[ExI] Meaningless Symbols

John Clark jonkc at bellsouth.net
Tue Jan 12 20:35:44 UTC 2010


On Jan 12, 2010, Gordon Swobe wrote:
> 
> It seems then that you want to understand the meaning of "understanding". But that shows me that you already understand it.

I understand the definition of understanding, but I don't understand the definition of definition.
> 
> Someone here tried the other day to re-define understanding in such a way that brains do not really do this thing called "understanding" -- that they do something else instead that we only call understanding. 

Homer didn't write the Iliad and the Odyssey, they were written by another blind poet from Smyrna in 850BC who just happened to have the same name.

> Sometimes you just have to hang your hat on things. I hang my hat on, among other things, the common sense notion that healthy people with developed brains can understand the meanings of words and symbols.

Because they act as if they do.

> It seems pretty obvious that we do it even if I can't tell you exactly how we do it.

Because they act as if they do.

> If I did not think so[...]

Then you'd think you were the only conscious being in the universe, and nobody can live like that.

 John K Clark







> , and if you also did not think so, then we would not be communicating with symbols right now on ExI.
> 
> -gts
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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