The Ambiguity as to the Referent of ‘I’
November 16th, 2008, search relatedRelated posts :: The Simplest of Sentences? :: The Ambiguity as to the Referent of ‘I’ :: Words Have Changing Referents :: The Simplest of Sentences?
14/11/2008 _Polanik at nc.rr.com_ (mailto:Polanik@nc.rr.com) writes:
[Joe]:
however, it sounds like you have redefined ‘universal quantifier’. a
statement like ‘I am’ is more like an existentially quantified statement;
particulaly after one explicitizes the implicit complement. ‘I am’ = ‘I am an
existent’. this would be treated as an existentially quantified statement: There is an
x such that x is an existent and I am that x.
[Jud]:
I have already defined the so-called *universal quantifiers* of natural
language and have identified them as *is* and its fellow conjugates. Below I
spell out my position at greater length, rather than in the fragmentary way that
it has emerged in list-discourse.
[Joe (new)]:
Jud, I’m studying your clarification of quantifiers as you see them; and,
will reply to that soon. meanwhile, I’ll just take this opportunity to comment
on some extraneous issues that you raise in the same post so that they need
not distract us further.
1. Analysis of First-Person Existential Statements (eg ‘I am’)
summary of the discussion thus far:
it seems that we both accept that the naked copula has an implicit
complement; but, we disagree as to what that is.
I consider my approach minimalistic. if the statement ‘I am’ is expanded to
explicitize the implicit complement of the naked copula, we would get a
statement asserting the root predicate; meaning, we get *one* of the following
(depending on the root predicate chosen):
‘I am’ = ‘I am an existent (of some sort)’
‘I am’ = ‘I am a reality (of some sort)’
‘I am’ = ‘I am a being (of some sort)’
why is this is a minimalistic approach, you ask? because the root predicate
is defined to assert no more than what is asserted by the ‘is/am’ — that the
subject of the assertion is ‘not nothing at all’.
Jud:
I don’t just *ask* about your so-called *minimalist approach* Joe, I laugh
at it and despair that after months and months of exchanges with myself and
others, many of whom are trannie camp followers and cultists, the penny has
not yet dropped with you that in the case of living beings you cannot select
and arbitrarily pick-and-mix the existential modalities that suit your weird
doctrines, and ignore the fact that there is nothing *minimalist* about living
creatures.
Being a real human existent involves a plentitude of existential modalities
and particular behavioural functionings. In your case you do not expand or
explicitise the implicit complement of the covert copula (or indicant as I
prefer to call it) you deliberately conceal it and cover up the true
significance and nature of the implicit human predicate as understood by every
neurologically undamaged member of the human species.
Covert-predicate-wise the implicature is NOT about or concerned with *being
a real existent* - for ALL human beings that is an obvious given, flagged up
at the very instant that every human being in the world utters the word
*I* - by that I mean the *I* as used and described in the psycho-language of
traditional speech and grammar.
Watch my lips! This is very important. The hidden, covert, orphanic
predication to which the *hanging copula* in *I am.* points (but does not overtly
reveal) is *filled in* by the utterer and the reader via the prior
knowledge of the speaker and the spoken to. In fact the only predicational
information or description which such *utterer and reader generated predication*
lacks - IS PRECISELY the three, totally irrelevant existential givens that form
the doctrinal obsessions of religio-transcendentalist concern which you
enumerate.
Here they are again:
‘I am’ = ‘I am an existent (of some sort)’ or…’I am’ = ‘I am a reality
(of some sort)’ or…’I am’ = ‘I am a being (of some sort)’
If you did utter the strange phrase: * I am* (which apart from confirming
your name to an official, or as part of the dialogue on this list) you are
unlikely ever to say in your whole life, then the so-called *covert* or
implied predication is already known to you (because you ARE *I*.
To the addressee (listener or reader) who hears you utter the words *I am*
he fills in the blank *predication details* which are missing from their
customary sentential position after the copula, inasmuch as what the nature and
amount of information about you he has obtained either from a brief
acquaintance or a lifelong relationship.
