But you said earlier that synonymy is not sameness of meaning, so you can't appeal to semantics here. — Fafner

Synonymy is not sameness of meaning on a view that has meaning as synonymous with causality.

My view isn't that meaning is synonymous with causality. (I explained that at the start of this subdiscussion.)

When I wrote "But they're not the same semantically", I was giving my view.

If A and B are identical, it means that there is only one thing and not two

Right. And you can have a view that A and B are identical as well as a view that they are not.

A practical example:

"The man we saw from a distance in the train station was Jones." ("The man we saw from a distance in the train station" is identical to "Jones.")

versus

"No he wasn't--the man we saw from a distance in the train station wasn't Jones." ("The man we saw from a distance in the train station" is not identical to "Jones.")

Those are two different views.

If "The man we saw from a distance in the train station" is identical to "Jones" then indeed, we're not talking about two things, just one. Otherwise we're talking about two things.

Now, my point is that you can infer (3) from (2) only if you know that (1) is true, but you can't know it apriori since (1) is a hypotheses that could be known only via experience (it could've been false - it is false in the case of some insects for example). — Fafner

How have you experienced every person on the world has a unique DNA fingerprint other than reading that to be the case by in a science journal or something like that? A lot of our knowledge is from reading books or watching documentaries, not by direct experience. Is what we read more wrong than what we subjectively experience and take as truth?

But it is meaningful. (I rest my case) — Fafner

Sure, if the meaning of your words is to make me picture Bernie Sanders in the White House, even though he isn't. Your words refer to the image of Bernie being President.

It's not the same scenario as the kid because this person on the phone knows their colors and the words associated with them. — Harry Hindu

It's the same in the respect that there's an intent to deceive.

How did that happen if the color I was referring to when I say "blue" is actually "yellow" which is nonsense, — Harry Hindu

You're both using "yellow" and "blue" to refer to the same colors. You're not actually using "blue" to refer to yellow. Because you're not thinking of "blue" as the name of "that color." You're thinking of "blue" as blue and also thinking, "I'm going to deceive this person so that they think these yellow bananas are blue."

Synonymy is not sameness of meaning on a view that has meaning as synonymous with causality.

My view isn't that meaning is synonymous with causality. (I explained that at the start of this subdiscussion.) — Terrapin Station

OK - but then, they are synonymous by virtue of which meaning? The meaning that you yourself stipulated for the signs, or the meaning they generally have in the language as it is commonly spoken? Because if it's the former, then the thesis is still trivial and uninformative as I already argued. But if it's the latter then you can't show that they have a certain meaning in the common language just by stipulation, and if this is the case then you couldn't simply disregard what other people think about the concepts.

And you can have a view that A and B are identical as well as a view that they are not. — Terrapin Station

Again, if 'they' are indeed identical then there are not two things here, so there's nothing about which you can affirm what you try to affirm, and so this sentence is just nonsense and not an expression of a fact or a view that someone can agree or disagree about (and equally saying that they are not identical is nonsense).

If "The man we saw from a distance in the train station" is identical to "Jones" then indeed, we're not talking about two things, just one. Otherwise we're talking about two things. — Terrapin Station

This example doesn't help you because the expressions 'Jones' and 'The man we saw from a distance in the train station' are not synonymous, and stating an identity relation between them is not a matter of stipulation, like in the case where you define the word 'meaning' via causality. So there is indeeda sense in which we are talking about two things in your Jones case, even if the identity statement is true (and I maintain that 'identity' in this example is not used the same way as an identity in the original case that we were discussing).

How have you experienced every person on the world has a unique DNA fingerprint other than reading that to be the case by in a science journal or something like that? A lot of our knowledge is from reading books or watching documentaries, not by direct experience. Is what we read more wrong than what we subjectively experience and take as truth? — Harry Hindu

The issue of testimony doesn't change my point. Because for me to know (1) there must've been some scientists who did all the right experiments that confirmed it (knowledge doesn't come from nowhere). What's the alternative on your view? Do you want to say that we know all that stuff about DNA apriori and independently of scientific experiments and observations?

Sure, if the meaning of your words is to make me picture Bernie Sanders in the White House, even though he isn't. Your words refer to the image of Bernie being President. — Harry Hindu

Well no, the meaning of the sentence is not a picture - the sentence says that Bernie Sanders is the president (not that his picture exists), and this is what it means. Your view that all false sentences are meaningless is really just incredible. It follows that whenever you understand a sentence then you can know apriori that it is true (so I know what the sentence "I'm a millionaire" means therefore it is a proof that I am a millionaire etc.).

