From: nelson_p@apollo.hp.com (Peter Nelson)
Subject: Re: Nelson and Me
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 15:24:23 GMT
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Corporation, Chelmsford, MA

In article <By1EB9.GoK@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu> jwales@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (jimmy donal wales) writes:
>Well, I'm about done.
>
>There gets to be a point beyond which continued discussion becomes
>pointless.  I think that I've proven my case beyond any reasonable
>doubt.

  Of course you do;  a Christian trying to prove the Bible is
  inerrantly correct will also feel that she has proven her 
  case beyond any reasonable doubt".    In chess this is known 
  as a concession (or tipping the board over).


>First, we should recognize that it is possible to have knowledge
>of particular things in reality, without even having a formal 
>definition.
  
  Of course.  But it is not possible to have FORMAL knowledge
  of it.  I have knowledge about Ralph Von Williams' music,
  including, for instance, the way it makes me feel.  But this
  is largely subjective.


>  The role of definitions is epistemological clarification.
>Do you know what a table is?  Can you identify ordinary dogs?

  If I were going to make a claim about all dogs (say I was 
  doing veterinary research on dietary needs and the thickness
  of the gastric mucosa of a dog's stomach, I had damn well
  better have more than a casual definition of "dog" in my
  published results.


>The answer is, obviously, no.  For these simple concepts, an
>ostensive definition (meaning: pointing to some examples) is all
>that is really necessary.  It is not necessary to come up with
>a formal description.

  But it is if we're going to talk about all humans being rational.
  Merely poining out that a particular human meets a particular
  operational criterion of "rational" means nothing.  There
  are plenty of people in mental hospitals who can string 
  objects and predicates (etc) in logically meaningful ways but
  who would hardly be mistaken for "rational" in any colloquial
  sense.   Unless you can describe WHEN a human is rational, to 
  WHAT EXTENT he's rational, etc you can't build a philosophy
  based on the assumption of rationality.  And you can't do that
  without a formal defintion.   Vulcan's may be suitable subjects
  for such a philosophy but applying it to humans requires doing
  a FORMAL reality check.

  Randianism is like the Raisin Bran commercial: "Two scoops of
  raisins in every package of Kellogg's Raisin Bran".   A con-
  venient metric since there is no commonly agreed upon definition
  of "scoop", they can't really be accused of lying (i.e., it's 
  not falsifiable).  


>science _are_ contextual.  If he were only trying to make the point
>that _some_ definitions are more precise than others (i.e., our
>definition of 'mass' is much more precise than our definition of
>'self-esteem)

  There is no rigorous definition of "self-esteem".
                      

>Definitions in science are contextual in (at least) two different
>ways.  First, scientists recognize that what are taken to be the
>fundamental attributes of particular existents may change over time.
>(Thus my example of mass/weight.)

 Again, I assume we are speaking English.  "Recognize" is present
 tense.  Scientists DO NOT acknowledge any change in the "mass" 
 over time -- all theories in, say, astronomy, geology, etc, assume
 that physics has NOT changed over time.


>  Second, we can think of the concept 'diamond'.  What is the fundamental
> attribute of a 'diamond'?  It will vary, of course, across disciplines. 
>the concept diamond may well have a different definition than the
>definition used by a chemist, a physicist, etc.

  Not!   They may each be interested in different aspects of diamonds,
  but the DEFINITION of diamond will not vary between the above disciplines.


>Nelson has conceded, for example, that the definition of 'man' used
>by a geneticist may be different from the definition of 'man' used
>by a psychologist, or an ethical philosopher, or the man on the street.

  No I haven't.  I've said that the latter three don'y HAVE formal
  defintions of "man".


---peter
  





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