Argument Options

[Simon Kirby]

NWNREADER said something in another post that interested me, and rather than divert that thread I though I'd start a new one. It's about the art of argument - something that we all have an interest in.

NWNREADER said:

I still don't see how you can 'know' what RG intended. You may be correct, but at best you only believe you know what he really means. The politico in RG will usually mean he leaves room for adjustment, as with all such folk,

It seems intuitive - that the protagonist has some pure coherent idea in her head, and that the clarity of that thought is corrupted by the imperfect medium of the written word, and that the only person who can faithfully understand the meaning of those words is the author.

I don't agree.

All you have is the words, and there's really no concrete sense apart from those in which the author meant anything, so you're free to try to hang on those words any interpretation you can. Indeed, even the idea that other people have thoughts in their heads as we ourselves do is conjecture - I know I have thoughts in my head, and I have this notion that as you're kind of like me then you probably have a similar thing going on inside your noggin (what philosophers call "theory of mind"), but there's absolutely no way of knowing.

This was the essence of the Turing Test - that there would be no way of telling whether you were talking to a human, or a computer. More troubling is whether the computer who is indistinguishable from a human is actually self-aware and has artificial consciousness. Likewise with non-humans, there's a school of thought that humans are unique amongst animals in being self-aware and that by definition dogs and monkeys and dolphins and rats can't share that uniquely human characteristic, but unless you invoke some religious dogma there's simply no saying.

So I say all you have is the words. If the protagonist is around and she doesn't agree with your understanding of her words then she's free to clarify the original words, but if she just doesn't like an interpretation of what she said and has to re-phrase then often what's going on is that she hadn't thought through the implications of her original thoughts, and it wasn't so much that the words were an imperfect vehicle for the idea, but that the idea itself was poorly formed.

It's also perfectly valid to put an interpretation on an author's words that the author wouldn't necessarily agree with, because the author doesn't own the interpretation - that's the Humpty Dumpty fallacy: "'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.'" It's really down to the protagonist to say what she means, and if she can't do that very well it's a good indication that the idea in her head just isn't that coherent.

[MontyPython]

So are you here for a 5 minute argument or a 10 minute argument?

Sorry I'll get my coat!

[Andy Capp]

This is especially true if you add in the flexible nature of the meaning of words and phrases, viz, there is plenty of scope for the thought to be misrepresented. And this is before we get on to the idea of people's preconceptions. Of course, a lot of this could be improved if we all had a better command of English. Sadly, some of us are simply not gifted in that direction. When I start to read about English grammar my eyes glaze over and I get confused, there are too many 'big' and confusing words to know. And even then, there are exceptions to rules.

Incidentally, in the previous thread mentioned above, I did say that I feared we had a straw man incident, however, that wasn't strictly true. What we appeared to have was 'quote mining', or 'contextomy'. This is where one takes selective parts of a statement (or passage of text) out of context to distort the original meaning. I think this can happen with genuine intent, but other times it can be for mischievous purposes.

[On the edge]

Interesting observation! Quite Biblical, John 1 v1 says In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.. So is that suggesting that before anything at all there were words and words are therefore intelligence?

[Simon Kirby]

Interesting observation! Quite Biblical, John 1 v1 says In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.. So is that suggesting that before anything at all there were words and words are therefore intelligence?

What's curious is that Aristotle used Logos (λόγος) in the sense of argument, and that's also pretty much what Descartes coined with cogito ergo sum. I wouldn't like to suggest what the author of the fourth gospel had in mind (which is really rather the point), but if I were to put my own interpretation on it I'd say it meant pretty much the same as Descartes and Aristotle.

Interpreting scripture is a mainstay of religions, but now not only do you not know the mind of the author, but you have to place some supernatural trust in the author knowing the mind of her chosen deity. Send three and fourpence...

[Andy Capp]

I suppose you can draw a similarity between art and language. The are both symbolic and convey a message.

[pbonnay]

I suppose you can draw a similarity between art and language. The are both symbolic and convey a message.

Passing the cost on for those that want it, a la VOSA you pillock!

So, you meant (Jason) Pollock?

[On the edge]

I suppose you can draw a similarity between art and language. The are both symbolic and convey a message.

Yes, suppose you can! A picture is supposed to be 1000 words and all that. What is a word? In some languages it's a picture.

[Simon Kirby]

I suppose you can draw a similarity between art and language. The are both symbolic and convey a message.

Very much so. Language works by invoking sensual experience through metaphor - so much of what makes language rich and expressive is its ability to engage imagery, and that has to be because primarily we understand the world through sensual experience - largely what we see, but touch, taste, smell, and hear too. Art does that even more directly, but the cool thing is that when we look at a painting, or hear a piece of music, we don't just giggle with pleasure because it's pretty, we also get the layered meaning - I think that imagery cuts through our conscious and talks to us more directly.

Take this poem by Randall Jarrell:

Death of the Ball Turret Gunner

From my mother's sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.

Those images are worth a thousand words.

[On the edge]

Knowing exactly what someone thinks is probably almost impossible for much of the time because we are (for the most part) reasoning or honing our thoughts. That itself involves words.

The 'straw man' thing is interesting. Few of us have fully formed and perfect ideas (unless you are a LibDem!!!!) and the straw man approach is a recognised management approach to test out proposals. The originator maps out the idea in as much detail as they have thought - their peers then 'fill the gaps' so to speak. Often it will work out very different to the original idea.