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Discussion » Questions » Communication » Are words meaningless and dependent upon what we impute to them? They have no value alone on their own? Why?

Are words meaningless and dependent upon what we impute to them? They have no value alone on their own? Why?

Posted - January 13, 2017

Responses


  • It's a curious question and the obvious answer is that words can have no meaning at all until we link them to something, or until we give them a value that places them in a relationship with other meaningful words.

    On another site I recently answered the question, "How do you want to die?" I wrote that I wanted to be gunned down by an invader from the planet Zorg sometime in the 25th century. As far as I know Zorg did nogt exist. Now it does. And it signifies an unknown planet, somewhere out there in the galaxy, that is home to a warlike race of being.

    BUT...

    A man named Rupert Sheldrake postulated an idea he called morphic resonance. I'm not very familiar with it but his idea is that if an idea is widely accepted in parts of the world it may have significance in other, unconnected parts. As an experiment he chose two groups of similarly skilled young school children and asked each to learn a poem written in another language. One group was given a poem written in nonsense syllables -- words that had no meaning anywhere. The other group was taught a poem written in Japanese. 

    The first group struggled and basically failed. The second group, even though they had to work hard at it, managed to learn their poem. 

    Sheldrake maintained that if a large group of people in one part of the world "know" something then that knowledge, in some way, may be accessible to people in other parts of the world. 

    It's a pretty far out theory and does have much respectability, but it's quite interesting to think about.
      January 13, 2017 7:09 AM MST
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  • 113301
    Sounds like quantum physics Didge. If I do something here somewhere out there with no visible connection there will be a reaction. What that means is we are connected in many ways observable and invisible. We don't know all we need to know to understand the why of it. I doubt we ever will. That is what makes physics so fascinating and why if you like it you will probably also be a scifi fan which is precisely what I am. For example if there are actually 25 dimensions and all we are able to perceive is 3 because of our human limitations it is reasonable and logical to assume that in those 22 other dimensions which we cannot access all the answers to all the mysteries will be found.  That's what I suspect exists. I read a long-out-of-print book about 2-dimensional creatures living in a 3-dimensional world and what the world looked liked to them. I think it was called FLATLAND. The drawings were mind-bending. Food for thought. Thank you for your thoughtful reply! :)
      January 13, 2017 7:52 AM MST
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  • Interesting response, Rosie. Thanks. 

    Somebody suggested yesterday that you and I might be contemporaries. I didn't think that was possible for a youngster like yourself. What does 1937 sound like? 
      January 13, 2017 7:54 AM MST
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  • 22891
    depends on what words they are
      January 13, 2017 12:51 PM MST
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