Of course language is wholly abstract.

What does the sentence "Fort Howard stock in on fire!" mean?

Every listener takes a different meaning from every single sentence because every word has an infinite number of definitions and an infinite number of connotations. We each learn to try to parse sentences in terms of what the speaker means But the reality is that every experiment shows this is not ever possible. It's not only words and sentences that are abstract but the formatting and the way we each think that is abstract.

The sentence above might mean that Wall Street is reinterpreting the value of Ft Howard stock much higher. It might mean their warehouse is burning (oxidizing its contents). It might mean sales are up sharply. It might mean the pallets of Ft Howard paper products left out to collect rain are instead burning. It could be a reference to rolling stock or some process inside the factory. With a little creativity almost any meaning might be taken.

The fact of the matter is no matter what is said by by someone who disagrees most people are prone to parse it in mysterious ways so that it is false.

It is irrelevant that only I say our language is abstract because it most obviously is since every word means only what the speaker says and no one will parse it to mean exactly that. Being right without anyone agreeing with you makes you no less right The fact that people rarely or never want to argue my points does not make me wrong.

The fact is I believe Ancient Language was NOT abstract and was mathematical in nature Every utterance had a single meaning because every word was fixed and grammar said what the meaning was. If you took the wrong meaning from AL it was immediately apparent because the resultant would be gobbledty gook that was meaningless and sounded like word salad. We have a word salad understanding of ancient people, ancient culture, and ancient knowledge. This could not have happened if Young had solved the Rosetta Stone. Since the language of the Rosetta Stone had lost most of its mathematical properties it might not have been possible but if it were done by Young then the change in language from metaphysical to abstract would be obvious.

____________
Man fears the pyramid, time fears man.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/20/2022 01:43PM by cladking.