🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <2374@mmintl.UUCP> franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams) writes:
>In article <164@thirdi.UUCP> sarge@thirdi.UUCP (Sarge Gerbode) writes:
>>So, there are the following categories of messages:
>>
>>1.  Those that make statements.
>>2.  Those that try to evoke specific experiences.
>>3.  Those that stimulate and act as "inkblots" for the imagination of the
>>    audience.
>>
>>Of these three forms of messages, only the first has truth value or
>>(therefore) mendaciousness.
>
>OK, although I would quibble about category 2.  Suppose someone writes a
>book in which he attempts to get the reader to feel what it is like to drive
>a truck.  Suppose that the author does not actually know what it is like to
>drive a truck, and therefore the experience evoked is all wrong.  Or suppose
>he *does* what it is like to drive a truck, but deliberately evokes a
>different (perhaps more exciting) experience.  I think there are grounds for
>calling either of these cases mendacious.

The diciding factor would be the intention of the author.  If the author
intended to make a statement to the reader about what it felt like to drive a
truck, then he could be mendacious, and it would be type 1, not type 2.  If he
only intended to give the reader a "trip", then it was not mendacious and it
was type 2.  I don't think you can lie without intending to say something!

>Still, I think the original claim referred to the *symbols*, not the
>*messages*.  Can you imagine symbols which can be used for messages of types
>2 and 3, but not of type 1?

Sure! The Ankh, the Cross, the Swastica, Mandalas.

Of course human nature is extremely resourceful, and a person can use almost
*anything* to lie and deceive others.  A person can rearrange the bed clothes
to make it seem as though he *hasn't* been screwing his mistress in it, of he
can frame another person by planting false evidence.  Detective stories are
full of examples of cases where things not normally thought of as signs of
symbols are used to lie and deceive (or create false impressions).  So there's
no reason teh Cross, the Ankh, the Swastica can't be used deceptively.  But
it's not really because they are symbols that they can be so used.

>I'm not
>yet prepared to accept it as part of the definition.

Me neither.  Being used to lie or deceive is neither a necessary nor a
sufficient condition for being a symbol.
-- 
"Absolute knowledge means never having to change your mind."

Sarge Gerbode
Institute for Research in Metapsychology
950 Guinda St.
Palo Alto, CA 94301
UUCP:  pyramid!thirdi!sarge