Re: Examine what is said, not who speaks." -- from BrowserUK's sig

It seems at first obvious that the value and truth of something is in what it says, and so the speaker becomes irrelevant and any logical mind knows this and proceeds onward.

I would disagree with you here. It, namely this bunch of 1's and 0's that resolve themselves into language, say nothing in and of themselves. Meaning is created by the reader, and not the text.

In short, there can be no single objective meaning. It is true that some nodes will be largely open in meaning, and others relatively closed, but context always plays a part.

The identity of the author also plays a large role in determining the truth-value of a node. No node can be true in and of itself, but only through the acceptance of that node as true by those who read it. The identity of the author factors in to this determination.

"There is no truth, only regimes of truth articulated with power." (Michel Foucault)

That being said, none of the above is true.

Beware the lurking post-modernist... ;)

</ajdelore>

Comment on Re: Examine what is said, not who speaks." -- from BrowserUK's sig

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Re: Re: Examine what is said, not who speaks." -- from BrowserUK's sig by chromatic (Archbishop) on Jul 22, 2003 at 21:57 UTC
At first, I didn't believe you. Then, I discovered your second to last sentence and decided that it must be true that I believed you. After about 20 minutes, I decided that my grand contribution to post-modernism would be the sentence "I don't know anything but that I like pie."	[reply]
Re2: Examine what is said, not who speaks." -- from BrowserUK's sig by dragonchild (Archbishop) on Jul 23, 2003 at 17:11 UTC
I'm going to disagree with none of the above is true. In fact, (at least) one of your sentences is true. context always plays a part I remember a number of college late-night discussions on the usefulness of "If-Then" statements. Determining the validity of such statements is easy. However, determining the truth of such statements is a trickier proposition (pun intended). The context was what assigned truth or falsehood to a given statement. Because of that, we started to look at (but never actually did anything with) the idea that statements weren't the appropriate atomic unit of truth. Instead, maybe the atomic unit of truth is the thought, possibly broken out over many statements. Meaning is created by the reader, and not the text. This statement is not only true, but is (mostly) unrelated to the idea of truth or falsehood. Meaning is the concept(s) that is transmitted through the communication of the text. Meaning is the only thing that can be true or false, not a text itself. Look for the idea being represented, not the symbol which represents. ------ We are the carpenters and bricklayers of the Information Age. Don't go borrowing trouble. For programmers, this means Worry only about what you need to implement. Please remember that I'm crufty and crochety. All opinions are purely mine and all code is untested, unless otherwise specified.	[reply]