Debunking Scientism - Tricks New Atheists Play (Part 6)

[Nihilist Virus]

Is your statement true?

You said above you've been ignoring people who were goading you, and that now you're clicking through the ignore button. Why would you want to talk to me if I had been goading you? Or if I wasn't on your ignore, why did you ignore my in-depth response to the OP?

 

[Nihilist Virus]

Again, is your statement true?

For a 50+ page scholarly article just on the correspondence theory of truth see:

The Correspondence Theory of Truth (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

Sorry did you say "True" was primitive?

Why appeal to sophistication instead of engage the definition to gain understanding and agreement if possible?

Your goading seems to be aimed at appeals to emotion.

There are meaningful differences in the theory of truth and epistemology. If we don't come to some agreements we will not make any progress knowledge-wise.

If you want to defend a post-modern idea of truth then by all means give an argument for why it is true that there is no such thing as truth.

You already apologized to my interlocutor for entering a conversation without having bothered to read what had been said. You're doing the same thing again. He is proposing a precursor to logic which he has referred to as a "reason for reason." This necessarily drives the conversation toward formal logic, where "true" is a primitive notion. Epistemology cannot be discussed when I haven't even gotten him to understand the fundamentals of logic.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

"Standard" here is a red herring. To the extent a statement reflects reality, it is "true".

Such a thing as a meter is an agreed upon standard of communication. A thing is as long as it is. It is truly that length. It is what it is. Is it a meter? Only in as much as our standard for meter matches it's length.

Don't you mean to say, Tinker, that a statement reflects "an aspect of reality," rather than reality in general? Otherwise, it seems to me that the semantics involved on your side here might imply that if one has made a statement which is seen to be true, then there's nothing else that might also be said about that same aspect of reality. I could be wrong, but it seems odd to me to think that a true statement of any kind, all by itself, would be sufficient in extent for us to stop making further 'true' statements about that same aspect of reality upon which we are focused.

Or, am I just reading too much into your true statement about the nature of truth expressed by a true statement?

 

[devolved]

"Standard" here is a red herring. To the extent a statement reflects reality, it is "true".

"Reflects" is a red herring here.

Statements can't reflect reality, because statements are derivative patterns that exist in a network of functional mechanism of the mind that builds models of reality. Statements are entirely dependent on mental model that's primary to any statement.

So, you are painting this : REALITY --------> STATEMENT

But, what we have is this (oversimplified of curse): REALITY -------> MIND -----> MODEL ----- > STATEMENT

So, your statement is detached from reality. It communicates your internal semantic concepts in context of network of meaning about reality.

Such a thing as a meter is an agreed upon standard of communication. A thing is as long as it is. It is truly that length. It is what it is. Is it a meter? Only in as much as our standard for meter matches it's length.

Sure, I used meter as a metaphor for a telos. I'm well aware that there are arbitrary standards as link between various concepts, but the basis for these standards can't be arbitrary, because it exist in reality that communicates consistency.... and that consistency is where we can derive the true concepts from.

 

[Tinker Grey]

Don't you mean to say, Tinker, that a statement reflects "an aspect of reality," rather than reality in general? Otherwise, it seems to me that the semantics involved on your side here might imply that if one has made a statement which is seen to be true, then there's nothing else that might also be said about that same aspect of reality. I could be wrong, but it seems odd to me to think that a true statement of any kind, all by itself, would be sufficient in extent for us to stop making further 'true' statements about that same aspect of reality upon which we are focused.

Or, am I just reading too much into your true statement about the nature of truth expressed by a true statement?

I understand you, I think, but I'd say it's a quibble. If I say "there is a rock in my front yard", I'm comfortable saying that that statement reflects reality. I can also say that there are "two trees in my front yard" say that that statement reflects reality without contradicting myself. I suspect most people wouldn't have a problem with this. I won't flinch, however, if you insist on restating that these statements are aspects.

I.e., yeah, I think you're reading too much into it.

 

[Eudaimonist]

Statements can't reflect reality, because statements are derivative patterns that exist in a network of functional mechanism of the mind that builds models of reality.

Does your statement above reflect reality? If not, what significance does it have regarding reality? It certainly sounds like you are making an observation about reality, and not merely about some "network of meaning" that is "detached from reality". How seriously should I take your statement as being about reality as it really is?


