The meaning of John Harvey [was: Ducking]
Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2012 5:30 am
In discussing homoeopathy's meaning, the meaning of meaning itself and its relationship to definition have come into question, with confusion persisting in some quarters (for at least five years now) between definition and acceptability.
It's my hope that in making this discussion more personal and thus more concrete, we can clarify that defence of meaning is not rejection of anything other than an attack on meaning.
So I'm going to tackle the question of the meaning of John Harvey.
The analogy I'm going to use is imperfect: it concerns identification rather than definition. Still, I think it will make the point sufficiently well.
When it comes to things with proper names, often there is more than one of them with the same name. (Hence middle names.) To get that out of the way, I'm going to discuss the John Harvey writing this argument and suppose that he's a human being.
In defining the identity of human beings and other sentient animals, we tend to use "who" (and "whom") rather than "it", "what", and "that"; it doesn't much affect what we're doing here, though.
The John Harvey writing this argument is (let us assume) a male human being, loving father of two, living in Australia, and a homoeopath.
Accurate or not, that describes the John Harvey writing this argument. But does it identify him? Could there be two such?
Of course there could be. So, although it describes him, it does not identify him.
The John Harvey writing this argument is the human being born on the side of the Busselton Highway, four to six kilometres north of Busselton, at 2:37 to 2:38 p.m. on 12 January 1932, in the back of the station wagon bearing Western Australian registration plate number 80.
Accurate or not, that describes him too. Does it identify which person we're talking about? Could there be two human beings meeting that description? Most definitely there could not. Tying his birth to the registration number alone most likely identifies a unique human being. Adding the time makes it a certainty; there was only one baby born in the car at that time. So -- yes, it (correctly or incorrectly) identifies who the author is.
The John Harvey writing this argument used to be a nice man. Now he's nasty. He used to dance; now he ducks and weaves. And, once flexible and helpful, now he's downright ornery.
This illustrates that the author has adopted new characteristics and lost old ones. But, according to our notions of the identity of a person -- of which human being he is -- do these changes mean that the writer of this argument is no longer the person born in station wagon 80?
No, they don't. Although they may reflect changes in how he approaches life or whether his old friends still respect him, they don't change who (or what) he is. They don't change the identification of which human being it is who is the John Harvey writing this piece. They don't change the fact being stated: that the author of this piece is the person whose mother named him, after birth on the Busselton Highway, "John Harvey".
All clear so far?
Now, suppose John Harvey (the author of this piece) meets a far better human being, one whose heart is filled with kindness, whose actions inspire, whose very presence is ennobling, and that he consequently sees the error of his ways, sheds his ignoble traits, and becomes a saint.
The John Harvey I used to know is gone, and in his place is a saint. He is an entirely different person.
This sounds like a new identity: John Harvey used to be one person and now is another. But is it? Is it the case that the author of this piece, now a new man and a saint, is no longer the human being born in station wagon 80?
No, it is not the case. Though characteristics of John Harvey have changed, what he is -- the very stuff that tells us that this human being is the human being we mean, the one born in station wagon 80 -- has not. His nature may have altered, but his true identity simply cannot.
Now, let's suppose that we learn that there has been a mixup. We learn that the John Harvey writing this piece is not the human being born in station wagon 80 at all; that that John Harvey passed away peacefully at the age of 75 in 2007; and that the "John Harvey" writing this piece is a virtual memebot sent back to the year 2004 from the year 2262 for a lark, in order to insult polypaths on homoeopathy lists and give them a taste of their own medicine.
The John Harvey writing this argument is a sentient memebot originating in 2262.
With our newfound knowledge, does the above identify John Harvey? Well, it's hard to say, but there are probably several million sentient memebots due for manufacture in 2262; so it probably does not sufficiently identify him.
The John Harvey writing this argument is the memebot originating in 2262 and writing in 2011 and 2012 on the Minutus and Homeopathy e-mail lists under the names John Harvey, Rik Shannon, and Shannon Nelson.
Correct or not, does this adequately identify exactly what the author of this argument is? Obviously it does: there is not more than one membot writing under all those names. (Of course, there may be no such memebot. In that case, this identification would be -- wrongly, obviously -- identifying John Harvey as something that does not exist.)
