Are words Objective or Subjective?

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by james boag on May 7, 2012 at 1:20pm

All words are qualifications and/or limitations. All words are necessarily subjective, as all meaning, is biologically dependent/consciousness.

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Permalink Reply by james boag on May 7, 2012 at 1:21pm

All words are qualifications and/or limitations. All words are necessarily subjective, as all meaning, is biologically dependent/consciousness.

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Permalink Reply by james boag on May 7, 2012 at 1:22pm

All words are qualifications and/or limitations. All words are necessarily subjective, as all meaning, is biologically dependent/consciousness.

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Permalink Reply by james boag on May 7, 2012 at 1:22pm

All words are qualifications and/or limitations. All words are necessarily subjective, as all meaning, is biologically dependent/consciousness.

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Permalink Reply by leveni on May 8, 2012 at 9:46am

Hi James, 

Are you saying words can only be subjective?

And, are you saying they can not be objective?

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Permalink Reply by Tonya Wynn on May 7, 2012 at 4:48pm

EEEK!!!   Seems to me like words can be either subjective OR objective, depending on context, tone, and who is using them.  Words are well known to change meaning over time and even place.  The word 'liberal', for instance, I hear used to be closer to the meaning of 'libertarian'.  Ideally, words would keep one meaning (and spelling) over long periods of time, but they don't always.  Lawyers have jobs in order to untangle language.

My most hated recent word change is the word "troops', so often heard on the news.  'Troops" is a plural word meaning a bunch of soldiers/military, in a unit, probably.  But, today 'Troops" means, wrongly, military personnel.  When the newscaster says twenty troops were killed, it isn't 20 times, say, 12.  They, wrongly, mean 20 people. 

Ideally, words should be more objective, but humans created them and we are fickle and prone to error.

Objectivism is an IDEAL that is sometimes great in reality, but in otherways, like not compromising, it isn't so realistic.  I am forced to cmpromise thirty-plus times a damned day.  That's reality!

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Permalink Reply by james boag on May 8, 2012 at 1:57pm

 Hi leveni 

 All meaning is subjective, belonging not to the physical world but to a subject. All words are qualifications and/or limitations, and of course those qualifications and/or limitations are meanings, are meaningful, only to a  conscious subject/s. LOL!! I seem to be tuttering badly --lol!! The only possible reason for making a noise is that it might mean something, and again meaning is never the property of the object/world at large, but only to consciousness. Even an animal might hear the noise, not really know what it means, but will react to it in some way, for even a  consider inaction is reaction to ones environment. Sorry for the tutterying post-please feel free to remove.

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Permalink Reply by leveni on May 9, 2012 at 10:02am

Hi James.

I agree that meaning is subjective, but without any objectivity in meaning, how do we communicate wth each other?

I may not understand 100% exactly what you are trying to convey in your last post, starting with "All meaning is subject...", but I can understand most of it. But what percentage do I truly understand of the post? 99%, 90% it's hard to say, because I can't read you mind. 

Having said that, is there a possibility that there is also objectivity in meaning. If there is no objectivity in meaning then I might only be understanding 0% of what you have said.

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Permalink Reply by james boag on May 9, 2012 at 1:20pm

 Hi leveni,

"I agree that meaning is subjective, but without any objectivity in meaning, how do we communicate wth each other?"

When I say that all meaning is the property of a conscious subject it does not mean that the world as object does not contribute information/energy to the formation of subjective meaning. The meaning is after all, all about object as effect, affecting our biology, so meaning is about the relation between the two as subject and object. You cannot separate them and be a conscious subject, separated there would be nothing to be conscious of, it is the meaning which arises/emerges from this relation that allows us to move relatively safely in the world 

"I may not understand 100% exactly what you are trying to convey in your last post, starting with "All meaning is subject...", but I can understand most of it. But what percentage do I truly understand of the post? 99%, 90% it's hard to say, because I can't read you mind." 

All meaning is subjective simply means that if I look at a tree and determine it is a maple tree, that information does not belong to the tree, but to me, as conscious subject, indeed the fact that I know it to be a tree, is a subjective meaning.

"Having said that, is there a possibility that there is also objectivity in meaning. If there is no objectivity in meaning then I might only be understanding 0% of what you have said." 

No meaning is never objective, it is subjective meaning about an objective world, the reason we can share through language what we know about the objects out there with our peers, is that we all have pretty much the same biology, thus will be affect by the object in a like manner. The world/object appears to us by the way it affects us, thus apparent reality is, a biological readout, ultimate reality is quite another topic. Hope that helps.

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Permalink Reply by leveni on May 10, 2012 at 10:44am

Hi james,

Ok, I think I understand where you are coming form now.

When you use the word 'meaning', you are not using it as the meaning of actual words. You are using the word 'meaning' as something on its own, regardless of words. Meaning is how we interpret that which we sense through our senses. Is this correct?

But when I was using the word 'meaning', I was using as the meaning of actual words. Each word has a meaning, but is each words meaning, subjective or objective?

Just want to make sure we are understanding each others use of the word meaning.

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Permalink Reply by james boag on May 10, 2012 at 11:23am

"When you use the word 'meaning', you are not using it as the meaning of actual words. You are using the word 'meaning' as something on its own, regardless of words. Meaning is how we interpret that which we sense through our senses. Is this correct?"

Hi leveni,

Yes you have clarified that nicely, words are our means of putting out into the world our subjectively held meanings, the fact that we can check them out against the existence of the physical world is somewhat reassuring that we are still mentally functioning well. 

"But when I was using the word 'meaning', I was using as the meaning of actual words. Each word has a meaning, but is each words meaning, subjective or objective?"

If you remember that the physical world itself is utterly without meaning until a conscious subject--living biology, bestows meaning upon it, it will be less confusing. So, yes all meaning is subjective meaning about the objective world. There are processes of thought which make it seem that they are independent of the physical world, but indeed they are not. Subject and object as in consciousness and the physical world, can never be separated.

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Permalink Reply by leveni on May 11, 2012 at 7:30am

Hi james,

So what about words?

(I just want to limit words to subjective and objective, and not get into what words are or if they exist etc)

Eg: The word "cat"

The subjective image of the word cat, that you have subjectively developed over time will be different from my subjective image of the word cat. But the fact that we both understand the word cat, when we hear/speak it or read/write it, in order to understand or convey meaning about a cat, means there must be some objectivity in the meaning of the word cat.

 

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