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[Silmarien]

Does your statement above reflect reality? If not, what significance does it have regarding reality? It certainly sounds like you are making an observation about reality, and not merely about some "network of meaning" that is "detached from reality". How seriously should I take your statement as being about reality as it really is?


eudaimonia,

Mark

I don't think the Kantian distinction between the thing-in-itself and the thing as it appears (which I think is the angle @devolved is taking) is as easy to take down as this. If there is reason to think that our way of viewing the world is the result of the categories of thought that our mind imposes upon the external world, then doubt is justified concerning just how much we can say about the actual thing. The Kantian does not need to say that our statements cannot reflect reality; only that they might not, and their position is quite strong. (This may be a weaker form of Kantianism than @devolved is espousing, though if he is really making blanket statements about reality, I agree with you that it is self-defeating.)

I think even the weaker style Kantianism is vulnerable to attack. I could and would argue that the idea of "categories of thought" necessarily refers to something about the thing-in-itself instead of reality as we perceive it, but I think a degree of caution is still very much warranted. (I sympathize, but ultimately disagree, with @devolved's position.)

 

[2PhiloVoid]

I understand you, I think, but I'd say it's a quibble. If I say "there is a rock in my front yard", I'm comfortable saying that that statement reflects reality. I can also say that there are "two trees in my front yard" say that that statement reflects reality without contradicting myself. I suspect most people wouldn't have a problem with this. I won't flinch, however, if you insist on restating that these statements are aspects.

I.e., yeah, I think you're reading too much into it.

Sure. But one thing I'm trying to get at is that a basic descriptive, non-mathematical statement isn't quite the same in its essence as a mathematical statement. So, saying "there is a rock in my front yard" isn't the same as saying "2+2=4." With the former statement, more can potentially be said about that aspect of reality where there is a rock in your front yard, but in the latter statement, the math statement doesn't really say any more less than what it in fact says. And this remains the case unless we decided to apply it to our material world and make it a materially descriptive statement about some aspect of the substantive reality in which we live, such as would be the statement "I have two bananas, but my friend is bringing two more, and when he does, I'll have four bananas." [Yippee!!!]

The implication I'm attempting to make is that 'truth claims' about God are not quite like EITHER the descriptive statement OR the mathematical statement. So, not only is there a more expansive, second order of analysis involved within the overall nature of truth that we can realize about various aspects of material reality, we also have to contend with the fact that to talk "truth" about the biblical God isn't simply descriptive, nor deductive, nor purely inductive in nature. In fact, it's not even abductive ... even though these modes of evaluation are all useful to our goal of attempting to understand the God of the Bible on a human level.

 

[devolved]

Does your statement above reflect reality? If not, what significance does it have regarding reality? It certainly sounds like you are making an observation about reality, and not merely about some "network of meaning" that is "detached from reality". How seriously should I take your statement as being about reality as it really is?

First of all, "reality" is too broad to conceptualize and package into a statement or perform observation on. At best, if you take on some monistic assumption of the nature of reality, you can claim to observe and define some limited context of reality, be it your mind or some category of things or events, etc.

When we examing where the language exists as a part of that framework, and as a statement, then I would point out that language is the "end product" of the conceptual communication that we "send out". But language is meaningless without the mind as a mechanism to interpret it. It merely exists in reality as a pattern until there's something to recognize that pattern and act in certain way based on certain "programming" that such pattern invokes. In that sense, the language or a statement doesn't reflect reality, but only serves as an "archiver" (like ZIP or RAR) for conceptual information that it refers to. That conceptual information and mechanism in turn MAY reflect reality or it MAY not.

Secondly, the language is conceptually nominal when it comes to it's "reflective qualities". If I show you the apple and say that a triangle symbol means an apple... nominally it would mean an apple as long as we agree that it does in order to communicate. Obviously, triangle doesn't "reflect an apple". All it refers to is to a memory of an apple as a pattern that's invoked when you see a triangle. But triangle may also mean something else to someone else and has nothing to do with an apple. Hence, what does the triangle really mean then? You can't contextualize meaning apart from a specific mind mechanism which formulates such meaning.

Now, given that we live in societies, it's not surprising that we do have mechanisms that consolidate meaning and make communication "colloquial". So, when you say a statement reflects reality I know what you mean by it, and from pragmatic standpoint of what we consider reality to be - whatever we perceive, it works just fine if you care to arrive with these assumptions. I'm not going to argue over the utility of colloquial meaning.

