Effectively it is to me, especially since we are talking about language where use does determine use. We aren't talking about objects or anything else so your argument doesn't apply. — Darkneos

Let me clarify: the question in my previous post was strictly addressing the context of language.

Wouldn't this "ghost in the ink" then be the intentioning of the agent which produced the ink forms on the paper? — javra

Yes, it would. But that is precisely what does not hold. If intentions and purposes were somehow in the ink (for me that is pure fantasy) there would be no possibility of misunderstanding. In this case we are talking about the materiality of the signs, the sounds uttered, the ink, etc.... From a materialistic point of view, mine, there is no possibility that intentions travel through the air or are inside the ink. That is mentalism.

But misunderstandings are a fact of life. Which implies that if we accept the materialist thesis that denies that kind of mentalism we must assume that the medium, the sound, the ink, etc, has some independence with respect to purpose and intentionality, and an active role in the creation of meaning for a receiver (the hearer, the reader, etc).

Just in case I might be correct in my presuppositions, here is a more concise example to the contrary:

Instances such as slips of the tongue do occur. In instances such as this, one intends/means to communicate concept A but, because one’s unconscious impinges word Z instead of what would have appropriately been word X, the meaning which one in fact wants to express does not obtain. So, here, the use of the term does entail an intent, in this case the intent of one’s unconscious mind rather than of oneself as conscious mind, but the intention/meaning which one as a consciousness holds in mind nevertheless does not manifest.

This, again, being in line with “use presupposes intentioning, but intentioning can occur without use (in this case, use of terms)”

This to me being one example to illustrate that meaning and use – although most often unified – are in fact not one and the same thing. Again, such that use is dependent upon meaning, with the latter being intentioning.

It gets more complex when addressing language as constituted of commonly understood words, but the same point, I believe, would still remain. Although, again, in vastly more complex ways.

But I'll just stick to this one example of slips of the tongue to evidence my claim.

There is a 'ghost in the ink' — Darkneos

End of discussion. :meh:

If intentions and purposes were somehow in the ink (for me that is pure fantasy) there would be no possibility of misunderstanding. — JuanZu

One: Its not a physical attribute of the ink. The intentions are what caused the ink to have the shapes that it does. And so it is inferred from the ink's shapes. It is as much in the ink as might be a spark in an exploding dynamite.

Secondly: How do you reason there would be no possibility of misunderstanding were this to be so (again, as just described)?

I was working on the presumption that you do not interpret meaning and use to be different in any respect. Is this correct? — javra

Meaning and purpose to be exact.

I have no problem with an intention being the cause of the characteristics of something written in ink. But it is one thing to be the cause and another to be the ghost in the ink or in the sound. Since the sound comes out of our mouth the intention is left behind.

If there is ghost in the ink it means that the intention and the purpose are transmitted without any imperfection or defect. So the listener or reader receives the intention, purpose and meaning completely, accurately and absolutely clear without any distortion.

Meaning and purpose to be exact. — Darkneos

OK. Got it. But it leaves me curious: how then is the following proposition in the OP to be interpreted in the context of "meaning and purpose are not different in any respect"?

With making meaning I don’t think you need purpose to do so. — Darkneos

(It might have been a slip of the tongue, in which case I could easily understand.)

End of discussion. — JuanZu

Wasn't really much of one, you clearly don't understand meaning and how it works and think the medium does anything.

One: Its not a physical attribute of the ink. The intentions are what caused the ink to have the shapes that it does. And so it is inferred from the ink's shapes. It is as much in the ink as might be a spark in an exploding dynamite.

Secondly: How do you reason there would be no possibility of misunderstanding were this to be so (again, as just described)? — javra

I wouldn't bother, they just repeat the same thing over and over hoping it's true.

In this case we are talking about the materiality of the signs, the sounds uttered, the ink, etc.... From a materialistic point of view, mine, there is no possibility that intentions travel through the air or are inside the ink. That is mentalism. — JuanZu

It is not, that is how meaning is made. From the lines we take to be words to mean certain things there is a "ghost in the ink". However due to our various histories and subjective views that meaning changes. There is nothing about the medium doing it.

What you're talking about isn't materialism, it's just dumb...

