humanities.philosophy.objectivism

On Apr 4, 2:30 pm, Mark Sieving wrote:

> And how does the medium in which the words are recorded affect the
> meaning? I suppose you are saying that a parrot doesn't understand
> the meaning of the words it says. But does a parrot that has been
> taught to say "two plus two is four" have less understanding than a
> tape recorder on which these words have been recorded?

It doesn't. The medium doesn't matter. I think it's deceptive to talk
about whether a "statement" is true or false. If the statement is just
a sequence of words, the issue of its truth or falsity is whether it
expresses a relationship between concepts that corresponds with
reality. But the statement is a sequence of words, not concepts, and
there is no "one right way" to map words to concepts. Ordinarily, we
mean the concepts as the person who uttered the sentence held them.
But then if that person ceases to exist, so do those concepts. The
statement now refers to concepts that no longer exist.

> But regardless of that, I can read or hear the words and understand
> them. The words have meaning, and the statement is true or false,
> regardless of the origin or medium of the communication. Is the
> statement "One Plus Three Equals Four" true?

Yes, in the sense that, to me, it expresses a relationship between
concepts that I hold that accurately corresponds with reality.

> Would it matter if I
> told you that the statement was randomly generated in a spreadsheet?
> Would it matter if I didn't tell you that?

It would matter because then it would no longer be true in the
ordinary sense, which is whether the concepts it corresponded to in
the speaker or originator correspond with reality.

DS