How do they do that? All they've done is printed words on a document. What does it mean for words to "coerce" another. Seems like another word for "influence".

I didn’t say words coerce others. People coerce others.

[However the fact that charges of insurrection were not brought, does not mean that the acts did not constitute an insurrection./quote]

It does not mean that the acts did constitute an insurrection either.

I am blaming the court for coercing the secretary, abusing the law for corrupt ends, and political persecution. But thanks for admitting it’s not the words but the fear in her head that influences her.

How many have been convicted of insurrection?

It’s the fear of force that influences their decision. Sorry.

Well, to be pedantic they're ordering her not to add him to the ballot, but yes.

But so what? Orders are just words and you're a free speech absolutist.

Coercion is not just speech, I’m afraid.

Sure, Dem judges are ordering the Secretary to remove Trump from the ballot. Is that better?

I’m not sure where you’re going with this except into a deeper hole.

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.

Meaning is not something biology does. The location of meaning is found in the practices of certain social biological organisms.

Yes meaning is a practice of organisms. And each organism is identical to its biology.

Meaning is biological and yet biology cannot explain proper names. Not a lot of use, this idea that meaning is biological.

There’s no use in confusing proper names with meaning, either, but here we are.

Yes, they’re just words, and it’s superstitious to pretend they have power to manipulate the actions of organisms… but law isn’t just words. People are employed to obey and expected to enforce those words, for instance the Secretary. Of course, she can disobey and leave him on the ballot because words don’t have the magical powers you pretend they do, but she’ll be punished.

Words are container of meanings.

The word as vehicle theory. Whereabouts on the word itself is the meaning?

How is a symbol more than the marks, sounds, gestures, of which it is made?

They are actually going to evoke Our Democracy after Dem judges remove their political opponent from the ballot for something no one has been charged with or convicted of. I thought there might be a little pause in the Our Democracy propaganda, at least until the matter is settled, but they’re actually doing it. It’s just terrible optics, or he thinks his voters are stupid, one or the other.

Wow, they’re really doing it. He’s calling Trump a threat to Our Democracy™ right after a majority of Dem judges removed Trump from the ballot for crimes no one has been convicted of. These people are insane.

Like I said, I’m 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 don’t 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.

It's not biological in the way of a leaf or of a toe bone. They have locations.

So, where is the meaning?

Like I said, it’s 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 far I’m gravitating towards a biological account of meaning, or rather, an act of biology.

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.

Name-calling and emojis—the tell-tale signs of good satire.

What have I misread?

You get a little testy every time I take your propaganda away from you. I show that in fact Trump does not compare immigrants to poison, that illegal immigration, a crime, is not the same as illegal immigrants, a group of people, and then you get salty at me for doing so while those who lied to you never receive your ire. It must sting having to think so hard.

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.