending is that a person's intention to use a word is not necessarily understood by another. Which is fine. There is the meaning as intended to be conveyed, the meaning as the other person accepts the conveyance, and the meaning as both understand and misunderstand each other.
It is through contrast that we can come to realize the differences in our experiences from each other. This sort of introspection is entangled with the language of reporting experience. It is not a denial of unique experiences to question to what extent such comparisons reveal about another life as lived by another. Bearing witness to oneself is not an activity that is guaranteed to give us what is present against a background of what is imagined. Sharing what is imagined is one of the self-evident functions of language.
The conditions of introspection bring into question what the "internal" scene consists of. Does the experience of ourselves pop-up like a prairie dog in a field or does it emerge through development over time?
Attaining the competence to act independently is directly involved in the personal sense of privacy within relationships and exchanges with other people. Being able to speak for oneself is a way to resist some other agent from filling in the blanks for you. Having the ability is learned along with not doing it all the time.
The report of, "not being able to turn the voices off", sounds like it inhibits a person the way over-deliberation of a plan interferes with performance during the work carrying it out. It is natural to ask what is fundamental and necessary to a person and what are activities that can change.
Like I said, its an act of biology. If you want to find photosynthesis, for instance, you can find it at a leaf. One place you will not find photosynthesis is across, between, and external to leaves.
So where is it then? One can dissect a leaf, or a biome, which goes across and between the plants and animals involved. Where do I go to dissect or observe meaning? Will I find it in a biology text book?
Let's go for something simpler. Can you provide a biological account of how some language element, such as a proper name, functions?
Like I said, Im leaning more towards meaning as a biological act. The thing, its location, is the biology. To mean, like thinking, understanding, speaking, and so on, is something the biology does.
I dont think I can provide a biological account of proper names or any other phrase because there is nothing biological about proper names. I have already said the words are arbitrary and conventional. What I can say is those who have taken up the task of staring at words and sentences in order to divine some coherent philosophy are largely overlooking the most important structures involved in producing them, and as such language in general. I suspect that the most coherent answers will be provided by fields such as biolinguistics.
No, words are symbols, which is more than the marks, sounds, gestures etc. of which they're made.
Words are not symbols. Words are container of meanings.
How is a symbol more than the marks, sounds, gestures, of which it is made?
The word as vehicle theory. Whereabouts on the word itself is the meaning?
The point of words is to convey the meanings they contain. Every words has their meanings. If you said a word with no meaning, then it wouldn't mean anything, and no one would understand what it meant (including yourself), hence it is not a word, is it?
Symbols are the pictorial entities, and they are supposed to carry meanings too, but in totally different forms and ways.
Meaning is not something biology does. The location of meaning is found in the practices of certain social biological organisms.
As asked the question of whether words are more than their symbols is ill conceived. Symbols have meaning. 'water' and 'agua' is a symbols 'that have the same meaning. Each of those symbols is made up of other symbols. In each of these cases the meaning is a matter of convention.
There are many kinds of symbols, you know, verbal (words) and non-verbal (pictures, gestures). They refer to things in various ways, but their primary function is identification. I don't know of a good reason to exclude words from symbols. Do you?
Well, unlike the mark on a page, which can be found meaningful for its own sake (e.g. beautiful, surprising etc) its usability for symbolization gives it additional or more meaning. The former might be located in the properties of the mark that arise relative to an observer (biology?).
Words are read, and understood by its meaning alone. There is no room for guessing or imagining just by reading alone (although people do them but there must be extra information such as situation or the source of the words come from). Words says what they mean, and no more. Otherwise, words cannot be used in Logic or Science.
Symbols are visual perception only, and their meanings are not precise. One has to imagine, guess or relate to the real world objects, activities or lives in order to get the meanings. Symbols are also for aiding religious meditations for the enlightenments or deciphering the divine and esoteric messages from them.
I would say they are totally different form of carrying and delivering meanings, and also for the purpose too.
For a simple example, can a poetry be written in symbols? No.
Can symbols write a History of Philosophy? No.
What words do, symbols can't. What symbols do, words can. (Words are more powerful, versatile and flexible with its capability making up sentences, and forming logical arguments, propositions ...etc)
The symbols used for logic are not imprecise, scientists are not guessing when they use symbols for chemical compounds etc. The word 'symbol' is also used for something visual or vague as in dark magic cult ritualistic symbols. But that's no reason to exclude words from being symbols.
The logician Charles Dodgson, better known as Lewis Carroll, would not agree. The March Hare tells Alice:
To which she responds:
The Hare corrects her:
Here is one that my students found amusing. This actually happened. I was running a few minutes late to my class. One of the double doors to the classroom building was not working. It has a sign on it: "Not working. Use other door" and an arrow pointing to the other door. I explained that I was late because I could not figure out whether the arrow was pointing to door that was broken or if the sign was on the door that was broken.
Without the contents, the logic symbols would mean nothing meaningful at all. It would only mean something with the contents.
The chemical compounds symbols are not symbols as such, but they are type of abbreviations or codified words.
