The statements “gives” you information but that doesn’t “count” as you “getting” information.
It’s literally true that I got information, but I didn’t get information from it in the ordinary sense of “I parsed his words, and his words said something about X, so now I know the thing about X that is described by his words”.
There’s a difference between the information content of the statement, and the information that may be concluded from the statement in context. For instance, if I ask someone a question and he responds by snoring I may conclude that he is asleep. But I wouldn’t describe that (non-figuratively) as “he told me that he is asleep”. He didn’t tell me that; he told me nothing meaningful, even though I deduced things from it.
Just like I know that snoring people are often asleep, I know that people who complain about “chemicals” often like organic food. That doesn’t mean that either snores or statements about chemicals have any meaningful information.
I realized I was making inferences for what you mean by “ordinary senses” and “information content.” Can you please give your criteria for these two things so I can begin contesting them? I’m concerned you communicated no “ordinary sense” information in your preceding comment and there was zero information content, and I’m trying out your style where that preempts the rest of the conversation flow.
It’s literally true that I got information, but I didn’t get information from it in the ordinary sense of “I parsed his words, and his words said something about X, so now I know the thing about X that is described by his words”.
There’s a difference between the information content of the statement, and the information that may be concluded from the statement in context. For instance, if I ask someone a question and he responds by snoring I may conclude that he is asleep. But I wouldn’t describe that (non-figuratively) as “he told me that he is asleep”. He didn’t tell me that; he told me nothing meaningful, even though I deduced things from it.
Just like I know that snoring people are often asleep, I know that people who complain about “chemicals” often like organic food. That doesn’t mean that either snores or statements about chemicals have any meaningful information.
I realized I was making inferences for what you mean by “ordinary senses” and “information content.” Can you please give your criteria for these two things so I can begin contesting them? I’m concerned you communicated no “ordinary sense” information in your preceding comment and there was zero information content, and I’m trying out your style where that preempts the rest of the conversation flow.
All conversation requires some common ground. If you actually don’t know what I meant, there’s not much I can do to help you.
(Also, notice that “ordinary sense of” is followed by an explanation? I don’t see why you’d need another explanation after that.)
Interesting, that’s how I feel about people who say the word “chemical” to mean “pesticides and stuff.”