But misunderstandings are a fact of life. Which implies that if we accept the materialist thesis that denies that kind of mentalism we must assume that the medium, the sound, the ink, etc, has some independence with respect to purpose and intentionality, and an active role in the creation of meaning for a receiver (the hearer, the reader, etc). — JuanZu

Not even by materialism does that track for reasons already stated.

If there is ghost in the ink it means that the intention and the purpose are transmitted without any imperfection or defect. — JuanZu

It does not mean that, but there is intention in the ink in the word choice, even writing style, so much. There is nothing about the ink itself.

So the listener or reader receives the intention, purpose and meaning completely, accurately and absolutely clear without any distortion. — JuanZu

You're just making this up as you go along aren't you? Not to mention not even listening. Repeating something doesn't make it so and no materialist would agree with you. Though to be clear people can receive the intention, purpose, and meaning clearly without distortion depending on the relationship they had with the person. What is meaningless to someone is everything to another.

Like I said, you really don't understand how any of this works...

I have no problem with an intention being the cause of the characteristics of something written in ink. But it is one thing to be the cause and another to be the ghost in the ink or in the sound. Since the sound comes out of our mouth the intention is left behind. — JuanZu

For my part, I don't think its as easy as "leaving the intention behind" - this since it's the intention which is transmitted to another via the sound or ink or braille - but OK. We seem to at least agree in terms of the sounds, written letters, or braille patterns being intentionally caused by an agent, and this so as to transmit meaning from one agent to another.

For my part, I don't think its as easy as "leaving the intention behind" - this since it's the intention which is transmitted to another via the sound or ink or braille - but OK. We seem to at least agree in terms of the sounds, written letters, or braille patterns being intentionally caused by an agent, and this so as to transmit meaning from one agent to another. — javra

But the point is that they think there is something about the physical nature of the medium when that's not it. It's only the meaning we make out of such things, the medium just carries it. Sounds only have meaning because we assign it as such, otherwise it's nothing to us.

Even how you say something, the tone, the context, all that changes the meaning, not the medium itself. It's really all us, hence why straight materialism has limits in what it can explain (like emergence). We have misunderstandings because people have different subjective experiences, the medium isn't the issue.

I'd often cite the Barbie movie for how people thought it was lying to folks who said they thought it was for kids (they clearly didn't see the trailers). Or how people thought WandaVision was endorsing her reaction to enslaving a town (the series very clearly shows her response to losing Vision is BAD). The reason for these is different experiences and filters people interpret things through, not the medium.

From my point of view even the notion of transmission is problematic. Intentions and thoughts do not travel through the air. The only thing we have at hand as listeners and readers is ink and sound. So how can anything be transmitted? The thing is that nothing is transmitted. When we open our mouths to emit sounds to a listener what we do is cause meaning effects in that listener, causing the listener to invent meaning for himself. But nothing is transmitted. That meaning that is invented by the listener may be in communion with our meaning, but then it is a case of coincidence in meanings. In this sense sound and ink have an active role in the creation of meaning, because they are direct causes.

In this sense sound and ink have an active role in the creation of meaning, for they are direct causes. — JuanZu

They don't, they only have the meaning we give them. They aren't direct causes because they are inherently empty.

They have meaning because we have agreed on what certain arrangements and sounds communicate and how to interpret them. Without that context nothing happens.

So something is transmitted in a roundabout way. We also convey meaning through tone, context, imagery, etc. Nothing "causes meaning effects" because unless you are taught what all this sounds and etc are or mean then the medium does nothing. The listener doesn't invent meaning, not entirely. How we make meaning is a complex psychological affair, the medium has nothing if very little to do with it.

That meaning that is invented by the listener may be in communion with our meaning, but then it is a case of coincidence in meanings. — JuanZu

It's not because that's not how language or communication work. This is why straight materialism is limited in how it can understand the world, chiefly by positing anything material to begin with.

The only thing we have at hand as listeners and readers is ink and sound. So how can anything be transmitted? — JuanZu

By one agent interpreting the ink and sounds' forms in addition to discerning whence they originated and thereby understanding the intentions of the agent(s) from which these inks and sounds were resultant. Most of which we're so accustomed to that it occurs pretty much in fully unconscious manners on what some term "autopilot mode".

