Duncecap Posted:

Intrinsic meaning is not a real thing.

You don’t say.

Duncecap Posted:

I’m sorry, haven’t you gotten that far in your philosophy courses?

Thanks for the compliment Log in to see images!

In other words, we can only sensibly perceive interpretations that are consistent with our existing interpreters.

(Indirectly: Goedel’s Incompleteness theorem comes into play here)

Oh, so that’s where all this is coming from…You must have read Hofstadter’s book.

There is nothing more to say, save that if one acknowledges the arbitrariness of the meaning of symbols, one cannot possibly claim a set of symbols contains a specific meaning and no other, outside the context of a given interpreter. This calls into question the legitimacy of thoughts existing outside of minds in any real sense.