SUO: Re: Monosemy, Semantics, and Natural Language
Danny,
Instead of using the terms "word" or "concept",
I would prefer to talk more broadly about "signs".
Every word or concept is a sign, but so are many
manifestations such as smoke (which "means" fire)
or a weather vane (which indicates the direction
of the wind). There are an enormous number of
different kinds of signs, and they can have
different meanings to different interpreters.
A farmer, for example, can interpret the signs
of wind, weather, and nature with much greater
depth and understanding than a city dweller.
Or consider a lecture at a conference to a
varied audience. Every listener has a different
range of experience and a different way of
interpreting the same words and sentences.
Some may have less understanding of the subject
matter than the speaker, and some may have a
deeper understanding. It is highly unlikely
that any two people in the room will have
exactly the same interpretation in all respects.
DA> 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?
The sign that comes back is a token of a given type.
That token may be interpreted in many different
ways. Even if everybody recognizes it as saying 30
degrees Celcius, one person may consider it warm,
another may consider it normal running temperature
for that particular device, and a third may have
no idea whether 30 C is good, bad, or indifferent.
John