 

[devolved]

I think even the weaker style Kantianism is vulnerable to attack. I could and would argue that the idea of "categories of thought" necessarily refers to something about the thing-in-itself instead of reality as we perceive it, but I think a degree of caution is still very much warranted. (I sympathize, but ultimately disagree, with @devolved's position.)

There's been a good two centuries of thought after Kant, and plenty of people used Kant's ideas in such a way that turned Kantianism on its head in context various models of reality.

But, I think we could zero in on you suggesting that categories of thought refers to things. Well, if we really break it down, then thoughts and things are both events in reality that we idealize as objects. In short, these are patterns, and these are vastly different patterns that exist in different contexts of process of reality.

In fact, you can't even argue that that pattern is consistent in all minds in terms of whatever the "thing" or "event" or collection of these you are referring to. It doesn't exist apart from broader conceptual network that is different for everyone. Hence you nominally have some linguistic pattern A linking to the "aboutness" of the thing-in-itself. But such pattern is not uniform.

And lastly, most of our communication exists as a necessity to refer to "generic reality context". Let's say something very specific like "There's a silver Dodge Nitro in my garage right now"... at the level of that statement communicates a very generic statement about reality. You are left with your own concepts of a garage and your own perception of Dodge Nitro, etc, to conceptualize the "things" I'm referring to. Is it useful? Maybe. I can imagine it much better than you can, so it's much more precise to me, because the statement on my end links to my experiences of reality. On your end it doesn't link to much apart from some generic concepts.

 

[Silmarien]

There's been a good two centuries of thought after Kant, and plenty of people used Kant's ideas in such a way that turned Kantianism on its head in context various models of reality.

That doesn't necessarily mean any of it is correct. There have also been two centuries of criticism of Kant and the various Kantianisms that followed.

But, I think we could zero in on you suggesting that categories of thought refers to things. Well, if we really break it down, then thoughts and things are both events in reality that we idealize as objects. In short, these are patterns, and these are vastly different patterns that exist in different contexts of process of reality.

I am not talking about thoughts as idealizations. I am talking about the objective way that the brain as a physical entity must function to produce structured subjective experience (or the way the mind as a psychic entity produces structured subjective experience, or some combination of the two). Even granting the Kantian distinction between noumena and phenomena, you cannot invoke the concept of categories of thought at all without saying something substantial about reality as it actually is.

Mind structures reality, at least subjectively. That is all well and good, but it is not a subjective statement. We can step outside of our web of self-referential concepts far enough to know that processes that structure reality are an objective element of the external world. Perhaps we cannot say anything else about these processes without running into conceptual traps, but we can at least know that structuring processes exist beyond our already structured subjective realities. This is not a pattern; it is knowledge of the noumena.

Therefore, I would say that the phenomena itself is not entirely separate from the noumena, since the latter gives rise to the former, and our ability to look back and grasp reality gives us a window into it, even if that window is mediated by mental images and concepts. The fact that those mental images and concepts exist by itself says something about external reality. To deny this is also to say something substantial about the noumena, which you are not allowed to do.

 

[Uber Genius]

So Kant is extremely complex and philosophers who write books on Kant state things like, "If I understand Kant correctly...?"

But it seems that Kant does not hold to the type of idealism of Berkeley. He seems to hold that there is some sort of real world out there but that our perception is fallible. He also seems to be arbitrating between the naturalists and the empiricists.

There is an external world that exists (Noumenal) and a world that we perceive through experience of our senses (Phenomenal).

He links the two through things he calls synthetic a priori aspects of experience which at first seem incoherent ( a priori a posteriori) but in fact work out to be foundational or grounding principles that undergird our perceptions or experiences.

The deeper question would be are these synthetic a priori aspects objective rather than subjective or merely descriptive?

 

[devolved]

Mind structures reality, at least subjectively.

I think a more precise way of verbalize it is that mind structures a model of reality (subjective). Unless by that you mean the God-like mind that literally structures reality. I think we have to make a distinction between subjective experience of something and the thing itself. In plato's terms... shadows on the cave wall, etc. The observers don't structure the shadows on the cave's walls. It's a different kind of structure that's derived from "nomenon". But I would be in agreement with Whitehead and, perhaps you also, that these "nomenon" structures do end up structuring our subjective ones. But that's not what I'm talking about, hence I think you are misunderstanding my point. Maybe not, but it seems like it.

