# Instantiations of convoluted transmissions of meaning



## VictorBravo (Jul 16, 2014)

Sorry for the pretentious title. I was trying to create new account with the government, and the server responded with this:



> Could not instantiate mail function.



I'd never seen such a phrase before. As is often the case when I'm confronted with strange computer-generated phrases, I started thinking about language and meaning, and whether my anxiety about losing my bearings is justified. I see myself drifting perilously far from landfall toward an horizon of unmoored and scattered adjectives self-transforming into nouns, or nouns becoming verbs that end up gerunds, all of which then become nothings as they flow off into an abyss--instantiations of the general principle of word abuse.

I'm familiar with "instantiate" as a representation of a universal or maybe an abstract concept, but a mail function? Is a mail function one of those things that needs a concrete representation? 

So I invite others to provide examples of the decline in communication--instantations of the principle of convoluted meaning, etc.

Or at the very least, reassure me that an instantiated mail function is something desirable.


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## Toasty (Jul 16, 2014)

It sounds like the computer could not send you an email. A mail function is that part of a computer program that sends email to people. 



> So I invite others to provide examples of the decline in communication--instantations of the principle of convoluted meaning, etc.



Using a lot of acronyms that people do not understand. 

Using technical terminology in a job interview, but you have no idea what the terminology means.


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## Tirian (Jul 16, 2014)

VictorBravo said:


> I'm familiar with "instantiate" as a representation of a universal or maybe an abstract concept, but a mail function? Is a mail function one of those things that needs a concrete representation?



In computer programming parlance, "instantiate" means to take the lines of code that define how a function should operate, and load them into a "running instance" that can be invoked from other parts of the application. In this case, for some reason the lines of code in the mail function presumably failed to load, and therefore the "master" program running the site could not make an instance of the mail function, and therefore it could not be invoked.

So, yes, there is a parallel with the language you used regarding representation. Lines of code grouped together are abstract and cannot be invoked until a controlling program loads them into a running instance.

Code in Class (abstract) => Instantiated Into => Running Object In Memory (concrete)


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## VictorBravo (Jul 16, 2014)

Tirian said:


> Code in Class (abstract) => Instantiated Into => Running Object In Memory (concrete)



I love it. A a bunch of microscopic transistors are switching on and off, sending electric pulses to other transistors in a particular pattern, detected by high-speed counters, and that now is an "object." And when that object "runs," it is something concrete.

See what I mean? Such things are too wonderful for me, 

I do appreciate the education in computer jargon. I try to keep up with these things, and have a fairly good handle on basic computer science and different programming languages and structures. But I still get perplexed at how quickly, these days, a highly technical usage becomes incorporated in a message to a normal person trying to figure out how to deal with a website.

Ach...I'm getting curmudgeonly. It's not just computer science. I'm still reeling from "don't immanentize the eschaton."


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## Tirian (Jul 16, 2014)

VictorBravo said:


> But I still get perplexed at how quickly, these days, a highly technical usage becomes incorporated in a message to a normal person trying to figure out how to deal with a website.



Indeed - computing used to be a professional domain but laziness knows no boundaries.


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## JP Wallace (Jul 17, 2014)

I don't think I'd ever come across "instantiate" or any form of it before your post, but about 2 hours after reading it here, I came across the noun form "instantiations" in a book on Ancient History!


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