Re: The word "symbol"

"David Cressey" <david.cressey_at_earthlink.net> wrote in message news:7KkLe.4899$RZ2.4160_at_newsread3.news.atl.earthlink.net...
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> "vc" <boston103_at_hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:1123860997.329786.39380_at_f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
>
>> Probably the ancients used it because they did not know any better :)
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> Or perhaps we ancients used it precisely because we did know better.

Then the ancients should be able to give a clear and unambiguous definition of what a symbol is.

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>> As I said, quite a few times before, *names* (constants, variables,
>> etc.) are used for this purpose.
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> So the word "names" has replaced the word "symbol" in the literature that
> you read. Big deal.

It's a big deal because the term is clear and unambiguos (see the FOL language) as opposed to the symbol. Besides, our intuition derived from the natural language helps here. When we say 'Jim' is a person's name, it's immediately clear that there are two elements in our phrase: the actual person and a string of characters (or a sound fragment) referring to the person. If we say 'Jim' is a symbol, our language intuition does not help much.

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>> > b. I think the authors' point was that tangible things are more
> accessible
>> > to analysis than ideas.
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>> OK, sort of trivial if true.
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> It's the introduction, remember. There's quite a bit more to the book. I
> won't comment on whether the entire book is trivial or not. I will say
> that
> it hasn't been so gripping for me that I couldn't put it down.

See ;)

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Received on Sat Aug 13 2005 - 16:32:27 CEST