Even granting the Kantian distinction between noumena and phenomena, you cannot invoke the concept of categories of thought at all without saying something substantial about reality as it actually is.

I'm not sure that we care or can tell anything actual about reality beyond ratio-metic data that we can derive by comparing several different modes of perception. That's what science is about. It tells us the differential description of reality in terms of ratios between consistently perceived phenomena.

In that sense, yes... we have comparative categorization that reflects something about the nature of reality, of course. But that's not what I was objecting to.

A statement is not the same as a thought. A statement is a placeholder for a thought. Again, most of our communication is generic, in such it "begs" structure. It can't exist on its own, apart from mental framework that such statement is derived from. In such we don't communicate the content of our thoughts. We project meaning on any given statement, with hope that such meaning is consistent, which it is not beyond some nominal basics.

Mind structures reality, at least subjectively. That is all well and good, but it is not a subjective statement. We can step outside of our web of self-referential concepts far enough to know that processes that structure reality are an objective element of the external world. Perhaps we cannot say anything else about these processes without running into conceptual traps, but we can at least know that structuring processes exist beyond our already structured subjective realities. This is not a pattern; it is knowledge of the noumena.

I'm not sure how we can know that, unless you equivocate axiomatic assumptions with knowledge. I think these would be in the category of necessary beliefs that provide foundations for knowledge.

You'd have to elaborate on what you mean by "we can step outside of our web of self-referential concepts". In which way? By means of consensus? Why would that be different? You can appeal to some reliability in context of consistent perception, but how would that be stepping outside of that network?

If you have 20 black and white cameras that all consistently reproduce black and white image... would that mean that world lacks color beyond the shades of grey?

If you are not appealing to consensus, I'd like to understand how you derive that knowledge beyond assuming certain axiomatic necessities.

Therefore, I would say that the phenomena itself is not entirely separate from the noumena, since the latter gives rise to the former, and our ability to look back and grasp reality gives us a window into it, even if that window is mediated by mental images and concepts.
The fact that those mental images and concepts exist by itself says something about external reality. To deny this is also to say something substantial about the noumena, which you are not allowed to do.

I would say that it's not separate at all, since I don't ascribe to dualism, and I'm assuming that mind is a subset process of reality as a "parent process". My assumption is that both occupy the same reality.

But, the issue in context of the "process chain" is that what we call "Statement" is detached from "nomenon" since it's not a product of the "nomenon", but of the mind that experienced it. The "aboutness" in that context is a conceptual model as opposed to "reflection".

Consider a statement like "Сейчас идет дождь". It's meaningless to you. It's meaningful to me, but it doesn't reflect my current perception of reality. It may reflect a certain context of reality given that the perception context to which statement is linked to is present, but it's not at this time.

So again, you have Reality ----------> Conceptual model -----------> Statement

But if you try to reverse that Statement -----------> Conceptual model ----------> Reality

It just doesn't work as well. The best you can claim is that statement reflects some conceptual model and that such model reflects reality, but it's not a given.

 

[devolved]

All I can do is invite you to learn logic and catch up to the rest of us.

Rest of you who? Whoever you are referring to... that would be an extreme minority in any case .

"True" is a primitive notion. Otherwise we could only say that "true" means "not false" and "false" means "not true."

1) No, that's not the only thing you could say, and I've already shown you the alternative.

2) It would only be the case if you subscribe to deflationism, which you don't seem to be. So the above leaves me puzzled. There are plentiful theories of truth, and the concept of correspondense tends to be central to how we generally refer to that concept.

We can only have circularity or undefined foundations. There's no other option.

Yes, but truth is not one of these. It can only exist on circular foundation of concepts that it links as far as conceptual relationships go, otherwise it's a meaningless concept. Is it true that apple is a fruit? Yes, because we nominally defined an apple, and we nominally define a fruit. The concept of truth is that of correspondence between those nominally-defined concepts.

It exists to communicate conceptual coherence.

Again, perhaps if you ascribe to deflationism theory that would not be the case. Do you?

Your insistence that you are right and that 100% of all mathematicians and logicians on earth are wrong about a topic you never even heard of is what I would call the pinnacle of "errorgance."

What are you talking about ? Lol. Are you really saying that 100% of mathematician and logicians are deflationists or that none doubt the viability of infinite set theory as foundational? Really?

 

[Silmarien]

I'm not sure how we can know that, unless you equivocate axiomatic assumptions with knowledge. I think these would be in the category of necessary beliefs that provide foundations for knowledge.

