Re: New programming language - Extention

On 2 May 2008, at 7:17 am, Gerhard Wolfstieg wrote:

> Am Tue, 29 Apr 2008 11:38:50 +1200
> schrieb "Richard A. O'Keefe" <ok@...>:
>> Never in the history of the universe has a WORD grasped any part of
>> the meaning of anything.
>
> I disagree. With its sounding a word can have at least one aspect of
> its meaning.  For example take the English 'tree' and the German  
> 'Baum':

> Both point to the same, 'tree' shows the aspect of the high growing,
> 'Baum' means the widespread archaic. And therefore there are no two
> words with the same meaning.

Er, how does this relate to my point?
I have no idea what you mean by 'with its sounding':  neither 'tree'
nor 'Baum' is in any way onomatopoeic or iconic.
Checking in the OED etymology, the ancestors and relatives of 'tree'
mean "wood", "log", "timber", and even "spear"; there certainly seems
to be no inherit reference to 'high growing'.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Maori word "raakau" also means (according
to Williams, the classic dictionary for Maori) "tree", "wood", "timber",
"stick", "mast", "spar", "weapon".  It looks very much as though people
tend to think about trees in terms of what they can make with them,
rather than their 'aspect of the high growing'.
For that matter, in constructions like "switching tree", there is not
only no height and no growth, but not even any timber; only the idea
of branching is present (via metaphor).

Let's take another word:  "poke".  In the dictionary I am looking at
right now, it means "appear as a spirit, haunt" (amongst other things).
Just how does the word "poke" know which of these meanings it is
supposed to grasp?

I never said anything about whether there are two words that have the
same meaning or not.  What I said was that the ***WORDS*** don't grasp
anything.  Words have neither brains nor souls nor hands; what could a
word grasp anything with?

I thought I was making the obvious point that words as such have no
mental capacities and therefore cannot grasp any meanings; the things
that grasp meanings are *PEOPLE*, arguably linguistic communities, and
perhaps including some dogs and the now sadly deceased African Grey
parrot, Alex.
>

> This point of view has let me trying to implement something as a
> structure with a variable (set of) slot(s) and a definition of its  
> type
> to have variable possibilities and constraints of linking to other
> structures of this kind (even recursively ...). These structures could
> be words in contrary to symbols.

How?  You are talking about mathematical constructions (some kind of
graph, perhaps).  They are symbols.  They have no intrinsic meaning.
They only bear some meaning for another person if *you* tell the other
person how you want them interpreted.  Certainly "these structures"
cannot "BE words", although you could use them to stand for or point
to words.

Our culture is saturated in "mechanical" words; written words on  
surfaces,
words "spoken" by automatic telephone systems, words mindlessly  
reiterated
until you wish a meteor would fall on the advertising agency responsible
for this meretricious drivel.  We get used to the idea that words mean
things all by themselves.  But they don't.  "Pie" doesn't mean "a food
encased in pastry" OR "a bird, the cry of which was regarded as an omen
of war" until some *person* has used.  If we go out through a door  
marked
"exit" and fall fifty stories, the paint is innocent and the door is
innocent, it was the painter who painted it and the person who ordered  
the
painter to do so who are culpable.  Many of the "mechanical" words I
complained of about (and do read "The Future Does Not Compute") are due
to people who are *hiding*.  I do appreciate the ads for Dilmah tea
because the man who appears in them really is the founder and head of  
the
company speaking in propria persona, and the words we hear are really
intended by someone who is taking responsibility for them.  But those  
are
a noble exception.
>

> Could this be an approach for thinking about new programming  
> languages?

That's for you to find out.  Me, my doubt on the subject is exceeding  
great.


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