Contexts - 2004-01-22
I’m writing this during one of those times of overnight wakefulness. That is, it’s seven in the morning and I haven’t gone to sleep yet. And so I’m just basically writing whatever comes to mind. I do want to write about contexts, though. My roommate/best-friend/ex-girlfriend is sick of me talking about contexts. You see, a while back I got into thinking about an almost whole new paradigm of thinking. It made sense to me then, as it still does now, to think of the meaning of anything by whatever context I’m thinking of it in. I know, it’s not that big of a deal, really, and that’s what basically what everyone does anyway. Yet, at the same time, it’s like thinking of contagious ideas as things called memes. A whole new line of thinking opens up just from thinking about it in a more structured, analytical way or something.
Okay, I don’t think I’m making much sense. I don’t know how to explain what I’m trying to say right now. Hmm??? okay here’s an example: numbers. Numbers on their own don’t really have any meaning other than implying a counting of something in general. Basically, numbers in isolation aren’t very interesting. But if a specific number is known to be how much money you have or what your age is or some statistic or another, then within that context it’s not just a regular old number. Now it means something. Like how the word “it” in the previous sentence is a placeholder for “the number” because of the word’s context. Otherwise the “it” would just be another pronoun. Yep, a boring old pronoun.
And I’m happy enough with just these three paragraphs to conclude this entry. If I can think of any more interesting things to say about contexts that I can actually express in English words, I’ll be sure to mention them here, so watch this space. I don’t know when that will be. I’m going to eat cereal now. I hardly ever do, though. Eat cereal, I mean.