You'd have to elaborate on what you mean by "we can step outside of our web of self-referential concepts". In which way? By means of consensus? Why would that be different? You can appeal to some reliability in context of consistent perception, but how would that be stepping outside of that network?

I'm not talking about consensus. I'm talking about your claim that the mind structures a subjective model of reality. I would not dispute this claim, but I am trying to point out that it itself is a claim about the noumena: that a form of structuring takes place prior to our subjective experience. This is something that we can know about the external world simply by virtue of the Kantian claim that subjective experience is structured by the mind. If you deny that we can know that the mind structures subjective models of reality, then your entire position becomes nonsensical and there is no reason to pay any attention to it at all.

I could go hard Hegelian and hold that in denying that we have access to the noumenon, the Kantian is in fact bringing noumena back into thought. Being is open to thought even in the very act of denying that this is the case. Perhaps we ought to reject concepts and language and discursive reason in general in favor of apophatic mysticism, but you can't slam shut the door to knowledge of the noumenon without accidentally opening it again in the process.

If you have 20 black and white cameras that all consistently reproduce black and white image... would that mean that world lacks color beyond the shades of grey?

Perhaps we're miscommunicating because we're conceiving of knowledge differently. I hearken more to absolute idealism than to transcendental idealism, but I don't count things like the objective status of color as amongst the things we can know. Except in that we have very direct knowledge of how specific colors appear to us, which is knowledge that simultaneously refers to the phenomenal and the noumenal, given that our phenomenal experiences are part of the noumenal whole. The fact that the noumenon somehow gives rise to a phenomenal experience of color is also another thing we can say about the noumenon itself.

Consider a statement like "Сейчас идет дождь". It's meaningless to you. It's meaningful to me, but it doesn't reflect my current perception of reality. It may reflect a certain context of reality given that the perception context to which statement is linked to is present, but it's not at this time.

I would be careful of conflating a theory of language with metaphysics and epistemology more broadly, if that is what you're doing. Those of us of a more apophatic leaning are not at all surprised by the claim that language (or even discursive reason) cannot fully capture reality. This doesn't mean that knowledge is impossible, but just that it might well be unspeakable. After all, whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

Rest of you who? Whoever you are referring to... that would be an extreme minority in any case .



1) No, that's not the only thing you could say, and I've already shown you the alternative.

2) It would only be the case if you subscribe to deflationism, which you don't seem to be. So the above leaves me puzzled. There are plentiful theories of truth, and the concept of correspondense tends to be central to how we generally refer to that concept.



Yes, but truth is not one of these. It can only exist on circular foundation of concepts that it links as far as conceptual relationships go, otherwise it's a meaningless concept. Is it true that apple is a fruit? Yes, because we nominally defined an apple, and we nominally define a fruit. The concept of truth is that of correspondence between those nominally-defined concepts.

It exists to communicate conceptual coherence.

Again, perhaps if you ascribe to deflationism theory that would not be the case. Do you?



What are you talking about ? Lol. Are you really saying that 100% of mathematician and logicians are deflationists or that none doubt the viability of infinite set theory as foundational? Really?

Yeah, like I thought, you don't understand the conversation. I pretty much called this exactly a few posts back. You're jumping straight to epistemology before even settling the issue of the foundations of logic. It's like trying to define multiplication before you've gotten around to defining addition. Correspondence theory deals with prepositional logic, but by necessity you have us still dealing with the formal language. Apples and oranges.

 

[devolved]

I would not dispute this claim, but I am trying to point out that it itself is a claim about the noumena: that a form of structuring takes place prior to our subjective experience.

Noumenon generally and historically refers to an event or object that exists independent of mind as a process. It would still be the case in context of the noumenal whole which mind would be a part of. In itself it doesn't justify jumpling the categories relevant to how we perceive things. We don't perceive out thoughts apart from the content of those thoughts. Hence, whatever structure you are referring to would be essentially a phenomenal perception when it comes how we get to "see it".

Thus, I'm not sure that you can justifiably break the category and say .... well you are talking about the "noumenal whole" when it comes to structure. I'm not. It would be a different, and very unspecific category.

Except in that we have very direct knowledge of how specific colors appear to us, which is knowledge that simultaneously refers to the phenomenal and the noumenal, given that our phenomenal experiences are part of the noumenal whole. The fact that the noumenon somehow gives rise to a phenomenal experience of color is also another thing we can say about the noumenon itself.