The John Harvey writing this argument is a memebot from 2262 due for maintenance recall in 2014.
Correct or not, does that identify the author? Again: no, if more than one memebot from 2262 is due for maintenance recall in 2014.
So, although it may be a true and accurate description to say that (this) John Harvey is nothing but a memebot, accuracy of the description does not tie down the meaning of the term definitely and unambiguously, and therefore does not identify him. When we have (this) "John Harvey" uniquely defined -- by distinguishing him from all else -- then and only then have we sufficiently encompassed the meaning of the term.
Of course, we could define (this) "John Harvey" in other terms -- for instance:
The John Harvey writing this piece is the sentient memebot of (hexadecimal) serial number 2262 EEAE 0114.
Because the serial number is unique, it uniquely identifies what it is that the author of this piece is.
So when you look up that serial number, you find that it is indeed the memebot writing under the names John Harvey, Rick Shannon, and Shannon Nelson -- and perhaps learn much else about him. (Sentient memebots too are pronouned "who" and "whom", by the way, for the same reasons for which human beings are.)
The two identifications -- the one that mentions 2004 and some noms de plume, and one that mentions a serial number -- look very different. In fact, though, it is easy, as you can see, to show that they identify the author as exactly the same thing: this memebot and no other. (In just the same way, we may identify ourselves using out driver's licence or by using a birth certificate or passport.)
When somebody with the authority to do so (i.e., the person inventing it) defines the meaning of a term, if he has done so correctly, the meaning is sufficiently clear that it incorporates all that he intended and distinguishes all else from it.
There are three ways to make a mistake in defining what you mean.
If, in attempting to represent what was intended, the definition is too broad, then it will inadvertently include other things the author intended it to include and cause confusion between those accidentally included things and what he intended.
If it is too narrow, it will inadvertently exclude things its author intended it to include. This may not matter: when one intends to refer to both the defined thing and some other thing, one can use two names. Or one can create a new term defined as incorporating both.
If it is too vague, it may not make clear at all which things it includes and which it does not.
So one can make a mistake and accidentally define the word as something other than the thing one intended. But there is one kind of error that one cannot make in creating the definition of a word: the error of being wrong.
This is where definition parts company at times from identification.
In identifying the author of this piece as being memebot 2262 EEAE 0114, it is possible to be wrong. That's because what we're doing in the process of identification is making an indicative statement of fact concerning the identity of one thing with another, a statement arising from discovery. We may "discover" something today only to learn tomorrow that we were wrong.
This is a little different, though, from naming John Harvey. If the human being born in station wagon 80 between 2:37 and 2:38 p.m. on 12 January 1932 was formally given the name (defined as) John Harvey, then that's who John Harvey is, and it can't be wrong. And if the John Harvey writing this piece is that John Harvey, then he is also the human being born in those circumstances, and that cannot be wrong.
Let me say this in a different way. In naming the baby born in station wagon 80 "John Harvey", the baby's mother could not be wrong. Ever. John Harvey is that baby.
Definition is like that: it can't be wrong. It is what it is. It means what it means.
We may wish that there were more of John Harvey, or less of him; bad luck. We may wish that homoeopathy included more than it does, or less; bad luck. It includes what it includes and nothing else.
So: what does it include? Hahnemann made that clear. It includes administration, to a patient whose illness is known in detail, of a single, simple medicinal substance upon the basis that the similarity of its effects known in detail and with certainty to the totality of the patient's illness symptoms is the greatest that the practitioner can discern amongst the candidate substances available.
What does it exclude? Everything else!
Actually, even the above definition is overly careful. We could remove the words "single, simple" and leave it entirely unchanged, simply because the rest of the definition entails "single, simple" anyway. We could specify that the knowledge of the effects of the medicine on the healthy must be obtained not by observing their "curative" effects but by observing their deranging ones; but again it is unnecessary to do so, as that is implicit in the term "deranging effects known in detail and with certainty".
And of course we can use different phrasing to express the same thing, just as we can use either serial number or something else to arrive at the same sentient memebot as the identity of the author of this argument.
