On Fri, 23 May 2003 12:47:58 +1200 (NZST), Richard A. O'Keefe wrote
> "jan ziak" <ziakjan at host.sk> wrote:
> 	you know i cannot do that, so why are you asking me to do it. the 
> way we 	communicate right now is textual, so i cannot describe it to 
> you. but that is 	the point: you and i both know that there is 
> something which cannot be 	expressed by text (e.g. pictures) - so i 
> have proved that there exists 	something which cannot be named by 
> writing it in textual form.
> 	
> You have *alleged* that you cannot *describe* it.
> No way have you proved that you cannot *name* it.
> Indeed, this is part of the point of names, to let us refer
> to things by means of arbitrary symbols which would be tedious
> or impossible to describe.
> 

as i said, you know i cannot do that. just replace the word "describe" by the 
verb "name" in the previous paragraph i have written. and reread the 
paragraph one more time.

> For example, there is a taste called "umami".  Don't ask me to describe
> it or draw a picture.  But it was certainly possible for people to NAME
> it, and they did.
> 
> Now for a proof that pictures can be expressed by text.
> (1) The human eye has finite spatial resolution.
> (2) The human eye has finite colour resolution.
> (3) The human eye has a two-dimensional retina.
> (4) If an image is (or, since we have two eyes, a pair of images are)
>     copied to better accuracy than human spatial and colour 
> resolution    can discriminate, the copies will look like the 
> originals to a human.
> (5) But a finite number of pixels with a finite range of colours can 
>    be described by a finite text, whether it's JPEG or English. Or,
>  to be Samuel-Johnsonish about it, point your web browser at 
http://heroeswest.com/georgewjageman/Hurdle.html
> It's a picture.  It was expressed by what amounts to text.
> 
> For the record, I have no connection with georgewjagement; I was
> trying to find electronic copies of pictures by Whistler.
> Ah.  Here's one:
> http://www.frik.org/assets/images/whistler_07_lg.jpg