[MD] cloud of probability

[david buchanan]

dmb said:
...I'm talking about concepts and definitions, not reality. ..., I do NOT mean to say that proper definitions are reality.    ...This is not a claim about ultimate realties. It's about the english language and the nature of reasonable philosophical discussions. Who thinks the riddle of the universe can be found in a dictionary? Nobody, that's who. But you know what CAN be found in the dictionaries? Definitions. Words. Lots and lots of words. Lots and lots of concepts. And they all relate to each other, mean what they mean in relation to each other.

John replied:
Ok fine.  Nothing surprising in any of this -  all  obvious.  I've challenged you to go a bit deeper and consider where dictionaries come from, but that, like this, is probably all just a waste of time because you are not a searcher, dave.  You're an expounder.

dmb says:
I don't consider that a serious challenge to anything I've said because dictionaries were invented within historical time and their origins are more or less traceable. I mean, your question is one for an historian not a philosopher. The origins of the spoken language go back much further than recorded history, of course. The Oxford English Dictionary is a very long way from the gestures and grunts of our primate ancestors and nobody knows how many steps it took but the idea that language evolved is hardly controversial.

In any case, the dictionary is just a record of what words mean when people use them. A dictionary does not create definitions so much as it records them. Good ones will include information about the first known use of each word, pinning down it's written origins to some extent. According to my Webster's dictionary, the word "dictionary" is medieval Latin for "manual of words" and it was first used in 1526.