Warning; mental spin-out may ensue



Words pick up different meanings and connotations for each individual hearing them, depending on their previous connection to the words.

During early child education kids see a cat, or a picture of a cat. "That's a 'cat', little Jimmy - 'cat".
The word 'cat' is established with the item 'cat' by effective rote-training.

What conceptions do you have today? What do you match up to abstract words, like chaos, harmony, love or for that matter; abstract? Maybe I'm misusing abstract as a term, I mean words without true quantifiability. I'm about to look it up of course, but I'm not going to pretend that I would still look up every word before use. (patent pending on quantifiability)

Do the people next to you have the same understanding? Next room shares your knowledge? Your building and several around all think the same exact thing when you receive a verbal stimulus?

Before 'tut'ing to yourself and leaving, get four other people into the room. One half your age, another one-quarter, have the next be double your age and then the oldest person you can find. Ask what you each think of love, of beauty, of time, truth, justice. The national dream might be a bit much...

Are the youngsters merely inexperienced? and the old-timers senile or cynical? (or did you each copy off each other? that's good forum)



I'm going to avoid expanding into thoughts on specific abstract concepts, and focus instead on some other intangible thought.

I'd like to assert that the understanding of any word or phrase is cultivated by all the contexts it's been noticed in previously. Maybe that's a strange way of putting it, but maybe you don't need to think about the layers of road beneath the tarmac/surface.

That starts to touch on concepts of sudden communication breakdown (when a phrase or passage is common to one party but the other side of discussion has no previous context to triangulate an understanding) and jargon (where phrases are moot outside of their own professional circle). In both cases, an extra explanation (which provides another context) will "stick" the fresh understanding onto the unknown word or phrase.



Imagine a world where your knowledge and understanding of "Justice" is represented physically by a fist-sized ball (fits in your hand). As you witness and understand various facets and nodules of 'justice', something of the experience is imprinted on your "Justice-ball". Your ball would vary from anyone else's by at least two factors; what was witnessed, and each individual's reactions to the examples.

Would you like an example of a thief who continuously evades capture? Do you want to know what is done with the spoils? Where would you put nobility of purpose in your accounting?
What of the single parent who is caught the first time pinching an extra loaf? How do you feel when the book is thrown at them? When they are executed as an example to the populace?


As you move along in this strange world, your "Justice-ball" fills up with data. What does it weigh? How did your first experience compare to your hundredth? Perhaps you're even embarrassed about how you reacted to some early 'justice' experiences. If your first experience was pretty extreme (and random distribution demands that possibility, or it would have nothing to do all day) then taking a look at your "Justice-ball" every 100 inputs will help balance.

"Justice-ball"? WTF? That's nonsense and I won't hear another word of it.