In what ways does the definition confine homoeopathic practice? It requires case-taking; knowledge of pathogenesis; comparison; and administration. But it does not necessarily require pencils, computers, or even books; it does not exclude consultation with other professionals or repeat consultations with the patient; it does not prevent the institution of new pathogenetic trials, new protocols, new medicines, or fresh recognition of the nature of symptoms or signs; it forestalls no new research. It in fact permits any new techniques that allow fulfilment of the single principle it expresses: that medicine be used upon the law of similars (necessitating knowledge both of patient and of medicinal effect).
But by the same token, the definition does exclude every practice that is not homoeopathy: all the practices that fail to meet the criterion that they use pathogenetic similarity to the patient's illness as the sole reason for the prescription.
So, you see, when you boil it all down, it's very, very simple. There's homoeopathy, and there's everything else. It's not a judgement; it's not rejection of other practices; it's just the simple fact.
When we practise homoeopathy, of course, we complement it with common sense, guesswork, and blind courage, as otherwise our lack of total certainty might prevent us from prescribing any medicine; and we use complementary techniques to ensure its success: dietetics, kindness, exclusion of morbific influences, sufficient exercise stress to maintain the organism's fitness, etc. If you once begin to imagine that these complementary techniques are part of what homoeopathy is, you instantly lose your understanding of what it is. These other things help; they may even be wholly necessary to the patient's gentle, prompt, permanent recovery; they are not, however, homoeopathy.
Cheers --
John
--
"Do pertussis vaccines prevent children and adults from breathing in pertussis bacteria from the air? No. Do children vaccinated with the pertussis vaccine somehow stop carrying pertussis bacteria in their airways simply because they've been vaccinated? No. Do pertussis vaccines stop vaccinated children from transmitting the pertussis bacteria to other people? No. Do pertussis bacteria disappear from society once vaccination rates are high? No.
"Vaccination rates for pertussis have no impact on whether the pertussis bacteria are in the air or not, or whether or not we breathe them in. The presence of the pertussis bacteria, and the exposure to them, are in no way affected by vaccination status or vaccination rates."
—Lawrence B. Palevsky, M.D., "False alarm over pertussis 'outbreak': a letter from Lawrence B. Palevsky, December 2011",
It's my hope that in making this discussion more personal and thus more concrete, we can clarify that defence of meaning is not rejection of anything other than an attack on meaning.
So I'm going to tackle the question of the meaning of John Harvey.
The analogy I'm going to use is imperfect: it concerns identification rather than definition. Still, I think it will make the point sufficiently well.
When it comes to things with proper names, often there is more than one of them with the same name. (Hence middle names.) To get that out of the way, I'm going to discuss the John Harvey writing this argument and suppose that he's a human being.
In defining the identity of human beings and other sentient animals, we tend to use "who" (and "whom") rather than "it", "what", and "that"; it doesn't much affect what we're doing here, though.
The John Harvey writing this argument is (let us assume) a male human being, loving father of two, living in Australia, and a homoeopath.
Accurate or not, that describes the John Harvey writing this argument. But does it identify him? Could there be two such?
Of course there could be. So, although it describes him, it does not identify him.
The John Harvey writing this argument is the human being born on the side of the Busselton Highway, four to six kilometres north of Busselton, at 2:37 to 2:38 p.m. on 12 January 1932, in the back of the station wagon bearing Western Australian registration plate number 80.
Accurate or not, that describes him too. Does it identify which person we're talking about? Could there be two human beings meeting that description? Most definitely there could not. Tying his birth to the registration number alone most likely identifies a unique human being. Adding the time makes it a certainty; there was only one baby born in the car at that time. So -- yes, it (correctly or incorrectly) identifies who the author is.
The John Harvey writing this argument used to be a nice man. Now he's nasty. He used to dance; now he ducks and weaves. And, once flexible and helpful, now he's downright ornery.
This illustrates that the author has adopted new characteristics and lost old ones. But, according to our notions of the identity of a person -- of which human being he is -- do these changes mean that the writer of this argument is no longer the person born in station wagon 80?
