About Identifying Words with Objects
Give answers to seemingly 'obvious' questions! Do you realize that a word ·is not· a thing, not an object, not our perceptions, not our visualizations, not any unpronounceable 'essence'? We cannot fully convey in words an object, a picture, what we have seen, our perceptions,. to another person?
In the picture above, choose one dachshund at random and memorize it. Try conveying with the ·words· «I saw a dachshund» what you ·saw· to another person. To see if he understands you, show him a picture and ask him to choose the dachshund you were talking about. Will it be able to point to the exact dachshund you have chosen? Test it on several people. How often are they wrong?
We can make the clarification «black dachshund», «brown dachshund», etc. We can go further: «black dachshund with long hair», «brown dachshund with long hair», etc. You know? Will these or any other 'complete' formulations succeed in conveying our ·non-verbal· experience as it is? No!
In 'real' life, however, we are not so scrupulous in our choice of words. How often do our verbal maps fail to match the territory of ·non-verbal· experience? How often do you have misunderstandings with others because you ignore the non-identity of what you envision in your head with what you said about it? Has it ever happened to you that you were asked to buy something₁-word and you brought something₂ the wrong₁-object. Here’s a more everyday, ·practical· example. Imagine:
You were sent to the market to buy "apples". You go to the market and buy what's called a Granny Smith. You bring them to a person and he says, "Well, ·these· are not the right ·apples·, I don't like them." By "these apples" he means apples of the Red Delicious variety.
You see that the word "apple" that the man uttered turned out not to be an apple₁ — the object he desired. Let me explain in more detail. The transfer "his-representation" → "his-word" → "my-representation" did not occur 'successfully' because the mediator "his-word" turned out not to be "his-representation" or "his-representation"≠"his-word"≠"my-representation". Recall something similar (as with the apple) from your experience. Do it right now! This will have an extremely beneficial effect on your 'understanding' and this reading will not go to waste for you.
Look around you, such problems are taking a serious, ubiquitous and extremely detrimental to our lives. Such problems are not limited to mere dachshund, apples, etc. They accompany you wherever there are words (again, think of examples from your own life). The same problems arise daily in parliaments, senates and other state institutions that determine both domestic and international relations, when it is impossible to agree on such phenomena as 'politics', 'democracy', 'terrorism', 'fascism', 'communism', etc. They require the utmost attention and vigilance.
The solution to these problems must start with your daily life. Do you want to just as blindly identify words with objects and continue to face problems that others learned long ago to solve at the level of an automatically applied skill? You can learn how to do this from the book ·Drive Yourself Sane· and other sources on ·general semantics·.