From: wstatler@sandbox.kenn.wa.us (William Statler)
Subject: Re: Semantics of "to be"
Summary: Yet more on "isness"
Organization: The Sandbox, Public Access HP-UX
  <19cp8pINNa05@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu>, <BusA8E.6G2@unx.sas.com>,
  <1992Sep22.135438.1480@nocusuhs.nnmc.navy.mil>
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1992 05:13:50 GMT

In article <1992Sep17.234710.16057@sandbox.kenn.wa.us>, 
wstatler@sandbox.kenn.wa.us (William Statler, yours truly) wrote:
>[a whole lot of stuff about "to be" and "isness"]
to which I have so far received three very intelligent responses from 
Bonita Kale, Fred Welden, and D M Yoshikami.  I don't know if I'm 
following proper newsgroup etiquette, but I'll respond to all three in 
one posting.

In article <1992Sep22.135438.1480@nocusuhs.nnmc.navy.mil>, 
yoshi@nocusuhs.nnmc.navy.mil (D M Yoshikami) wrote:
>This assertion [by Robert Anton Wilson] that removing "is" from the 
>language sets us in the so-called modern universe sounds like mishegoss 
>or at best Intellectual one-upmanship.

Yes, I figured it might sound that way if I didn't quote vast portions of 
his book.  I'll have to stick to a few short examples.  Let's start with 
"X is a Y" sentences like "Mary is a cripple."

In article <19cp8pINNa05@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu>, 
bf455@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Bonita Kale) wrote:
>Isn't this part of what certain groups are fighting about, when they 
>want to be called "people with X" rather than "X victims" or just "X"?  
>It's specifically the noun form of is-ness they object to.

Yes -- and why?  Compare "Mary is a cripple" with "Mary has a crippling 
condition."  Don't they convey the same information?  Let me jump to...

...article <BusA8E.6G2@unx.sas.com>, in which sasafw@dobo.unx.sas.com 
(Fred Welden) wrote:
>...each sentence carves out an area of meaning-space.  A simple vague 
>sentence (e.g. "I feel bad.") carves out a very large area of meaning-
>space, and conveys correspondingly little information.

It would appear at first glance that the two descriptions of Mary carve 
out very similar areas of meaning space.  Both describe a characteristic 
of Mary.  But it seems to me that "Mary is a cripple" also carries an 
_unstated_ secondary message: "This is Mary's most significant defining 
characteristic.  You may pigeonhole her with other cripples."

Fred Welden:
>All communication rests on a statistical foundation.  That is, if you 
>think you understand what I'm saying, you have in mind a group of 
>possible meanings with likelihoods assigned to them that range from "He 
>almost certainly doesn't mean THAT." to "He almost certainly does mean 
>THIS." The more different sentences I use to tell you the same thing, 
>the tighter the distribution of likely meanings becomes, until at some 
>point you are willing to say I mean one thing only.

I like this idea, and I think it models "real" communication pretty well 
_if_ the listener takes the time to analyze what is being said.  But I 
think most communication also contains an element of "conditioned 
response."  For example, tell a randomly-chosen American that "Joe is a 
Communist," and he will most likely develop an instant mental image of 
Joe as a scowling, deceitful sort who works for scowling, deceitful 
foreigners, to the detriment of good Americans -- sort of a "Platonic 
ideal" Communist.  (And it doesn't really matter whether the local 
dialect or language leaves out the verb; "Joe a Communist" still contains 
the "is of identity" concept.)

Let me present a different example, this time out of physics:
"A photon is a particle."
"A photon is a wave."

Twentieth century physics has shown that photons may act like particles 
or like waves depending on how they are observed.  In fact, many 
experiments have demonstrated photons acting like waves and particles at 
the sime time.  (Recently, similar results have been obtained with whole 
atoms.)  Many physicists believe that one can make no valid statement 
about what a photon (or an atom) "is", but only about what it _does_.  As 
a result, many have (unconsciously?) dropped "is" from their scientific 
papers.

Should we care?  I used to think that this issue only mattered to 
particle physicists, but "non-isness" is starting to look like a 
fundamental feature of the universe.

We can't blame the verb "to be" for all this.  We can't blame a Mercator 
projection for failing to show a spherical Earth either, but I'd hate to 
be stuck with one if I were plotting an intercontinental airline flight.  
I think Wilson was making a similar point: as a tool for dealing with the 
modern world, "English-with-isness" fares poorly.

I've also got a more down-to-earth reason for wanting to write without 
"is": I use it too much.  I got most of my early writing practice from 
generating political diatribes in college.  And I found you can really 
generate some impressive-sounding logical arguments if you use "is" a 
lot:

"Look, property is theft, right?  Therefore theft is property.  Therefore 
this ship is mine, Okay?"
   - Zaphod Beeblebrox

One more thing...

D M Yoshikami:
>Existentialism doesn't exist anyways :-) and any illusion that Life is 
>an illusion is an illusion.

...Soon to be immortalized as two new Quotes Of The Day on my BBS %->

==========================================
Bill Statler   wstatler@sandbox.kenn.wa.us