(Also, you describe the picture as a picture of Bernie Sanders being the president, so the picture does after all has meaning despite being false? Or is there another picture which it pictures etc...?)

It's extremely difficult to communicate with you, and that's not at all helped by your arrogance, so I'm going to stick with one thing at a time.

OK - but then, they are synonymous by virtue of which meaning? The meaning that you yourself stipulated for the signs, or the meaning they generally have in the language as it is commonly spoken? Because if it's the former, then the thesis is still trivial and uninformative as I already argued. But if it's the latter then you can't show that they have a certain meaning in the common language just by stipulation, and if this is the case then you couldn't simply disregard what other people think about the concepts. — Fafner

On my view there is no such thing as "meanings in a language as it is generally spoken." There are no concepts in that vein either. Meanings and concepts are in individuals' heads.

And...?

Jesus.

Like many people on this board, you're either a troll or there's something seriously wrong with/dysfunctional about you

Says the guy who can't follow a simple argument.

What would that have to do with whether you're a troll or something is seriously wrong with you?

Play nice boys. Philosophy is fun!

How is it that when you simply use words but don't refer to anything with them, your words become useless and meaningless? — Harry Hindu

You said it yourself; if there is no use (words become useless) there is no meaning (words become meaningless).

You seem to be equivocating on the word 'use'. If you just utter a bunch of words as nonsense, you can say, in one sense that you are using them, but in another sense you are not using them at all. An analogy is that if you are fiddling with a hammer, you are not really using it in the way it was designed to be used.

It's the same in the respect that there's an intent to deceive. — Terrapin Station

Well, yeah, it is the intent, or the goal-in-mind, that is the cause of the words being used.

You're both using "yellow" and "blue" to refer to the same colors. You're not actually using "blue" to refer to yellow. Because you're not thinking of "blue" as the name of "that color." You're thinking of "blue" as blue and also thinking, "I'm going to deceive this person so that they think these yellow bananas are blue." — Terrapin Station

I don't get it. One thing is for sure is that when I deceive some one, I'm not referring to the thing I'm lying about as something else. I'm not referring to "yellow" as "blue". That's not how the deception develops in my mind. Instead I'm thinking about how they will behave based on what they know and what I don't want them to know, and replacing it with what I want them to know. The goal-in-mind is making them think this particular thought, NOT the other. We have a habit of putting ourselves in each other's head - of simulating other's thoughts. We are one of the few animals that can do this, and this is an ability that is required in order to deceive. Simply referring to something as something that it isn't in your own mind, isn't enough to deceive, nor is it the process that I follow when I deceive. I make a prediction of the victim acting in some way as a result of my projecting a false thought into their mind via language.

The issue of testimony doesn't change my point. Because for me to know (1) there must've been some scientists who did all the right experiments that confirmed it (knowledge doesn't come from nowhere). What's the alternative on your view? Do you want to say that we know all that stuff about DNA apriori and independently of scientific experiments and observations? — Fafner

That's what YOU said - that you can only know something by experience - which I thought you meant by directly experiencing something as opposed to reading or hearing about someone else's experience. It is you that are conflating knowing by experience and knowing by hearing or reading about someone else's experience.

Well no, the meaning of the sentence is not a picture - the sentence says that Bernie Sanders is the president (not that his picture exists), and this is what it means. Your view that all false sentences are meaningless is really just incredible. It follows that whenever you understand a sentence then you can know apriori that it is true (so I know what the sentence "I'm a millionaire" means therefore it is a proof that I am a millionaire etc.).

(Also, you describe the picture as a picture of Bernie Sanders being the president, so the picture does after all has meaning despite being false? Or is there another picture which it pictures etc...?) — Fafner

When I mentioned, "picture", I meant the image of Bernie as president in your mind, as that is the only place Bernie can be president and can be the only thing that your words refer to, which is to say that is what the words mean.

I find it incredible that you think that false statements ARE meaningful. What does it mean to be false? It means that it isn't true. False statements may be useful but that doesn't mean that they are meaningful independent of the intent to deceive!

