Words and Worlds

Words and Worlds:

This article begins with the events of 9/11. Obviously one of the most significant events in the past few decades in our American history, sparking questions on political issues and security. But what this articles focus on is the question, “How many events took place in New York on that morning in September?” It is argued there was one, but other argue that it was much more complex. There were two towers hit. Two different times. Another that the passengers brought down before it reached its target in Washington. Could possibly one of these towers have not been meant to be hit? The event can be qualified as one or two, dependent upon how we mentally describe it to ourselves.

How do we frame events? What point of view is it looked at? This article shows how one thing can be looked at in different ways to almost create something different to whomever is analyzing it. The author points to how the mind categorizes matter into discrete things, continuous stuff, and similar categories into discrete events and continuous activities.

The article goes on to explain how there are many conspiracy theories but where they differ is in the construal of those facts.. “how the intricate swirl of matter in space ought to be conceptualized by human minds.” but it is the casual link between the intention of a man and a change in an object that distinguished the understanding of 9/11 from the theories.

CONTINUING:

Semantics is about the relation of words to thought, but it is also about the relation of words to other human concerns.
A feature of the mind is that even our most abstract concepts are understood in terms of concrete scenarios.

These previous points lead to the idea of an event, three and a half billion dollars was given as an insurance payout to Larry Silverstein, the leaseholder of the World Trade Center. This is considered to have been the world’s most expensive debate in semantics. The money received was due to the definition of event.

Keeping with same theme but analyzing a different event the article goes on to speak of George Bush’s reason for war. Saddam’s supposedly assembling of nuclear weapons, framed for the viewers to believe exactly what he was saying. After finding out this was not true headlines claimed “Bush lied” but this is not necessarily the truth. His resources were pointing towards his first conclusion. So we don’t know.

“Learning: it entails the belief attributed to the subject’s truth.” You don’t necessarily “learn” the truth but if you’re being taught it doesn’t it seem like the truth originally? SO the important question with this is...”could semantics really be that consequential in political history?” (in dealing with Bush’s claim) I think yes, these fine point verbs led us into a war where people now believe our past president untruthfully led us in, but to me he wasn’t lying. Like the article states; words are tied to reality when their meanings depend, as factive verbs do, on a speaker’s commitments about the truth. The simple point...a lot of times the idea that meaning of the words, of the facts, are in the head.

In conclusions, the connectedness of words to real people and things is important to analyze not just the connection of words to information. This creates a complex analysis that can be taken to cases such as the world trade center or the real truth of a person’s identity.

Interesting article...