Ambiguity

[Quagmire]

To the open mind ambiguity is an invitation.

To a closed mind it's an insult.

Probably for the same reason in both cases: it forces you to think for yourself.

 

[crossfire]

To the open mind ambiguity is an invitation.

To a closed mind it's an insult.

Probably for the same reason in both cases: it forces you to think for yourself.

Unambiguously frubal-worthy! :bow:

 

[Quintessence]

To the open mind ambiguity is an invitation.

To a closed mind it's an insult.

Probably for the same reason in both cases: it forces you to think for yourself.

Excellent words, but in a quirky way, the truth in this statement bothers me. Probably because I believe in application of critical thinking to all things, whether it is presented in a crystal clear fashion or not. That others do not do this on a regular basis... bothers me. One should not need to be "forced" to think critically. It should be one's default. But that is me projecting my values onto others... something I probably shouldn't do.

 

[Willamena]

Thanx, but complimenting me isn't necessary.

That's only as ambiguous as you made it.

 

[Desert Snake]

That's only as ambiguous as you made it.

Thanx.
Ambiguity is good.......remember?

 

[Willamena]

Thanx.
Ambiguity is good.......remember?

Now, that's ambiguous.

 

[Quagmire]

Ambiguity usually exasperates the bacon out of me, since it makes so much of our communication pointless or even counterproductive.

I agree that when it comes to interpersonal communication ambiguity is counterproductive more often than not: one of my pet peeves is when someone is being intentionally ambiguious in order to make their point without having to commit to it, like when someone in a debate is being intentionally vague in order to make a point by implication or allusion without having to defend it later (can always just claim the challenger misunderstood).

It helps that it is also the vital blood of the very existence of Law as an actual profession. I don't have a lot of sympathy to spare for that activity.

A third reason is because it is so often used in politics, humor and religious practice to cause a delusional feeling of inclusion and unified purpose when there is none. That leads to colossal amounts of waste, hurt and loss of years of life.

I think the problems come in when someone is treating or presenting an ambigious subject/topic as if it's meaning were straight-forward.

In art, including literary art, interpretation is a private matter between the object and the individual. The observer derives a particular meaning from the subject that may or may not correspond with anyone else's interpretations. After further consideration and contemplation the observer may develop a deeper (or just different) understanding, but it's always a completely personal one.

In politics and many forms of religion, on the other hand, it isn't a matter of an individual communing with something and asking themselves "what does this mean?', it's a matter of individuals communicating with other indivduals and telling them "Here's what this means, and this is all this possibily could mean".

It's the difference between getting people to think, and telling them what to think (basically art vs artiface).

 

[Copernicus]

Believe it or not, ambiguity is a feature, not a bug. It allows us to express a great many more thoughts and ideas with fewer words and expressions than would be needed If language were totally unambiguous. Logicians and mathematicians have come up with "formal languages" (as opposed to "natural languages") that are designed to be largely unambiguous. That's why attempts to render natural English statements in symbolic logical notation can be monstrously complex. A key difference between formal and natural languages is that the former can be disambiguated more or less independently of the speaking context, whereas the latter cannot.

What you are talking about here, however, is not the general feature of ambiguity, but the use of language in contexts where the listener cannot easily resolve the ambiguity. The way natural language works is that speakers calculate strings of words that can usually only mean one thing given the context of the utterance. It takes a skillfull speaker or writer to perform those calculations well. Sometimes very talented speakers use ambiguity for literary or rhetorical effect, e.g. puns in poetry and jokes.

 

[Copernicus]

While I have the time, let me just add another important aspect of semantics that linguists often talk about in the context of ambiguity--vagueness. Both ambiguity and vagueness are types of linguistic indeterminacy. An ambiguous word or expression is one that has more than one meaning. For example, the word chair is ambiguous between the object that one sits in and the head of a committee.

The word chair is also vague in the sense that we can't always tell whether a particular object qualifies as a "chair" or some closely related object. For example, consider the differences between chairs and stools. There are some objects that are clearly chairs but not stools and vice versa. If you imagine a chair in which the back shrinks and the legs grow longer, you will find a point in the imaginary "morphing" where its "chairness" begins to fade out and its "stoolness" begins to fade in. There is no precise boundary where the object flips from being a chair to being a stool, but objects can be more or less chair-like or stool-like. Now consider the fact that chairs are countable objects and that it sounds meaningful to ask the question "How many chairs are there in the world at this moment?" Would an omniscient being know the answer to that question? Well, you now can answer the second question--no. Not even God could tell you how many chairs exist, because the vagueness inherent in the meaning of "chair" renders the question impossible to answer.

All words in natural languages are ambiguous and vague to some extent. Vagueness comes into play a lot in RFF when people try to define words like "god" and "atheist". There is a gut feeling that words ought not to be vague (or even ambiguous). The fact is that they always are, and we ought not to get too worked up over just how precise word meanings are. IMO, people are being very unrealistic when they expect a word like "god" to have a more precise meaning than, say, the word "chair".

 

[crossfire]

Believe it or not, ambiguity is a feature, not a bug. It allows us to express a great many more thoughts and ideas with fewer words and expressions than would be needed If language were totally unambiguous. Logicians and mathematicians have come up with "formal languages" (as opposed to "natural languages") that are designed to be largely unambiguous. That's why attempts to render natural English statements in symbolic logical notation can be monstrously complex. A key difference between formal and natural languages is that the former can be disambiguated more or less independently of the speaking context, whereas the latter cannot.

What you are talking about here, however, is not the general feature of ambiguity, but the use of language in contexts where the listener cannot easily resolve the ambiguity. The way natural language works is that speakers calculate strings of words that can usually only mean one thing given the context of the utterance. It takes a skillfull speaker or writer to perform those calculations well. Sometimes very talented speakers use ambiguity for literary or rhetorical effect, e.g. puns in poetry and jokes.

I'd frubal you for this, but I'm fresh out of frubals.