5 ms·
One way to make this clear to yourself is to observe how much more difficult it is to "define bread" than it is to answer "is this bread?"
by qq66 5y ago
One way to make this clear to yourself is to observe how much more difficult it is to "define bread" than it is to answer "is this bread?"
- whatshisface 5y agoBread is defined as anything I think bread is, and the same goes for any other word. To hold another position would be in some way dishonest.
- alanh 5y agoThat’s not a definition :) And, by the way, a definition is not defined as whatever one thinks a definition is.
- zephyrthenoble 5y agoMaybe their definition of definition is your definition of bread?
- pcthrowaway 5y agoGive us this day our daily definition
- alanh 5y agoAt risk of really devolving this thread, I’m pretty sure that bodybuilders generally agree that bread is counter-productive in the pursuit of definition :)
- mkaic 5y ago"Bread makes you fat??" ~Scott Pilgrim
- tetsusaiga 5y agoGreat, now we gotta figure out what a "bodybuilder" is!
- pc86 5y agoOne whose body is sufficiently defined.
- whatshisface 5y agoIt offers a one-to-one correspondence between stimuli and classifications, what else could a definition be?
- taylorius 5y agoDefinitions ideally don't require an oracle.
- bufferoverflow 5y agoThat's not how definitions work. I can't know what your brain thinks bread is. And if you die, I can never know.
- whatshisface 5y agoDefinitions do not have to be computable, even in principle. For example, "a Turing machine that halts" is well-defined although there is no algorithm for classifying things into that bin.
- dpierce9 5y agohttps://plato.stanford.edu/entries/meaning/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/meaning/
- uoaei 5y agoIt is literally a definition: it defines the boundary between what is and isn't bread. There is a lot of context that is needed to get to a positive identification (maybe the word you meant) of bread, but that is true of many definitions present in dictionaries, etc. today.
- dpierce9 5y agoThis would make it impossible to share definitions (even when we both think all the same things are bread).
- whatshisface 5y agoIt is impossible to share definitions of natural-language words, at least pending advanced brain scanning technology. That's a limitation of physical reality, not a philosophical flaw.
- Sohcahtoa82 5y agoAre you implying that definitions aren't real because they're not physical objects?
- whatshisface 5y agoI'm implying that natural-language definitions are physical objects, in your brain, made up of brain stuff, and that you can't write them down in ways that are much briefer than a full description of their physical manifestation, although you can roughly approximate them in something like a dictionary.
- dpierce9 5y agoThen why bother writing these sentences? I have no idea what you mean by them.
- MichaelBurge 5y agoThat makes you a bread-oracle O, but doesn't define bread. Since there are some inputs x where O(x0) = False, some where O(x1) = True, and the laws of physics are continuous(yes, even in quantum mechanics), Buridan's Principle implies that you are incapable of deciding the breadness of arbitrary input in bounded time.
- whatshisface 5y agoI agree that I cannot decide the breadness of arbitrary inputs in bounded time, although I contend that does not stop me from claiming to have defined bread, on the grounds that the set of Turing machines that halt is well-defined but also has the same difficulty you're describing.
- MichaelBurge 5y agoA definition doesn't change: The prime numbers or Turing Machines are the same set regardless of who Putin invades next or what law Biden decides to veto. But the set of inputs that an oracle implicitly defines, could change if the oracle changes. And you could change your mind or die tomorrow. So you would need a very large number of definitions of bread, indexed by (time, person). Any one of them could be a valid definition - it's theoretically possible to make you look at 1000 pictures of bread so your brain is encouraged to make a bread-detector neuron, and then scan your brain and calculate its response on any input - but you don't know which one is correct to use for any purpose. i.e. If I want to start a bakery, should I use your current bread-oracle to define "marketable bread", your bread-oracle as of 5 years ago, should I take a statistical ensemble of brain scans from millions of people, or should I use my own? It seems like just having a function that returns true on some inputs and false on others doesn't tell you much, whereas traditional mathematical definitions have strict relations to other things.
- gryn 5y ago> A definition doesn't change but they do, the definition of many words changed over time some to even start to mean the opposite of what they initially did.
- uoaei 5y agoRemarkably, you are getting downvoted for stating exactly the conclusion of pretty much all philosophical discussion on the matter since the mid-20th century. Notably, the public reacted similarly then as HN does now, rejecting the notion that meaning is only constructed and, furthermore, hopelessly solipsistic.
- alanh 5y agoThere can be surprising insights yielded from such an exercise. For example, if I think about what separates breads from cakes and muffins, I am forced to deal with the way that a typical "banana bread" (baked with lots of sugar and without yeast) is really a bread-shaped muffin more than a banana-flavored bread. This might seem overly semantic, but it does reflect differences in how it is baked and what it means nutritionally.
- whatshisface 5y agoThe examples that you're structuring your attempted definitions around (banana bread) come from your intuition. In the ultimate limit your definition would be a complete list of your intuitions.
- shadowgovt 5y agoThis thought experiment ends with Diogenes running into the Academy and tossing a Guinness in my face. ;)
- IntrepidWorm 5y agoI have a hard time believing Diogenes would waste a good Guinness like that.
- samatman 5y agoThis is more about the fact that we recognize bread, and definition plays no role in the process of recognition. Even if we define what bread is, that won't play a role in our recognition of anything other than maybe-this-is-bread-plus-I'm-being-asked-to-judge-if-it-is-or-not.