Also by not espousing the particular species of materialism you seem to currently endorse - which seems to preclude the very possibility of this.

Also by not espousing the particular species of materialism you seem to currently endorse - which seems to preclude the very possibility of this. — javra

That's what I meant by ignoring them because what they said does not track. If it were the medium and not us we wouldn't have so many cultures with different interpretations of reality. There is a "Ghost in the ink" because there is intent and purpose to a message being said and (like you mention) by trying to understand everything behind it you can understand what they were trying to convey. That's pretty much what historians do along with literary analysis in Literature.

His views just aren't supported by reality, if anything they're effectively arguing against communication and (ironically) refuting their case since apparently nothing they said is being transmitted to us. By their logic art wouldn't have the impact it does to people.

Never mind that materialism itself doesn't hold up in light of recent findings in quantum physics and that eliminative materialism is self refuting. Our understanding of the world is a model, built on concepts that only exist in our heads that we use to navigate the world, and our experience of reality shapes how we interpret things. Matter is useful for our day to day but according to new quantum physics findings what we take to be "solid" might not be such. Heck we don't even know what's at the fundamental level, all we can do is measure probabilities and hypotheticals.

By one agent interpreting the ink and sounds' forms in addition to discerning whence they originated and thereby understanding the intentions of the agent(s) from which these inks and sounds were resultant. — javra

If you look closely at what you have said, in no case is there a transmission of something. You speak of indirect relations as that of an agent presupposing what another agent means. But as it happens you are simply inferring from the ink and sound, but you never get inside the mind of the other agent, so to speak. Since there is no such thing as passing from one head to another, you have to infer from the ink and sound (and also from its context), which implies an active role for both. Here inferring is nothing other than creating meaning for itself which we indirectly link to another agent. But there is nothing that is transmitted.

If you look closely at what you have said, in no case is there a transmission of something. — JuanZu

There is though, you're doing it now. Language is transmission albeit mentally because these words only make sense in a shared understanding. It's why Wittgenstein argued that a private language is incoherent.

We assign meanings to words and use them to communicate, that's why we use certain ones when we feel a certain way. But this is imperfect and prone to error. But javra is right, when you "Decode" so to speak their message then their feelings and purpose and meaning are transmitting. Hence why materialism (your version of it) doesn't explain what's happening, and can't.

Since there is no such thing as passing from one head to another, you have to infer from the ink and sound (and also from its context), which implies an active role for both. — JuanZu

There is no active role in the ink or sound, it's all the person. The ink and sound only carry meaning if there is someone else. It's like the zen koan of one hand clapping.

Here inferring is nothing other than creating meaning for itself which we indirectly link to another agent. But there is nothing that is transmitted. — JuanZu

Again, there is. That is literally the point of language. Otherwise by your logic you have said nothing. It's not indirectly, these sounds and ink only have meaning to us because we made it so, that's as direct as you can get. Yeah inferring is part of the imperfection because they could be lying or not finding the words, but ink and sound are only one method of transmitting something.

Again, you can't see how your logic breaks down when you really look closely at this. You keep insisting it's the ink or sound when all evidence shows that's false.

It's weird that you are hung up on whether it's indirect or not, because our whole experience of reality is indirect. The brain just constructs a best guess of what's out there and it's a smoothed version for our convenience.

If you want to get technical with your materialism, sound doesn't exist. Outside our heads it's only pressure waves, our brains take that and convert it into sound. Same thing with color. So as you see, a lot of reality is our interpretation of it. The only meaning is what we make and assign and that allows us to transmit how we are feeling and thinking.

Language is a public sphere so the very act of writing and talking is transmitting something, despite your insistence otherwise.

I am fairly certain that in PI Wittgenstein says specifically that meaning is often, but not always, use. — Count Timothy von Icarus

There are a lot of nuances to use as meaning (ostensive definitions, family resemblance, etc), but use is king in the PI.

But what determines use? Wouldn't the causes of use and usefulness play an important role in explaining language too?

