This represents a fundamental misunderstanding of what a dictionary is, a snapshot of a language in time. The meaning of words change over time. “Nice” used to mean stupid in English.
They believe they can divine the intentions of the dead, that they hear the voices of dead people, and can know what they mean.
They also believe that from the writings of a collective, enacted in the form of statutes, they can discern a single, unified intention. This is of course completely ridiculous, but to hear them tell it, they figured out a way to interpret law “objectively,” which is also of course ridiculous.