In a message dated 12/7/12 9:17:00 AM, [email protected] writes:
> I also think that "memories" is a very blurry word to use. > Kate Sullivan > > Right, it is. But then, almost every "word" (in scription or sound) put before my mind occasions "notion", and all notion is more or less "blurry" (i.e. it is more or less indeterminate, indefinite, multiplex and transitory). Still, it can sometimes be serviceable -- i.e. close enough to be useful in conveying what's on our mind. Earlier I wrote:: "When I say "apelsin", or "milk", "democracy", "designate" -- or even "Cleopatra!" -- what comes into your head are solely bits of memory retrieved and mosaicked by your racy brain as it frisks the familiar sound, and creates new me-meaning." What I was trying to convey was that whatever thought or image comes mind when I hear "Cleopatra" is not the sound's "real" "mind-independent meaning" shafted into our heads by a bolt from Plato or Zeus. Someone in, say, remote western China, however innately intelligent, who had never heard or read a thing before now about Cleopatra (or heard or read the English 'designate', etc) could conjure effectively no notion at all (and certainly nothing "informational") now if exposed solely to the sound or scription 'Cleopatra'. The only possible source of notion would be from earlier scraps of associated notion stored in the person's "memory". Granted, what comes to our various (English-speaking) minds when we hear the sound "memory" will have a vast and blurry variety, but I've judged that, for most, its use here will be serviceble enough. If I ask an English-speaking person the blurry question, "How good is your memory?" I don't fear he'll "think" I'm asking if he can swim or if he has a million dollars.