Good point. Must admit sentences we see in daily life can be vague at many times.
Would it have been clearer, if it said "This door is not working. Use the other door."?
Actually, I think that is what the sign said. Is 'this' door the one with the sign or the one the arrow was pointing to?
I told them that I stood there confused until someone came along and opened the door, that if they hadn't I might have missed the class.
If you see a sign saying on the door "Don't disturb", how can you be mistaken for to knock on the door or ring the bell?
One thing I have found, and I am sure others here have as well, is that no matter how clearly and accurately I state something there will be some who think I am saying something else.
I might think that if anyone else was knocking it would be a disturbance but surely not if I was.
But you wouldn't be knocking on your own door. :rofl:
Meaning is biological and yet biology cannot explain proper names. Not a lot of use, this idea that meaning is biological.
Yes meaning is a practice of organisms. And each organism is identical to its biology.
Theres no use in confusing proper names with meaning, either, but here we are.
This is more apt than you might have intended. That it was my door did not even occur to me.
That is simply not true. If you understood the meaning of the term 'biology' you would see why it is not true. If you understood the meaning of the term "convention' you would see that what is by convention is not what is biologically.
This is the sense in which I am using the term.
Biology - the physiology, behavior, and other qualities of a particular organism or class of organisms.
"human biology"
But, given your stance, you should have seen that this was the meaning the word was conveying.
Why are you using a dictionary definition? A dictionary is not a biological organism. It is, by your lights, a collection of meaningless marks.
As to your claim that each organism is identical to its biology. The unique experiences that play a role in shaping who we are as individuals is not a matter of our individual biology. Our biology plays a role in our ability to use language, but the fact that I speak English and not Chinese is not determined by my biology.
You said I didnt understand the term. The dictionary records usage, so I showed you one sense in which many people (biological organisms) use it, including myself.
It is determined by your biology. It was your biology that learned, understands, and speaks English and not Chinese.
If you were asleep, and didn't want to get disturbed by any visitors, then any knocking on the door will disturb you, even if it was you who knocked on the door (via sleepwalking).
And thus contradict your claims about words. Words have meaning and the words used in the dictionary inform us of the meaning of the word in question. They are then not arbitrary.
They do what you say you cannot believe they do:
Quoting NOS4A2
The words in the dictionary transport meaning from A to B.
Quoting NOS4A2
My biology did not determine whether I grew up learning English and not Chinese. If I was adopted and grew up in a Chinese family my biology would remain the same, but I would speak Chinese rather than English.
Well it way the girl of my dreams knocking on my door it would not disturb me, although I might be hot and bothered.
If words had meaning you wouldnt need a definition. Youd just hear the word or say the word, and the meaning would float through the air in the sound-waves, from one mind to the other. Except they dont do what you believe they do, so you refer to a dictionary, contradicting your own claims.
Your biology allows for language acquisition, and determines the faculty of language in general. Its why placing a chimp in your same scenario doesnt lead it to speak Chinese, or any other language. The biology is different.
Biology can precede meanings suppose. :nerd:
In a dictionary words are used to define the meaning of other words. You might need a dictionary to define some of the words used to define the word in question, but it is not an endless cycle. Some may rely on a dictionary more than others but no one can use a dictionary who does not understand the meaning of any of the words.
Quoting NOS4A2
That is not what I believe words do. It does, however, seem to be a picture of your own making that you have either struggled against or set up to knock down.
Quoting NOS4A2
Do you mean my claim that:
Quoting Fooloso4?
Quoting NOS4A2
Yes, you are agreeing with the first part of what I said above:
Quoting Fooloso4
Now address the second part:
Quoting Fooloso4
Yes, and biology can somethings betray what we really mean.
Right, you need to be able to understand the language before being to read a dictionary. This is possible because you are already in possession of the meaning, which you are able to supply to the text in order to make sense of it. If meaning was in the words, learning the language would be unnecessary.
It was my understanding that you believed words transport meaning from A to B, that meaning is conveyed by the words, that words are in possession of meaning. If Ive been wrong this whole time I apologize.
Your biology is ever-present and determines your acquisition of language, no matter what language you acquire. It cannot be excluded from any scenario.
If you are already in possession of the meaning of a word then you would not have to look it up to find out what it means. It makes no sense to say that we go to a dictionary to supply meaning to the words we look up to find the meaning of.
Quoting NOS4A2
You have done a good job of convincing anyone who did not already realize it that you do not know how words work. Learning a language involves learning the meaning of words in that language. You stubbornly and ignorantly cling to the false idea that words are just marks and sounds devoid of meaning.
Quoting NOS4A2
No. I used your term 'transport' . It is not a term I would use in this context, but we work with what we have. In any case, to transport is to convey, and meaning is conveyed through words. In this case, from a dictionary to the reader. So close enough.
What I denied is that I believe:
Quoting NOS4A2
But all of this has been covered already. It is clear that you are fond of arguing, but since facts, truth, and understanding may bring an argument to its end, you avoid them.