SUO: RE: Re: Monosemy, Semantics, and Natural Language
Hi John,
...
> Please note that none of this is the result of language
> or notation. Meanings grow and change with every new
> development of any kind. The only way to prevent meanings
> from changing is to stop growth -- i.e., to destroy all life.
>
> Summary: Your hopes of legislating the meanings of a
> significant number of concepts are (1) hopelessly unrealistic,
> (2) impossible to enforce, and (3) a disaster waiting in
> the wings for anybody foolish enough to attempt it.
I don't by any means disagree with your conclusion, but I am not convinced
the situation is as clear-cut as you suggest. Your argument takes a very
anthropocentric approach to language, which isn't unreasonable for obvious
reasons, but I would suggest that perhaps in this context isn't entirely
complete. There are machines in this environment. For a fairly minimal case,
consider a little thermometer attached to a I/O card on a computer. This
computer is networked. Calls may come from elsewhere on the network - the
query "temperature?" will return a value. The original (human) users of the
system used the Fahrenheit scale, then they changed to Celsius. For them
there may have been meaning drift - for the machine, none. How does such a
system fit in the dynamic world of meaning?
> Growth and change are inevitable. I suggest that you learn
> to live with it, accommodate it, take advantage of it, and
> rejoice in it.
Hallelujah!
Cheers,
Danny.