Carrol Cox wrote:
>
>
>
> > [snip]..
>
> If you read "dog" on a slip of paper you don't back off to keep
> from being bitten. What you do do, of course, is the subject
> of a few million pages in the 20th century alone.
Comment:
But dogs are not equations. If you read on a blackboard 2
plus Y = 5 and are asked what Y is, you can say that Y is 3.
You don't have to go off and locate the equation supposedly
named.
> Similarly it is not an equation on the slip of paper but the name
> of an equation. That too can lead to endless arguments over
> what it means.
Comment:
Not so. When I write: "2 plus Y = 5" is an equation, "'2
plus Y = 5'" is the conventional name of an equation
following the conventional mode of naming these items. The
name mentions the equation- in an iconic form so that what
is being named is evident. Writing down the equation uses or
asserts it. As Tarski puts it
writing down the equation would be the material mode and
mentioning it the formal mode,
talking about symbols rather than using them. When I write
the symbol sequence: 2 plus Y = 5, I am writing down the
equation not its name. I wrote down its name in the second
sentence of this comment and also the name of that name.Of
course if you were a dog lover you could call the equation
Spot or Rover. Then I could say that Spot is an equation. If
I wrote down the term Spot, unfortunately no one would know
what I was talking about unless they knew I meant the
equation 2 plus Y = 5. Giving equations dogs' names is not a
good plan, not a creative research project.
Cheers, Ken Hanly