Well, that's an assumption that you and I may have, but it doesn't need to reflect reality. Noumenal may not give rise to phenomenal. It could be the opposite. Or it could be that one merely observes the other just like we passively observe movies and live thought experiences of actors on the screen, etc.

I'm not sure that it's relevant to the point why these categories exist in the first place.

This doesn't mean that knowledge is impossible, but just that it might well be unspeakable.

I think we are in agreement here, hence my initial objection that language doesn't reflect reality but reflects a contents of thoughts. Do you disagree with that objection?

 

[Silmarien]

Well, that's an assumption that you and I may have, but it doesn't need to reflect reality. Noumenal may not give rise to phenomenal. It could be the opposite. Or it could be that one merely observes the other just like we passively observe movies and live thought experiences of actors on the screen, etc.

This doesn't work. If the phenomenal gives rise to the noumenal, then the phenomenal is the noumenal, and the Kantian thing-in-itself doesn't exist at all. Which means we lose the distinction between phenomenal and noumenal and still have access to reality as it actually is.

Similarly, unless you are a type of dualist and think that the phenomenal is fundamentally simple and self-given, I'm not sure how the idea that one merely observes the other makes any sense at all. If you grant the phenomenal this type of independence, then it becomes an equally fundamental aspect of reality as it actually is and indistinguishable from the noumenal. There really is a point at which this sort of extreme subjectivism just collapses into incoherence.

I think we are in agreement here, hence my initial objection that language doesn't reflect reality but reflects a contents of thoughts. Do you disagree with that objection?

I'm not sure. I don't really know what your objection actually is. I would think it self evident that words do not necessarily reflect reality, but I would be cautious of too subjectivist an approach to language, since basic words are referential. I don't need to speak more than 20 words of Greek for the statement πίνω το νερό to be meaningful to me.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

This doesn't work. If the phenomenal gives rise to the noumenal, then the phenomenal is the noumenal, and the Kantian thing-in-itself doesn't exist at all. Which means we lose the distinction between phenomenal and noumenal and still have access to reality as it actually is.

Similarly, unless you are a type of dualist and think that the phenomenal is fundamentally simple and self-given, I'm not sure how the idea that one merely observes the other makes any sense at all. If you grant the phenomenal this type of independence, then it becomes an equally fundamental aspect of reality as it actually is and indistinguishable from the noumenal. There really is a point at which this sort of extreme subjectivism just collapses into incoherence.



I'm not sure. I don't really know what your objection actually is. I would think it self evident that words do not necessarily reflect reality, but I would be cautious of too subjectivist an approach to language, since basic words are referential. I don't need to speak more than 20 words of Greek for the statement πίνω το νερό to be meaningful to me.

...but then we have to question the linguistic structure of what you "mean" specifically (even if not exactly?) when you say "it's meaningful to me."

@devolved and I would, from our individual, respective positions, have to attempt to understand what YOU mean when you make reference to YOUR phenomenal experience as YOU'VE seen it. And each of my and devolve's conceptions of what we each think you've communicated would be anywhere on a spectrum of levels of meaning that could then be qualifed further by you .......

Of course, this confusion might clear up if we don't just all three continue to stand immobile as three talking heads and actually DO something together to interact with the reality around us. ( ....wow, that almost sounds, like... science, however imperfectly [or provisionally] it may be corporately acted upon by all three of us... )

....oh my, I think my head is spinning. Has anyone seen Alice, or did she leave the Rabbit Hole already?

 

[Silmarien]

...but then we have to question the linguistic structure of what you "mean" specifically (even if not exactly?) when you say "it's meaningful to me."

But why? What effect does the phrase "it's meaningful to me" have on the independent meaning of the phrase πίνω το νερό? (I drink the water.) "Meaningful" is an abstract concept, but the verb "to drink" and noun "water" are pretty concrete. We're not stuck in a subjective web of fabricated meaning when trying to figure out what water is (philosophical issues of identity set aside). If we were, nobody would ever learn to speak in the first place and communication would be impossible.

Too much focus on the subjective spectrum of meaning ignores the fact that two year olds can learn to use words to refer to objects without problems. Obviously subtleties and complications come into the picture, and a whole web of subjective impressions come to be associated with words (this happens to me with Spanish a lot), but it's very possible to overstate the case for the subjectivity of language.