2007-11-16 11:12:42 · 21 answers · asked by Anonymous in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
Jesus said:
John 6:63 (King James Version)
63It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.
2007-11-16 11:40:42 · answer #1 · answered by sego lily 7 · 1⤊ 1⤋
Written words and signs ARE substance. Audible words are energy (vibrations through a medium). The thoughts and meanings behind the words are imputed from higher level brain functions. Writing does not convey meaning to a dog because a dog cannot read. Additionally, even with higher level brain function meanings of words can be lost from the point of origin to the point of reception--how big is "big"?
Therefore, the transfer of thoughts is an indirect event where one high level brain organizes symbols into a medium (whether audible or visible) and when the symbols are received, if the receptor has the same organizational codework (read: language comprehension), the meaning is derived from the organized symbols. Hence, Chinese writing is meaningless to me, just as English writing is meaningless to the average Chinese citizen--but that's not to say there is no meaning in the writing, nor is the writing not a substance.
2007-11-16 19:20:28 · answer #2 · answered by JoeB 3 · 0⤊ 1⤋
It is a medium of exchange. It is communication. It is a process of layers of modulation and demodulation. Words and symbols are crude, linearized approximations of thought, something like dissassembling an image into a raster of pixels, or a computer file into data packets, only with a larger character set. A well-crafted description of a thought has a reasonable chance of being reassembled into a similar thought, but it won't be exactly the same as the original, no matter how simple it is.
It's like trying to recreate a painting from a detailed verbal description. They may be recognizably about the same subject but they will be very distinct when held up together. We can't hold thoughts up together for comparison, so we don't know for sure how off our reception is or how much noise crept into the signal. We can only send the thought back and see if we got a working approximation.
Compare words to money. Words communicate meaning. Money communicates value. Both come in a variety of forms, and both sender and receiver must understand and agree on the meaning of the forms for the transfer to work.
2007-11-16 19:37:18 · answer #3 · answered by skepsis 7 · 0⤊ 1⤋
Communication.
2007-11-16 19:17:12 · answer #4 · answered by RT 66 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Communication.
2007-11-16 19:16:13 · answer #5 · answered by t a m i l 6 · 1⤊ 0⤋
It's written and verbal communication; and it does have substance or comes from a substance, depending on your definition of "substance". That said, many people can say a lot of things without having an ounce of "substance" to a single thing they said.
2007-11-16 19:15:19 · answer #6 · answered by ಠ__ಠ 7 · 2⤊ 1⤋
It is an art of communicating. Communicating with people using words is just the same thing as using words, symbols etc.
It is a way of relating with each other expressing whatever there is to be close with each other. It is just like be on the other side of the mountains or hills , yet be able to hear each others thoughs, .......communicating , sharing of opinions and ideas...
2007-11-16 19:19:29 · answer #7 · answered by ? 3 · 0⤊ 1⤋
Form
2007-11-16 19:16:28 · answer #8 · answered by Collector of Sorrows 3 · 0⤊ 1⤋
Thought is the substance. What appears as substance relies on thought to produce and maintain it.
2007-11-16 19:33:24 · answer #9 · answered by ? 6 · 0⤊ 1⤋
It's called language.
2007-11-16 19:15:06 · answer #10 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