Activity

Ralph and I went to the student center to study for midterms. He was reading an econ textbook and I was studying psycholinguistics. Every time I looked up, I caught the eye of Ham from Constructed Worlds, who was sitting at a nearby table with three other guys.

After a few minutes, Ham came to o…

Winter drew to a close. Gray dull snowbanks began melting to reveal all kinds of half-frozen garbage. The air smelled of dirt. You were always tripping over dead birds. Daffodils came up, just in time to be crippled by a late snowfall, which turned immediately into slush.

When I woke up again, it was snowing. I had slept through Russian. It was time for the philosophy of language. The same pale words, “Snow is white” is true iff snow is white, were written on the board for about the hundredth time. The class mechanically turned to look out the window.

I sat at one of the computers. Dear Ivan, I typed.

I have been teaching ESL for community service. Instead of “The paper is white,” this guy says “Papel iss blonk.” I understand, because I was there when he invented it. But as far as teaching English goes, I’ve failed. I am now the interpreter…

It turned out that the theory of meaning that would work best for the Martians was a “theory of truth” that gave the truth conditions for every sentence. The solution would look like a series of propositions having the form, “‘Snow is white’ is true iff snow is white.” The professor wrote this sent…