No, they don't. Although they may reflect changes in how he approaches life or whether his old friends still respect him, they don't change who (or what) he is. They don't change the identification of which human being it is who is the John Harvey writing this piece. They don't change the fact being stated: that the author of this piece is the person whose mother named him, after birth on the Busselton Highway, "John Harvey".
All clear so far?
Now, suppose John Harvey (the author of this piece) meets a far better human being, one whose heart is filled with kindness, whose actions inspire, whose very presence is ennobling, and that he consequently sees the error of his ways, sheds his ignoble traits, and becomes a saint.
The John Harvey I used to know is gone, and in his place is a saint. He is an entirely different person.
This sounds like a new identity: John Harvey used to be one person and now is another. But is it? Is it the case that the author of this piece, now a new man and a saint, is no longer the human being born in station wagon 80?
No, it is not the case. Though characteristics of John Harvey have changed, what he is -- the very stuff that tells us that this human being is the human being we mean, the one born in station wagon 80 -- has not. His nature may have altered, but his true identity simply cannot.
Now, let's suppose that we learn that there has been a mixup. We learn that the John Harvey writing this piece is not the human being born in station wagon 80 at all; that that John Harvey passed away peacefully at the age of 75 in 2007; and that the "John Harvey" writing this piece is a virtual memebot sent back to the year 2004 from the year 2262 for a lark, in order to insult polypaths on homoeopathy lists and give them a taste of their own medicine.
The John Harvey writing this argument is a sentient memebot originating in 2262.
With our newfound knowledge, does the above identify John Harvey? Well, it's hard to say, but there are probably several million sentient memebots due for manufacture in 2262; so it probably does not sufficiently identify him.
The John Harvey writing this argument is the memebot originating in 2262 and writing in 2011 and 2012 on the Minutus and Homeopathy e-mail lists under the names John Harvey, Rik Shannon, and Shannon Nelson.
Correct or not, does this adequately identify exactly what the author of this argument is? Obviously it does: there is not more than one membot writing under all those names. (Of course, there may be no such memebot. In that case, this identification would be -- wrongly, obviously -- identifying John Harvey as something that does not exist.)
The John Harvey writing this argument is a memebot from 2262 due for maintenance recall in 2014.
Correct or not, does that identify the author? Again: no, if more than one memebot from 2262 is due for maintenance recall in 2014.
So, although it may be a true and accurate description to say that (this) John Harvey is nothing but a memebot, accuracy of the description does not tie down the meaning of the term definitely and unambiguously, and therefore does not identify him. When we have (this) "John Harvey" uniquely defined -- by distinguishing him from all else -- then and only then have we sufficiently encompassed the meaning of the term.
Of course, we could define (this) "John Harvey" in other terms -- for instance:
The John Harvey writing this piece is the sentient memebot of (hexadecimal) serial number 2262 EEAE 0114.
Because the serial number is unique, it uniquely identifies what it is that the author of this piece is.
So when you look up that serial number, you find that it is indeed the memebot writing under the names John Harvey, Rick Shannon, and Shannon Nelson -- and perhaps learn much else about him. (Sentient memebots too are pronouned "who" and "whom", by the way, for the same reasons for which human beings are.)
The two identifications -- the one that mentions 2004 and some noms de plume, and one that mentions a serial number -- look very different. In fact, though, it is easy, as you can see, to show that they identify the author as exactly the same thing: this memebot and no other. (In just the same way, we may identify ourselves using out driver's licence or by using a birth certificate or passport.)
When somebody with the authority to do so (i.e., the person inventing it) defines the meaning of a term, if he has done so correctly, the meaning is sufficiently clear that it incorporates all that he intended and distinguishes all else from it.
There are three ways to make a mistake in defining what you mean.
If, in attempting to represent what was intended, the definition is too broad, then it will inadvertently include other things the author intended it to include and cause confusion between those accidentally included things and what he intended.
If it is too narrow, it will inadvertently exclude things its author intended it to include. This may not matter: when one intends to refer to both the defined thing and some other thing, one can use two names. Or one can create a new term defined as incorporating both.
If it is too vague, it may not make clear at all which things it includes and which it does not.
So one can make a mistake and accidentally define the word as something other than the thing one intended. But there is one kind of error that one cannot make in creating the definition of a word: the error of being wrong.
