derosa8Dr. Casey, thanks very much for your analogy. I do find it helpful. And for the record, I don’t think string theory is the answer.
And I think you pointed out an important point above. Since if we were to judge the meaning of a sentence based on how “people” interpreted it, then it depends on which people we choose. Would it be better to define the meaning of a sentence as “the content that the sentence’s author intended to convey?” But then that gets all subjective too if you have an author that uses nonsense word order to convey meaning, like government code words and stuff. Oh boy this is confusing.
It’s funny because I really do find all these specific cases and special circumstances fascinating, but I realize it would be more useful to learn the basics of the formal system first before getting into those things. Thanks again for the responses.