[Ralath]

Oh so do they say, "my sadness was as deep as the ocean yesterday, and it's a bit deeper now."

I never said that. You're just adding your own words to my phrases in order to quantify them for your own purposes.

Even what you did was quantification of the emotion, even if it was rather vaguely quantified.

I could have said anything else. I could have said "My happiness is like a ray of sunshine."

If the meaning IS inherently different as you put it, then WHAT is the difference?

I can't quantify that difference for you, if that's what you're wanting. But heck, why wait for me to explain it for you when you understand it perfectly well in your next sentence:

Yes they conveyed something more effectively to the reader than a direct statement.

Obviously, if one thing conveyed something more effectively than another, then they are different. You obviously recognize that the two phrases are different meaning-wise, and not just syntax.

But they certainly didn't uplift anyone's spirit.

I don't know why the heck are you so caught up in the phrase, "uplifting the spirit." They didn't "uplift the spirit" because they weren't meant to uplift the spirit.

If, like you say, direct prose is just the same thing as lyrical prose, then why did you use them?

Because they manage to convey something in a way that direct prose cannot.

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At any rate, I think we've now (finally) established the purpose of art and poetry and their worth, even though there is no objective way to measure the "best."

Hooray for progress. =.=

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So they mean to do something and end up doing something else? I'd call that inefficiency.

I never said laws were efficient. Dunno who you're arguing with.

In fact, government as a whole is inefficient. And at times, I'd like to keep it that way.

I think all that is "enforced" is the sentence. The law states that murder is not allowed. So what to do with the murderer? That is the judicial decision.

No. Most definitely not. Cases do not make it up to the Supreme Court just so the Supreme Court can decide what to "do with the murderer." I don't know about the highest courts in other countries but the Supreme Court of the United States (and other courts) is deciding the interpretation of the law.

In fact, the question about what to do with the murderer is ever left up to a judicial decision. There are usually laws already set in place for the procedure. It is only when these laws are challenged (such as the death penalty) in court that the courts must decide what to do with these laws themselves, not the murderers specifically.

Those are generally accepted definitions. What is a house? Come on. A house is a structure intended for inhabitation. But only "intended" for inhabitation. Even if no one is in it, it remains a structure intended for inhabitation. Basements go downwards not upwards, and since "height" and not "depth" were mentioned in the law, it is perfectly legal to have basements.

Sure. Fair enough. There are some things that have common definitions. But what happens when you replace a word like... "house" with words like... "equality" or "property" or "right" or "freedom"...?

Those words aren't so easily definable.

Law has to be written by someone. It doesn't pop out of the machine of objective fairness. If the law is written objectively, and the writer is a fair, objective thinker, then the everything the author intends is on the paper, and means the exact same thing to everyone.

What I'm saying is, we shouldn't have to sit in court and argue about what the law means, because it should mean the same thing to everyone. We shouldn't have to worry about the intention of the law writer, because he was being objective. If he wasn't being objective, then we discard those laws.

I think you have a misconception of what objectivity is. I'm going to reference Wikipedia because (no matter what other people say) Wikipedia is still one the best places for easy to understand explanations. I think these sentences are pertinent:

Objectivism, or metaphysical objectivism, is the view that there is a reality or realm of objects and facts existing wholly independent of the mind.

While there is no universally accepted articulation of objectivity, a proposition is generally considered to be objectively true when its truth conditions are "mind-independent"—that is, not the result of any judgments made by a conscious entity.

Now, with that in mind, let's consider law.

Law is meditated on by humans. Not looking any more beyond that, that violates the definition of objectivity.

A human cannot be objective because the way he perceives the world (through the five senses) and the way he thinks rely on his interpretation.

Also, as a side-note, I think your concept about how laws are written is wrong as well.

There is no such thing as a singular writer when it comes to laws. There are often many, many writers editing, re-editing, adding in, and deleting. This is not objective.