This is where definition parts company at times from identification.
In identifying the author of this piece as being memebot 2262 EEAE 0114, it is possible to be wrong. That's because what we're doing in the process of identification is making an indicative statement of fact concerning the identity of one thing with another, a statement arising from discovery. We may "discover" something today only to learn tomorrow that we were wrong.
This is a little different, though, from naming John Harvey. If the human being born in station wagon 80 between 2:37 and 2:38 p.m. on 12 January 1932 was formally given the name (defined as) John Harvey, then that's who John Harvey is, and it can't be wrong. And if the John Harvey writing this piece is that John Harvey, then he is also the human being born in those circumstances, and that cannot be wrong.
Let me say this in a different way. In naming the baby born in station wagon 80 "John Harvey", the baby's mother could not be wrong. Ever. John Harvey is that baby.
Definition is like that: it can't be wrong. It is what it is. It means what it means.
We may wish that there were more of John Harvey, or less of him; bad luck. We may wish that homoeopathy included more than it does, or less; bad luck. It includes what it includes and nothing else.
So: what does it include? Hahnemann made that clear. It includes administration, to a patient whose illness is known in detail, of a single, simple medicinal substance upon the basis that the similarity of its effects known in detail and with certainty to the totality of the patient's illness symptoms is the greatest that the practitioner can discern amongst the candidate substances available.
What does it exclude? Everything else!
Actually, even the above definition is overly careful. We could remove the words "single, simple" and leave it entirely unchanged, simply because the rest of the definition entails "single, simple" anyway. We could specify that the knowledge of the effects of the medicine on the healthy must be obtained not by observing their "curative" effects but by observing their deranging ones; but again it is unnecessary to do so, as that is implicit in the term "deranging effects known in detail and with certainty".
And of course we can use different phrasing to express the same thing, just as we can use either serial number or something else to arrive at the same sentient memebot as the identity of the author of this argument.
In what ways does the definition confine homoeopathic practice? It requires case-taking; knowledge of pathogenesis; comparison; and administration. But it does not necessarily require pencils, computers, or even books; it does not exclude consultation with other professionals or repeat consultations with the patient; it does not prevent the institution of new pathogenetic trials, new protocols, new medicines, or fresh recognition of the nature of symptoms or signs; it forestalls no new research. It in fact permits any new techniques that allow fulfilment of the single principle it expresses: that medicine be used upon the law of similars (necessitating knowledge both of patient and of medicinal effect).
But by the same token, the definition does exclude every practice that is not homoeopathy: all the practices that fail to meet the criterion that they use pathogenetic similarity to the patient's illness as the sole reason for the prescription.
So, you see, when you boil it all down, it's very, very simple. There's homoeopathy, and there's everything else. It's not a judgement; it's not rejection of other practices; it's just the simple fact.
When we practise homoeopathy, of course, we complement it with common sense, guesswork, and blind courage, as otherwise our lack of total certainty might prevent us from prescribing any medicine; and we use complementary techniques to ensure its success: dietetics, kindness, exclusion of morbific influences, sufficient exercise stress to maintain the organism's fitness, etc. If you once begin to imagine that these complementary techniques are part of what homoeopathy is, you instantly lose your understanding of what it is. These other things help; they may even be wholly necessary to the patient's gentle, prompt, permanent recovery; they are not, however, homoeopathy.
Cheers --
John
--
"Do pertussis vaccines prevent children and adults from breathing in pertussis bacteria from the air? No. Do children vaccinated with the pertussis vaccine somehow stop carrying pertussis bacteria in their airways simply because they've been vaccinated? No. Do pertussis vaccines stop vaccinated children from transmitting the pertussis bacteria to other people? No. Do pertussis bacteria disappear from society once vaccination rates are high? No.
"Vaccination rates for pertussis have no impact on whether the pertussis bacteria are in the air or not, or whether or not we breathe them in. The presence of the pertussis bacteria, and the exposure to them, are in no way affected by vaccination status or vaccination rates."
—Lawrence B. Palevsky, M.D., "False alarm over pertussis 'outbreak': a letter from Lawrence B. Palevsky, December 2011",
)