The LAST THING he would EVER include in the compendium of predication he
generates about you - is that you *exist,* that you are *real* and that you
are a *being of some sort.*
My own view, as you now know, is that the *I* is a socially evolved
referential device, which, like the proper name with which it is associated, and the
other pronominal conversational labels used in the exchange of information
and ideas with others is NOT a label that humans need or use in their interior
thoughts. We do not think of ourselves as *I* and certainly do not need to
instantiate ourselves with a pronoun or the name *Joe* to *confirm* our
*presence. *
The factual given of our being who we are and what we are is sensorially
*booted up* as soon we wake each morning and open our eyes, rub our tongue
over our dried lips and feel the pressure of an insistent bladder. We certainly
do not awake and declare to ourselves:
*Oh! Here I am with *I* (or *me*) again!*
We only need to employ the word *I* or *me* if we confide to our partner
that our lips are dry of we are dying for a pee.
[Joe (previously)]:
we have to add the qualifier ‘(of some sort)’ because of the ambiguity as to
the mode of being/existence/reality of the referent of ‘I’.
[Jud (previously)]:
The *of some sort* is total childish crap!!! EVERYBODY ON EARTH KNOWS THEY
ARE HUMAN - and whether they are male or female (or somewhere in between,
Chinese or Danish, white or black etc. you are writing TOTAL CRAP!!! There is
NOTHING at all *ambiguous* about being human and knowing it.
[Joe (new)]:
try to remember that ‘what am I?’ is the first-person way to ask ‘what is a
human?’. so answering ‘a human’ to the question ‘what am I?’ is like saying ‘a
human is a human’. true; but, not informative at all. ‘human’ is just the
name we give our species. the purpose of asking ‘what am I?’ is to discover the
*structure* of the human individual.
Jud:
Structure of the human individual? Get yourself a copy of the Fifth Edition
of Human Anatomy & Physiology, or access to it may be purchased by
subscription from your college or seminary bookstore. You will find quizzes, clinical
case studies, and a bone review, all of which were created specifically for
the Fourth Edition. My wife and I used it when we studied for our diplomas in
physiology when we ran our Beauty Therapy. It includes a large section on
the human brain, but being a scientific book of course has no mention of the
occult (the *mind* and all that kiddy stuff) People in the real world ALREADY
KNOW what a human is like. You seem to have lost total contact and slipped
down a burrow into an Alice in Wonderland world, where Cheshire cats and
white rabbits act out games with playing cards in which *Root Predicate card*
trumps *the Naked Copula card* and the winner with a full hand of existential
modalities gets to know the mysterious answer to the *What am I* question (as
if they didn’t know before they started the game!)
[Jud (previously)]:
I am all for any inquiry as to the structure of a human. But there is
nothing remotely *ambiguous* about a human
[Joe (new)]:
there are two popular theories as to the structure of a human.
1: a human is more than a human body
2: a human is no more than a human body
Jud:
WHAT!!!! You gratuitously misrepresent the anti-reificationist holistic,
embodied brain — embrained body (take your pick) position in your
description of number two. you trivialise the human neurological system and the
species specific triumph and wonder of the human brain. the human entity is not
just a human body* - it is a thinking human body. you will get nowhere fast with
that sort of playground behaviour.
Joe:
there is no ambiguity as to which physical objects are human bodies;
Jud:
Of COURSE there is no ambiguity as to which physical objects are thinking
human bodies. So why all the months of Cartesian crap? Now you have suddenly
rubbished the Cartesian ravings in one sentence, after months of taking the
Jesuitically damaged Descartes seriously.
Joe:
but, until one of these theories becomes a proven fact, there is an
ambiguity as to the referent of ‘I’. does ‘I’ refer to the body only or to that
something more (if any) or to the composite as a whole?
Jud:
Total crap Joe. You need to return to the seminary for another injection. No
*proof* is required that humans have thinking bodies
IT is your lot of trannie fantasists who are the ones who have claimed there
is a *soul* for the last two thousand years - not *us* atheists. YOU are the
one that has to produce evidence for your weird beliefs (for which there is
not one scrap of proof.
There IS NO *referent* of *I* - there is only… the conscious referent -
the whole passe referential joke is no more than a crackpot trannie tautology.
Jud.
PS. Reminder - my caps are for emphasis only - not *shouting.*
