I'm sorry but "predictable results in communication" is not the criterion for be...

drdeca · on May 18, 2014

I suppose that strictly speaking, the use of a phrase by many people does not imply that it has a "meaning" (for certain definitions of meaning) (if many people inserted "whum" as an adjective into some of their sentences, but had no real idea behind it, I suppose it might not be meaningful)

However, if many people say "invisible cherry" when they are talking about a door or opening, or means of accessing something, then it would be reasonable to say both that "invisible cherries exist", and to say "the phrase 'invisible cherry' is meaningful."

Also, while there is no set of all sets, I would argue that (again, for some definition of meaningful), the phrase "the universal set(the set of all sets)" is both meaningful and useful.

Also, if you wanted to avoid a flame war with that last bit, it may have been useful to instead claim that "magic" is meaningless due to being inherently self contradictory (by definition). I would disagree with that claim, but I think it would make a similar argument without being as likely to cause a flame war (though I doubt it would happen in either case)

However, I acknowledge that you did not say magic, and I am not attempting to use a straw man as if you had.

cynicalkane · on May 19, 2014

First you say, "In Wittgenstein, intellectual property is a meaningless phrase." But this is the opposite of the truth, because in Wittgenstein phrases have meaning if they can reliably be used to communicate. So in this example 'intellectual property' is a perfectly cromulent concept.

Now you say, "Intellectual property is still a meaningless phrase, because flamebait about God and courtroom farts." To me, it just looks like you're saying intellectual property is meaningless because it's an intangible concept you happen to dislike. This is good to impress people on the Internet, but not a good way to analyze or change the system we live in.