Bruce Nevin (950718.13:48 EST)
(Bill Powers (950717.1410 MDT))--
Hi, Bill.
I'm hoping we can establish some agreements by small steps.
I quoted a statement by you that doesn't quite fit for me, call it (P). I
offered one restatement, call it (A), and said I believe it is what you
meant. The implicit question was: is this what you meant? I offered
another restatement, call it (B), and said I believe you don't mean that.
I thought (B) was far enough off to be, really, a caricature.
The three statements again:
P. Your original:
When you name something, such as "jump", you are linking a word-
perception to another perception, so either perception can evoke the
perception of the same category. After you have named a few other things
like "John" and "in" you can construct sequences like John jump in.
A. What I think you mean (leaving out for now the sequel about other words
and constructing sequences of words):
When you use a word, such as "jump", an associative link of some kind evokes
another perception from memory. The reverse is also true: when you experience
the other perception, an associative link of some kind evokes the word "jump"
from memory.
B. The caricature, which I believe you don't mean:
When you use a word, such as "jump", to name a perception, you create a
link of
some kind between that word-perception and the perception that you name by it.
Once you have created this link, either the word-perception or the other
perception can evoke a category perception that might be appropriately named
the "jump" category of perceptions. Prior to your naming that perception with
the word-perception "jump" the link between them did not exist. [The status of
the category perception is a bit mysterious.]
Now your reply:
Right, this is not what I mean....
As described above, the process is simply the naming of a specific
perception: associating one word-perception with one nonverbal
perception. If this were all that is involved in naming, we would soon
run out of words.
That wasn't the occasion of my botherment, unfortunately. I realize that
the process is extended by some means to what we think are categories of
perceptions. In trying to proceed by small stages I purposely neglected to
mention that.
Let us leave unspecified for now whether or not the "other perception" (the
referent of the word, as we commonly think of it) is "categorial" in some
way, or whether or not the word-perception and the referent-perception each
may occasion the same category-perception. The status of categories is
problematic for me. I can't just assume the existence and role of a
category level of perception. So we proceed by baby steps.
Is (A) a statement of what you meant, as far as it goes? Or does (A) miss
your meaning?
Or is (B) a better statement of what you meant, as far as it goes? Or is
(B) indeed a misrepresentation of your meaning, as I thought?
What do you mean when you say "When you name something, such as `jump', you are
linking a word-perception to another perception"? Does "you are linking"
mean (B) "you are creating a link", or does it mean (A) that what you
perceive out of memory or imagination is determined by such a link? (I
assume it does not mean that you perceive such a link itself, in either
case.)
Bruce Nevin