How is it that when you simply use words but don't refer to anything with them, your words become useless and meaningless? — Harry Hindu

You said it yourself; if there is no use (words become useless) there is no meaning (words become meaningless).

You seem to be equivocating on the word 'use'. If you just utter a bunch of words as nonsense, you can say, in one sense that you are using them, but in another sense you are not using them at all. An analogy is that if you are fiddling with a hammer, you are not really using it in the way it was designed to be used. — John

What I said is that you can use words, but if they don't refer to anything, then they are useless and meaningless. Yes, you can use a hammer in a way that it isn't designed, but if you have a goal-in-mind, then you are still using the hammer to accomplish a goal, which makes the hammer useful and meaningful to accomplish the goal. If you don't have a goal-in-mind, and you are just fiddling with the hammer, then that would be useless and meaningless, and you said it yourself, would still be using the hammer, but not with a goal-in-mind. Youg seem to be conflating "use" with "useful". You can use a tool, but if you don't have a goal-in-mind, then your using the tool is really useless.

We are not on the same page (you don't get my arguments), so let's leave it here.

We are on the same (web) page, just look at the screen! Just look at your metaphor and because your phrase could be taken to mean something else, as I just did, you had to put what you meant (your intent in using those particular words) in parentheses.

Seriously though, I understand you. It is you that simply can't accept that you are wrong about meaning is use, and that's too bad.

↪Fafner We are on the same (web) page, just look at the screen! Just look at your metaphor and because your phrase could be taken to mean something else, as I just did, you had to put what you meant (your intent in using those particular words) in parentheses. — Harry Hindu

"Meaning" can mean intention.

But the meaning of a word is not the intention of the word, because words do not have intentions.

"Meaning can also mean implication.
Footprints mean feet.

In this sense, footprints mean feet regardless of the intentions of the owner of the feet.

Scent-marking is an animal communication of territorial claim; perhaps it is intentional, or perhaps it is unconscious instinct, who knows. But it is meaningful and understandable to animals. It is hardly a language though, consisting of one smell-word - "me", though that word can itself be read into as to gender, dominance, and so on.

Now when you use the word "look" above, you presumably intend to convey something, in this case to direct the reader's attention. But the meaning of "look" does not at all depend on your intention.

We are on the same (web) page, just banana at the screen! Just banana at your metaphor... — Harry Christian

Harry C. here meant (intended) to say the same thing as you, but regardless of his intentions, "banana" does not mean "look". He simply failed to use the words aright.

This is the (probably deliberate) confusion you have been spreading though the thread, based on an equivocation between the intention of the speaker and the proper use of words. It is the same equivocation, incidentally that is is at the base of Humpty-Dumpty's declaration in Alice inWonderland:

"When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.” “The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.” “The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that's all." — Humpty Dumpty and Alice

Beat you to it.

I think it's much more the case that you are running two senses of "use" together and failing to make the distinction between 'use' in the (practically) useless sense of playing or mucking around, and 'use' in the sense of employing a function.

The so-called "meaning is use" argument is only concerned with the latter, so instances of the former have no bearing on it.

I think his argument is based on the assumption that meaning-is-use is behaviorism and so it doesn't allow reference.

You may be right. But that would make no sense because words must refer to things (in various ways), and sentences must be about things, events, feelings or whatever, or else all our talk would be about nothing, would be useless and meaningless. I think 'use' just refers to the conventional ways that words come to be used to refer to things, and to make sentences that are meaningful in terms of what they are about. What they are about just is their use, I think, which seems unproblematic unless I am missing something here.

Uh. Soames agrees with you that behaviorism amounts to meaning nihilism. And it's washed back out to sea except for a few minnows still flapping on the shore.

The alternative isn't all unicorns and rainbows, though. This is philosophy of mind. It's full of emotion and ontological commitments...few answers. This makes it all the more bizarre that some people feel the need to be jerks about it...as if they aren't facing Conundrum Mt. with the rest of us. Not to mention any names.

Meaning is use in the tower of babel, when the logos is lost or confabulated. Words do in fact refer back to experience every single time, and if not that, then they refer to warped intentions, and confusion.

Adam gave everything its name remember. Don't think that it's easily fucked with.

Adam named me Bub. I'm not happy about it.

I can see that.

"Meaning" can mean intention.