For instance, the way we use words, the reason we find it useful to use them in certain ways, is dependent on the properties of what the words refer to. Across disparate languages that are developed in relative isolation, the use of terms for certain natural phenomena will be similar because the things the terms describe are similar. Hence, meaning can be traced back, in at least some cases, to reference. Otherwise, our use of "dog" would have nothing to do with dogs, which doesn't seem right. But if the usefulness and use of "dog" is determined to some large degree by dogs, then use is going to be in some sense downstream of being. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Language users determine use, and it's important to recognize that no one person determines use. If someone, a scientist, creates a new word to express a new idea, that word will not get a foothold unless other language users start using it in the same way.

Sure reference, for example, ostensive definition is a way of learning words, but ultimately use is the driving force. If I teach a child by pointing to a pencil and saying, "Pencil," that is a tool that informs use. How do we know if the child understands? We observe how they use the word across a wide range of contexts or language games. If the child points to a cup and says pencil, then we know that they aren't using the word correctly. There has to be community agreement (cultural and social practices otherwise referred to as forms of life).

Use, for the most part, isn't determined by the thing itself (the dog); it's determined by language users and the explicit or implicit rules involved in the respective language game. What we use as a name for a dog could be almost anything.

Second, I had forgot Grayling's full example. People can use "QED" and the like consistently, in the correct way, and not know their meaning. However, consider "kalb." It means dog in Arabic. You now know what kalb means. However, if you don't know Arabic, you don't know how to use it in a sentence. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I don't think that people can use a word correctly (consistently) without having some idea of what the word means. Maybe they can't express the meaning, but they still use it correctly. As long as they are using the word correctly in a variety of language games, then they know how to use the word. Meaning again is use, not determined by giving some dictionary definition.

I might not be able to use "kalb" in a sentence, but I can say "kalb" and point to a dog. This demonstrates that I understand how the word is used in Arabic. Use doesn't always require complete sentences.

I tried to answer most of your concerns.

Don't bother. You really believe that thoughts, feelings, intentions and purposes travel through the air when two people talk to each other. Imagine a tape recording where something you say is recorded. You have the tape and you literally believe that there are thoughts, emotions and so on on the tape. That is a type of mentalism and magical thinking that I do not share and is patently false.

Sure reference, for example, ostensive definition is a way of learning words, but ultimately use is the driving force. If I teach a child by pointing to a pencil and saying, "Pencil," that is a tool that informs use. How do we know if the child understands? We observe how they use the word across a wide range of contexts or language games. If the child points to a cup and says pencil, then we know that they aren't using the word correctly. There has to be community agreement (cultural and social practices otherwise referred to as forms of life).

Use, for the most part, isn't determined by the thing itself (the dog); it's determined by language users and the explicit or implicit rules involved in the respective language game. What we use as a name for a dog could be almost anything. — Sam26

That's sort of why Wittgenstein said a private language is incoherent, language is exclusively public and carries the meaning we agree it does. It's how we can communicate anything.

Don't bother. You really believe that thoughts, feelings, intentions and purposes travel through the air when two people talk to each other. Imagine a tape recording where something you say is recorded. You have the tape and you literally believe that there are thoughts, emotions and so on on the tape. That is a type of mentalism and magical thinking that I do not share and is patently false. — JuanZu

Because that's literally how language works. Thought, intent, feeling, purpose, these are what make the sounds and lines into words that carry weight. It's how you can type and argue your point. Under hard materialism this would be impossible because there would be no words or meaning.

There are thoughts, emotions, and "so on" on the tape because that's how language works. It carries the meaning we imbue onto it and our intent and emotion and what we want to get across. That's why we use it. You're thinking too narrowly about it. Heck the different cultures with different worldviews around the globe prove your position wrong.

It's not "mentalism" or "magical thinking" it's literally how language functions, you're doing it whether you accept it or not. If your logic was right you'd be wrong because nothing you said would carry meaning or anything like that because it would just be a bunch of "lines" and not even that. Ink would not be ink and sound would not be sound, I wouldn't even be able to read what you're arguing. I'm guessing you wouldn't understand art either or other forms of communication.

You really don't understand how your "materialism" isn't supported by reality and is self-refuting. You seem to think language exists in a vacuum and that's obviously false, never mind the differences across cultures proving you wrong.