ONT Re: Model Theory
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JA = Jon Awbrey
JC = John Collier
JA: I am going to pick up on the following exchange:
JC: It's a dumb system, but if math (or logic)
is just a meaningless formalism, then I
don't see a good reason to exclude it.
JA: We have already agreed that it's meaningful.
We are just haggling over the denominations
of senses that it might most sensibly have.
JC: I should have caught this earlier. Actually, I don't think
it is meaningful, though it might appear to be meaningful.
No, the antecedent of "it" in my statement was mathematics,
not the straw-system that you cobbled together -- does one
cobble straw, or only constrew it? -- anyway, are we on
the same page yet?
Aside from that, my point is that there are many different kinds of meaning
besides the straightforward denotative sort -- just for instance, there is
the "functional" meaning of rites and rotes, in the original sociological
sense of the word "functional", not the more recent inversion of it.
So, the fact that you tried to use this example to illustrate some
point means that it had some meaning to you, otherwise there would
have been no quantum of motivation sufficient to the attempt.
Jon Awbrey
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