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> if someone says "people are idiots" they don't mean "X, for every X... It can do, it depends on context. When a statement is ambiguous, you have to infer mea

by Chris2048 9y ago

> if someone says "people are idiots" they don't mean "X, for every X... It can do, it depends on context. When a statement is ambiguous, you have to infer meaning from context. > That's the "principle of charity". What about the "principle of unambiguous speech"? If a conversational statement can be taken down with a few "DUH!", people will try harder to be precise in their communication.

coldtea 9y ago
>It can do, it depends on context. When a statement is ambiguous, you have to infer meaning from context. That's the whole art of casual conversation -- or any conversation for that matter, even the most rigorous scientific paper depends on millions of context-based assumptions.
- Chris2048 9y ago
  > even the most rigorous scientific paper There is a lot of explicit convention in science, it is not the same as general "art of casual conversation"; Scientists will likely have explicit qualification, and provide stats and data. More so for Law, were stakes are arguably even higher. Anyway, in this case you made a absolute claim ("they don't mean") that isn't necessarily true. They can mean that. How do you demonstrate that this isn't true, if is so subjective (an "art")? The answer, would be to incentivise clear, unambiguous language; at least in technical, specific conversations.
  - coldtea 9y ago
    >Anyway, in this case you made a absolute claim ("they don't mean") that isn't necessarily true. They can mean that. I made it in casual conversation myself. They can -- it's physically possible. But generally (statistically significantly) they don't.
    - Chris2048 9y ago
      > But generally they don't I don't think so, and neither did the original respondent.
      - coldtea 9y ago
        Well, you're allowed to your opinion. But I've never seen anybody mention say something about members of a group, ethnicity, nationality, whatever, etc in casual conversation and really mean it absolutely applies to everybody in that set with no exceptions (e.g. "Scots are stingy" or "Californians are into health"). And when I say "never seen anybody", consistent with my rule, I mean "I only seen very few do that". So, I'm sure you can find some counter-examples. But do you really believe what I say is not true in the large majority of cases?
        Chris2048 9y ago
        You didn't say "women are X", you said "porn is X", so it could be a categorical statement about the nature of porn. I believe what is is less important that what can be. Bitcoin/freenet/bitorrent is used heavily for shady and/or illegal business - that needn't be the case in the future. "porn objectifies women" is a fairly loaded term, that incorporates, on average, a lot of assumption about what that means, and why it is relevant. The context is a large effort by certain groups, trying to prove porn is "harmful" - the objectification argument is the latest round of arguments against porn.
        coldtea 9y ago
        >You didn't say "women are X", you said "porn is X", so it could be a categorical statement about the nature of porn. I fail to see the difference between "women are X" and "porn is X". Both are statements of the type "Y is X". Furthermore, my point is that categorical statements in casual conversation mean "most, the majority etc", unlike categorical statements in formal logic. >"porn objectifies women" is a fairly loaded term, that incorporates, on average, a lot of assumption about what that means, and why it is relevant. The context is a large effort by certain groups, trying to prove porn is "harmful" - the objectification argument is the latest round of arguments against porn. Whether "porn objectifies women" is true or not is orthogonal to what I discussed here: that someone saying "porn objectifies women" doesn't mean "all porn ever made with no exception objectifies women" -- and thus their point can't be shut down with a mere counter-example (like several parent commenters here did).

coldtea 9y ago

>It can do, it depends on context. When a statement is ambiguous, you have to infer meaning from context. That's the whole art of casual conversation -- or any conversation for that matter, even the most rigorous scientific paper depends on millions of context-based assumptions.

Chris2048 9y ago
> even the most rigorous scientific paper There is a lot of explicit convention in science, it is not the same as general "art of casual conversation"; Scientists will likely have explicit qualification, and provide stats and data. More so for Law, were stakes are arguably even higher. Anyway, in this case you made a absolute claim ("they don't mean") that isn't necessarily true. They can mean that. How do you demonstrate that this isn't true, if is so subjective (an "art")? The answer, would be to incentivise clear, unambiguous language; at least in technical, specific conversations.
- coldtea 9y ago
  >Anyway, in this case you made a absolute claim ("they don't mean") that isn't necessarily true. They can mean that. I made it in casual conversation myself. They can -- it's physically possible. But generally (statistically significantly) they don't.
  - Chris2048 9y ago
    > But generally they don't I don't think so, and neither did the original respondent.
    - coldtea 9y ago
      Well, you're allowed to your opinion. But I've never seen anybody mention say something about members of a group, ethnicity, nationality, whatever, etc in casual conversation and really mean it absolutely applies to everybody in that set with no exceptions (e.g. "Scots are stingy" or "Californians are into health"). And when I say "never seen anybody", consistent with my rule, I mean "I only seen very few do that". So, I'm sure you can find some counter-examples. But do you really believe what I say is not true in the large majority of cases?
      - Chris2048 9y ago
        You didn't say "women are X", you said "porn is X", so it could be a categorical statement about the nature of porn. I believe what is is less important that what can be. Bitcoin/freenet/bitorrent is used heavily for shady and/or illegal business - that needn't be the case in the future. "porn objectifies women" is a fairly loaded term, that incorporates, on average, a lot of assumption about what that means, and why it is relevant. The context is a large effort by certain groups, trying to prove porn is "harmful" - the objectification argument is the latest round of arguments against porn.
        coldtea 9y ago
        >You didn't say "women are X", you said "porn is X", so it could be a categorical statement about the nature of porn. I fail to see the difference between "women are X" and "porn is X". Both are statements of the type "Y is X". Furthermore, my point is that categorical statements in casual conversation mean "most, the majority etc", unlike categorical statements in formal logic. >"porn objectifies women" is a fairly loaded term, that incorporates, on average, a lot of assumption about what that means, and why it is relevant. The context is a large effort by certain groups, trying to prove porn is "harmful" - the objectification argument is the latest round of arguments against porn. Whether "porn objectifies women" is true or not is orthogonal to what I discussed here: that someone saying "porn objectifies women" doesn't mean "all porn ever made with no exception objectifies women" -- and thus their point can't be shut down with a mere counter-example (like several parent commenters here did).