Does an ‘individual’ word have meaning…?

igm wrote:

jerlands wrote:

igm wrote:

jerlands wrote:

Words in and of themselves are active things.

A word without a referent is a meaningless sound. The interdependence of the sound and the referent gives meaning to the sound, which is called by the name 'word'. Therefore an individual word isolated from its referent is meaningless.

That is quite apparent. A bird isn't a bird unless it's considered in reference to something else. If you put everything together would it give a sound? If so then that sound would contain the meaning of everything.

As long as that sound isn't described using a word or words.

Here we go again... sounds are associated into words. words are parts of sound.

Words depend on sound for their meaning. Sound does not depend on words for its meaning, the sound is inefable, non-dual but the words that refer to it, create dualism.

Sound in its true nature is non-dual, it is one sound. How can there be a sound that is isolated from other sounds or from everything, the whole of reality is interdependent and therefore non-dual. As it is non-dual it is ineffable, indescribable by words.

You wouldn't see light if it didn't cross something. Duality allows us to see.

To reiterate:

The OP is, "Does an ‘individual’ word have meaning…?"

Here we go again... sounds are associated into words. words are parts of sound.

Your analogy is flawed. In physics 'red' is to wavelength of light as 'pitch' is to wavelength of sound. In perceptual psychology, the sensation 'redness' is a function of, culture, ambient light and background features, whereas 'Oh' is a function of the socialization process through which 'phoneme discrimination' of one's native language is acquired.
In short, your phrase 'only part of' is vacuous because it understates the contextual complexities of visual and oral perception. Those complexities are allegedly what instigitated Wittgenstein to reject his own earlier acclaimed Tractatus and produce his Philosophical Investigations in which his adage 'meaning is usage' comes to the fore.

Not a clue what you are talking about. Have you ?

In perceptual psychology, the sensation 'redness' is a function of, culture, ambient light and background features, whereas 'Oh' is a function of the socialization process through which 'phoneme discrimination' of one's native language is acquired.

Not a clue what you are talking about. Have you ?

The Word
This garden universe vibrates complete
Some may get a sound so sweet
Vibrations reach on up to become light
And then through gamma, out of sight
Between the eyes and ears there lie
The sounds of color and the light of a sigh
And to hear the sun, what a thing to believe
But it's all around if we could but perceive
To know ultra violet, infra-red and X-rays
Beauty to find in so many ways
Two notes of the chord, that's our full scope
But to reach the chord is our life's hope
And to name the chord is important to some
So they give a word and the word is Om