User:KYPark/Cherry-219.js

document.write([' "Significs" or Mental Hygiene ',

'The Honorable Lady Welby, who was Lady-in-Waiting ', 'to Queen Victoria, pioneered a movement, nearing ', 'the 20th century, to foster discipline of thought ', 'and expression in  many fields of human interest ', 'in education, in science, in all forms of mental ', 'activity, and to examine in the most critical way ', 'such ideas as "meaning," "significance," "truth,"', '"interpretation," and their bearing on the "value"', 'or "import"  of any branch  of study and enquiry.', 'One most vital feature was increased awareness of ', 'the great practical importance of  understanding ', 'language: how to use  and control it; to examine ', 'its inadequacies, ambiguities, sources of  error,', 'and the deceits of idiom, metaphor, and ellipsis.', 'Not only universal languages, such as English and ', 'Spanish, but also other sign system--the language ', 'systems of mathematics, of science, and of logic ', '--are subject to scrutiny. It is only too common ', 'for "language" to be considered as if it were one ', 'thing but there are indeed many types of language ', 'and language system which are entirely  distinct.', 'We have already found it necessary to distinguish ', 'between object-language and  meta-language, when ', 'discussing linguistics; and we have distinguished ', 'between scientific language and esthetic language.', 'The infant significs does not rest within nursery ', 'of philosophy; his cries are heard in the outside ', 'world of  practical affairs. We are affected, in ', 'our daily lives, by misunderstandings, verbal and ', 'mental confusions, with untamed habits of speech ', 'and thought, cheating ourselves as much as others.', '"Mere language reform," Welby suggested, "is not ', 'enough"; we  need  at the same time to understand ', 'the processes involved in its use, to examine our ', 'methods of  reasoning, and, in particular, to be ', 'critical of the way of language growth and change.', 'It may be that  the whole study of communication ', '(or, more generally, the theory of  information) ', 'would well make a certain contribution to such a ', 'discipline, as far as it clarifies some different ', 'aspects of  the multi-faceted term "information".', 'Whilst one side, at least, has been polished with ', 'mathematics, other sides (semantic and pragmatic ', 'aspects)  are  beginning to show up, though these ', 'other aspects are not, as yet, truly distinct and ', 'clear. The mathematical communication theory has ', 'certainly shown, both as regards its theorems and ', 'its measure of "selective information rate," some ', 'promise of use and interpretation in the various ', 'sciences which concern, in some way, the idea of ', '"information"; nevertheless cautions is needed in ', 'extending this existing theory outside its valid,', 'and clearly defined, sphere. Information, of some ', 'kind or other, certainly appears to be a concept ', 'of value in many fields, but  this is not to say ', 'that the one mathematical theory and one measure ', 'have indiscriminate application. To the contrary!', 'Bar-Hillel, in particular, has been loud  in his ', 'warning: "Unfortunately, however, it often turned ', 'out that impatient scientists in  various fields ', 'applied the terminology  and  the theorems of the ', 'statistical (communication) theory  to  fields in ', 'which  the term information  was  used . . . in a ', 'semantic sense. . . or even in a pragmatic sense".', 'The Shannon measure of selective information rate ', 'has been set up for a specific purpose; it mainly ', 'concerns the statistical rarity of signals. What ', 'these signals "signify" or "mean," or what their ', 'value or truth is, simply cannot be discussed in ', 'the language of mathematical communication theory.',

].join('')+' ');