I wrote this a few years ago while I was writing a philosophy essay. At the time I had no respect for the topic I was given (can't even remember what it was, probably something about how language is a hinderance in philosophical discussions), and wrote this out of spite, just to release the tension and ease the boredom. Since most terminals cannot display greek letters, I'm using the character _@_, to represent "phi" and the digit zero, 0 to represent "theta". --- On the Philosophical Implications on Interior Design if Rocking Chairs Were Made from Pretzels or The Relativistic Quantum Mechanical Interpretation of The English Language By Professor Theodore "The Meat" Cleaver, PhD, MD, etc. ********************** Abstract The subject of the first phrase of the title has long been a favourite argument at tupperware parties. We will, however, dispense with any discussion on that topic since it has absolutely nothing to do with the main subject of this paper, which is our second topic in the title. Introduction Philosophers have long argued about the importance of language in discussions of the philosophy of science. (They also argue about many other things, one of which is exactly what the should be arguing about, and also what type of beer they should have on hand during such arguments, and, indeed, whether or not different beers have different effects on the thinking powers of the group, and whether or not a different beer may have resulted in a different route for said arument. Most of the arguments end with the almost unanimous agreement that the will, in fact, try the same argument again next time, with a diffferent brand of beer. This invariably leaves most topics of discussion in more or less the same state of disarray, if not greater, than when they started the discussion. This has led to a more or less universal feeling among non-philosophers that philosophers are really just a bunch of societal rejects who drain the life blood of -- well, for more detail see T. Cleaver, "Why Philosophers Are Just A Bunch Of Societal Rejects Who Drain The Life Blood of -- Well, Read The Paper" in Peterson's _Philosophical Transactions and Refunds_.) The Main Body These discussions on the influence of language on any type of roughly coherent thought, especially scientific thought, do have merit. Scientists are, after all, usually people too, and as such, communicate their ideas through words, with the occasional equation thrown in for good measure and a comfortable feeling of objective rigour. There is a topic, though, that has been neglected by the philosophers in their study of words and phrases. Recent work (T. Cleaver, _On the Philosophical Implications on Interior Design if Rocking Chairs Were Made from Pretzels, or The Relativistic Quantum Mechanical Interpretation of The English Language_) has shown that, unbeknownst to philosophers and others, some, in fact most phrases in the English language (for example) have a relativistic quantum mechanical interpretation. Take the short and woefully incomplete phrase "going to". It is, brace yourself, actually a four-vector with both space and time components. The connexion with quantum mechanics is that the _phrase function_ @ = "going to" (eq. 1) will collapse to having either a space- or time- only component, only after it has been observed in its realm of applicability, ie., in a sentence. Here we must introduce the concept of a _phrase factor_, by which a phrase function @ is changed by the factor 0 = "out" (eq. 2) for example. We may now give a full example. An Example Consider the sentence "We are going to see a movie." As it stands, this sentence is pitifully incomplete, having both a space and a time commponent. In other words, the sencence, inpomplete as it is, could have two orthogonal meanings. Either 1) you are going from where you are to a movie theatre, or wherever, to observe the movie (this is the space component), or 2) you are staying where you are (probably at home), to watch the movie on your own television set, either with or without a VCR, but you are going to see it *later*. This is the time component of the sentence. (The explicit definition of VCR and it's implications on the morals of a just society are out of the scope of this paper. See T. Cleaver, _The Moral Implications of VCR's in a Just Society_. Of course, whether this question can be discussed at all, or especially if there is or ever has been a moral and just society to start with, is another story. See T. Cleaver, _Another Story_.) Conclusions The only way to collapse the phrase function @ is to introduce a phrase factor, for example 0 = "out". This modifies the sentence to become "We are going out to see a movie" (emphasis added for clarity) and, as intended, the phrase has a more specific meaning -- it has collapsed into a time-*independent* phrase. (The actual time of the movie is fixed at the movie theatre, and is thus a scalar invariant.) The phrase is, needless to say, still incomplete. We must still resolve the space-dependence into its three components _@_(x), _@_(y) and _@_(z). Also note that the precise co-ordinates are indeterminate until actually inside the theatre to occupy any discrete eigenseat, and even then the state is still indeterminate to those who remain outside. Thus future indeterminicy and locality seem to hold. Edge-of-yer-seat clincher In my next paper, I will examine the application of Bell's Inequality on the nature of language, showing that the inequality is in fact violated, and that thus language strictly defies common sense.
(From the "Rest" of RHF)