I alluded to Saussure’s “signs” in the original post.

I think I’m 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.

If they have meanings, where would the meaning be located? Or how how do we explain where the meaning is?

Thanks, but I’m talking about words.

The quoting out of context, the false equivalencies—it’s a deluge of really bad takes. One minute we’re talking about illegal immigration and in the same breath we’re trying to connect it to the holocaust. Why do you guys fall for this, and not even for the first time?

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”. I’m not sure of the technical term.

I love it, personally. The more they expose themselves as an anti-democratic force the better.

This is beneath you. You know Trump is talking about immigrants when he uses words like "vermin" and "poisoning the blood of the country". And you also know what other famous fascist leader has used language like this. I think that if Trump actually said "subhuman" you would defend him. Maybe even if he said untermensch.

The vermin term was used in reference to communists and fascists.. I can’t think of a better term, myself. But yeah, illegal immigration is a big problem, like poison.

At best you can say that they're allowing the country to be poisoned, but the poison itself, according to Trump, is the illegal immigrants.

That is indeed all I'm saying. They (the politicians) are poisoning the country. Given the corrosive effects of crime, the metaphor is quite apt otherwise.

That’s true. The democrats refusing to enforce the laws of the country is poisoning the blood of the country. That’s what they’ve done.

“ You know when they let—I think the real number is 15/16 million people into our country—when they do that, we got a lot of work to do. They're poisoning the blood of our country, that's what they've done.”

Are you saying that illegal immigrants have let people into the country?

That’s false. His speech makes that clear.

We've got a lot of work to do. You know when they let—I think the real number is 15/16 million people into our country—when they do that, we got a lot of work to do. They're poisoning the blood of our country, that's what they've done. They've poisoned—mental institutions and prisons all over the world, not just in South America, not just the three or four countries that we think about, but all over the world they’re coming into our country, from Africa, from Asia, all over the world they’re pouring into our country"

Illegal immigration is a process, an act, not a group of people.

He was talking about Biden and his croneys. They are the direct cause of illegal immigration.

But the article said he was talking about immigrants, not illegal ones.

The article was about his speech in New Hampshire.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/dec/16/trump-immigrants-new-hampshire-rally

Your misrepresentations are the direct reason white spremacists are emboldened and think Trump is their guy. This has been confirmed by a member here who told me his cousins believed the “many sides” hoax, that he never condemned white supremacists and neo-Nazis,m. They believed the lie as it was told and amplified by anti-Trump propaganda. No doubt the entire scam regarding Trump’s racism or fascism has fueled more racism and fascism than anything Trump has ever done or said.

What are your guys' thoughts? Can we morally justify sacrificing people for the greater good, especially if it is a huge sacrifice (like getting tortured constantly)?

Not for me because the “greater good” is unknown, and as such, could never be met. In the end, and at its core, the act would amount to sacrificing or torturing a living being based on a hunch.

In any case, I would do justice though the heavens fall. I would protect the potential victim from the aggressor’s advances and deal justly with the consequences however they turned out.

Thanks for sharing. Perhaps it is controllable in the end.

Is your inner-voice hard on you? Does it tear you down and criticize you? Or is it more of an advocate and defender?

it is clear that he is not talking about Biden or Trump's political opponents. Neither Biden or Trump's political opponents are pouring into our country, coming from Africa or Asia.

As usual, all I have to do is take a gander and look at the context you suspiciously leave out, every single time. He's speaking about more than one "they" and you've simply pretended he is speaking about one.

"We've got a lot of work to do. You know when they let—I think the real number is 15/16 million people into our country—when they do that, we got a lot of work to do. They're poisoning the blood of our country, that's what they've done. They've poisoned—mental institutions and prisons all over the world, not just in South America, not just the three or four countries that we think about, but all over the world they’re coming into our country, from Africa, from Asia, all over the world they’re pouring into our country"

https://www.c-span.org/video/?532231-1/president-trump-holds-rally-durham-hampshire

No, immigrants are not letting in immigrants.

As for the second "they", the group who is coming into the country illegally, through sophistry and lies you pretend the he is speaking about are immigrants here, not the illegals.

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.

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.

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.

The "they" he was speaking of were his political opponents, for instance "Biden and the lunatic left" and "the radical left democrats". He was saying they were poisoning the blood of the country, in this context by refusing to secure the southern border and stemming the influx of illegal immigrants. He falls in love with, marries, and has children with immigrants, so the notion that Trump is implying immigrants qua immigrants are poisoning the blood of the nation is just plain stupid.

Why do his haters fall for this cheesy propaganda all the time?

If what I'm thinking of is not a "word", then what is it instead? And how should I make sense of it?

Exactly. If you point to its location, the result is no doubt biological. And no doubt the being you’re pointing to is you.

Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana.

To be honest, I thought you meant fruit flies like a banana, as in fruit takes flight like bananas do. It wasn’t until your clarification, and you telling me it was in two different senses, did I understand. So maybe it isn’t the use at all.

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.

I understand the words because I’m capable of supplying meaning to the symbols you’ve typed out. It’s true; it’s not the fault of the word. The fault, the misunderstanding, the lack of meaning that can be conveyed is yours, not the word.

That’s a word. What meaning has it conveyed? If it hasn’t conveyed any meaning to you, it’s because it doesn’t convey meaning.

For engineering and building purposes I usually use a pen and paper and a measuring tape.

I just think. I don’t hear any voices. Perhaps I could describe what it feels like but I have no sort of auditory or visual hallucinations.

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?

Thanks for sharing.

Perhaps it’s 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 it’s littered with figurative and almost superstitious language, and is largely speaker-centric.

Might those not be words, then? Might they be something else?

What meaning have I conveyed with this word?

Yes, I assume others can read what I write. Yes, I hope to convey what I’m thinking to others. But sometimes they don’t 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, reads—the 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.

Yes, and everyone reverts back to metaphor. Meaning is across, between, and external to minds, but as soon as I look it isn’t. Now it’s what we do with them, but what you do with them is type them out.

Use

The meaning must be acquired before we start using words or else we have nothing to associate them with. Meaning is prior to use.

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.

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”.

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.

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 someone’s head, not a single person can be affected by a word. It’s 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.

Meaning is constructed across minds, between and external to them as much as within them.

I'm not sure what this means. Where is this meaning across, between, and external to minds?

It's very unclear what "word-form" is.

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?

No, you’re 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 is nothing occurring that I could call a voice.

Yeah, I’m 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?