But the meaning of a word is not the intention of the word, because words do not have intentions. — unenlightened

No, entities have intentions and they use words to express their intentions. No intention prior, means no use of words at all, or at least no useful, or meaningful use of words - like I explained about using ANY tool. You have to have a goal-in-mind in order for any tool to be useful or meaningful, as a tool only becomes meaningful or useful in accomplishing a goal. Tools that don't help accomplish some goal are useless and meaningless to the goal.

"Meaning can also mean implication.
Footprints mean feet.

In this sense, footprints mean feet regardless of the intentions of the owner of the feet. — unenlightened

Well, yeah, and I'd go a step further and say that any cause is the meaning of the effect. Tree rings in a tree stump mean the age of the tree and tree rings are the natural result of how the tree growa throughout the year. Our word use points to the idea in someone's head and their intention to express it. Both of these things need to exist prior to word use or the use of words would be meaningless and useless - in other words, the use of words doesn't point to any cause of their use.

Scent-marking is an animal communication of territorial claim; perhaps it is intentional, or perhaps it is unconscious instinct, who knows. But it is meaningful and understandable to animals. It is hardly a language though, consisting of one smell-word - "me", though that word can itself be read into as to gender, dominance, and so on. — unenlightened

This has doesn't go against anything I have said. As I have said all along is that meaning is the relationship between cause and effect. When some other animal smells the odor, it imbues it with meaning by associating a cause to the smell. The information one garners from the odor (gender, health, etc.) is all part of the process of imbuing it with a reference to some state-of-affairs in the world (meaning).

Now when you use the word "look" above, you presumably intend to convey something, in this case to direct the reader's attention. But the meaning of "look" does not at all depend on your intention.

We are on the same (web) page, just banana at the screen! Just banana at your metaphor... — Harry Christian


Harry C. here meant (intended) to say the same thing as you, but regardless of his intentions, "banana" does not mean "look". He simply failed to use the words aright. — unenlightened

So, you're saying that metaphors are simply failing to use words right? When I looked up the word, "page" it doesn't include anything about "arguments", as in " We are not on the same page (you don't get my arguments)". If a word like, "page" can be used in a way that isn't defined in some dictionary and it still mean something, then anyone can use any word they want to express any idea they want. It would be up to the listener to get at the true meaning - which would what the speaker or writer intended to say.

This is the (probably deliberate) confusion you have been spreading though the thread, based on an equivocation between the intention of the speaker and the proper use of words. It is the same equivocation, incidentally that is is at the base of Humpty-Dumpty's declaration in Alice inWonderland: — unenlightened

Heh, more like deliberate obtuseness on the part of those that don't seem to get that any use of words (or any tool for that matter) is useless and meaningless without a goal-in-mind.

Like any tool, we can use it in a way that wasn't intended, or the common use of the tool. How it is used, and whether it is useful or not has to do with the goal. I can use a chair to sit in, stand on, or as a weapon, and the way I use it goes back to my intent. I can use words in the same way.

I think it's much more the case that you are running two senses of "use" together and failing to make the distinction between 'use' in the (practically) useless sense of playing or mucking around, and 'use' in the sense of employing a function.

The so-called "meaning is use" argument is only concerned with the latter, so instances of the former have no bearing on it. — John

Why don't you read your own words. You even make the same distinction yourself. You can use something uselessly or in a way that is useful. Something is only useful, and therefore meaningful, to accomplishing a goal.

As I have said all along is that meaning is the relationship between cause and effect. — Harry Hindu

what you meant (your intent in using those particular words) — Harry Hindu

Well, yeah, it is the intent, or the goal-in-mind, that is the cause of the words being used. — Harry Hindu

So your intended meaning causes you to use the word "look" rather than the word "banana" because ... you speak English and know that "look" has the meaning you intend, and "banana" does not. You use words this way because we (English speakers) use words this way. And it is common usage that confers meaning on the otherwise arbitrary grunts and squiggles.

And we know they are arbitrary grunts and squiggles, because those damn foreigners use completely different grunts and squiggles to say la meme chose exactement.

If a word like, "page" can be used in a way that isn't defined in some dictionary and it still mean something, then anyone can use any word they want to express any idea they want. — Harry Hindu

This is blatantly banana custard, Humpty Dumpty. Word meanings can be stretched, extended, moved over time, and still mean something. But if you stretch too many of them too far, the ties to common usage are broken and your intended meaning is lost. As you quite clearly know full well.