From: cegtitd@prism.gatech.EDU (Tim Dodd)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: Religion & Physics Don't Mix
Date: 6 Nov 92 15:06:31 GMT
Organization: Georgia Institute of Technology

In article <1992Nov5.221645.26360@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU+ crb7q@kelvin.seas.Virginia.EDU (Cameron Randale Bass) writes:
+In article <73795@hydra.gatech.EDU+ cegtitd@prism.gatech.EDU (Tim Dodd) writes:
++Words can also refer to concepts.  A word can be regarded as meaningful
++if the concept it refers to exists, but if there are no real referents
++for the concept, then the concept is meaningless in the same way as a
++word would be.
+
+     How can a concept *not* exist?  Simply actualizing it provides
+     existence.

This is true, but if the concept has no correspondence to any elements
in reality, or is defined in such a way that such a correspndence can
never be established, then by definition, the concept is meaningless.
I did not say anything about concepts not existing, but about whether
or not they should be regarded as meaningful.

++Since there is no law disallowing the existence of meaningless words or
++concepts, one can in fact carry on quite detailed and apparently learned
++discussions of great technicality over concepts which are in fact meaningless.
+
+     Feel free to define any concept that you like as 'meaningless'.
+     However, you seem to think that existence gives meaning (and I tend
+     to agree to here), so there are *no* concepts that are 'meaningless'.

In order to judge whether a particular concept is meaningful, it is not enough
to ask if the concept exists.  Even asking the question makes it clear that
it does.  One must ask if the concept has any real referents.  If it
cannot be shown that such referents exist, then the concept is meaningless
as it does not refer to anything.

++Philosophers & theologians often do this without giving even a thought to
++whether their subject pertains to anything outside their conceptual
++universe.
+
+     How, pray tell, can a subject exist outside the 'conceptual universe.'
+     I can see how a subject might exist outside an individual's
+     'conceptual universe', but if a subject exists, it seems to be
+     a part of the 'conceptual universe'.

Again, you have not paid attention to what I said.  I was not speaking of
a "subject existing outside of a conceptual universe" but of whether or
not the "subject *pertains* to anything outside" the conceptual universe
(emphasis added).

++It is not difficult to fall into a mode of thought wherein it is implicitly
++assumed that just because we have a word for something, that word is
++necessarily meaningful (i.e., refers to something real).  If we wish to
++acquire the truth, this is something which must be guarded against.
+
+     Well, you have a rather odd way of looking at the concepts of 
+     'meaning' and 'reality'.  Am I to take it that concepts are defined
+     as 'existing' and 'meaningful' and 'real' only when *you* want them
+     to be meaningful.  This seems perfectly consistent, but it is probably
+     not widely shared.

No, this is exactly what I am arguing against!  Meaning is established
by the semantic mapping between words or concepts and their referents.
Since the existence of these referents must be empirically verifiable
in principle, and reality is something we all share, then the presence
or absence of meaning is something we can all agree on.

++You cannot render something real by altering the definition of "reality".
++To do so amounts to nothing more than playing with words and imparts no
++useful information.  Indeed, loose terminology can be very misleading
++to the unguarded mind.
+
+     Am I to take it that a definition of 'reality' that denies as meaningless
+     much of the conceptual basis of philosophy and religion and thought
+     is not misleading and is the sign of a guarded mind?
+
+                           dale bass

Absolutely!

Tim

"Most men do not think things in the way that they encounter them, nor
do they recognize what they experience, but believe their own opinions."
     -- Heraclitus (5th century B.C., tr. C. H. Kahn)
-- 
Tim Dodd, Research Scientist, Georgia Tech:  cegtitd@prism.gatech.edu
Newsgroups: sci.physics