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>otherwise the largest island would be the Americas, or perhaps mainland Asia + Africa + Europe. Just curious, why perhaps? the second is much bigger

globular-toast 4y ago
Maybe Afroeurasia is just "land" and everything else is ocean, with islands. I find it funny that humans love facts like "the skin is the largest organ" but hate facts like "Afroeurasia is the largest island". I wonder why that is.
- jonwinstanley 4y ago
  Africa, Europe and Asia are continents, so can’t be Islands
  - globular-toast 4y ago
    The definition of continent is very fuzzy and mostly man-made. So all you're really saying is Afroeurasia isn't an island because we decided it isn't.
    - CRConrad 4y ago
      Yup. That's how language works: Words mean what they mean because we've decided that they do.
- yamtaddle 4y ago
  I don't think people hate either, we just don't treat them as actually-true when using language. Nobody ordinarily means to include "skin" when they say "organ" (possibly doctors or academics in certain contexts, but it's not normal usage), and nobody means "Afroeurasia" when they say "island". It's a kind of reductio based on what people will tell you when you ask them to define "island", to show that definitions they come up with tend to have outcomes they don't like—happily, we may just ignore all that and keep using the words in a useful and mutually-intelligible way, so that language remains tenable. In fact, the reductio isn't proving people wrong when they say "afroeurasia isn't an island". Nobody treats it that way, so it's not. If they did, we'd need a different word for "island".
bluGill 4y ago
Africa is enough separate that you can make an argument that it isn't part of Asia+Europe. I can see no good reason to call Europe and Asia a separate continent. (I'm not sure if it is bigger than north+south America - it feels like it is, but maps can be deceiving and can't be bothered to look it up). Of course if Africa is not part of Asia+Europe then it is hard to argue America is one continent. In the end we don't have a good definition of continent though, so you can find plenty of weird things you can argue should be the definition and thus come up with a lot of contradictory answers.

globular-toast 4y ago

Maybe Afroeurasia is just "land" and everything else is ocean, with islands. I find it funny that humans love facts like "the skin is the largest organ" but hate facts like "Afroeurasia is the largest island". I wonder why that is.

jonwinstanley 4y ago
Africa, Europe and Asia are continents, so can’t be Islands
- globular-toast 4y ago
  The definition of continent is very fuzzy and mostly man-made. So all you're really saying is Afroeurasia isn't an island because we decided it isn't.
  - CRConrad 4y ago
    Yup. That's how language works: Words mean what they mean because we've decided that they do.
yamtaddle 4y ago
I don't think people hate either, we just don't treat them as actually-true when using language. Nobody ordinarily means to include "skin" when they say "organ" (possibly doctors or academics in certain contexts, but it's not normal usage), and nobody means "Afroeurasia" when they say "island". It's a kind of reductio based on what people will tell you when you ask them to define "island", to show that definitions they come up with tend to have outcomes they don't like—happily, we may just ignore all that and keep using the words in a useful and mutually-intelligible way, so that language remains tenable. In fact, the reductio isn't proving people wrong when they say "afroeurasia isn't an island". Nobody treats it that way, so it's not. If they did, we'd need a different word for "island".

bluGill 4y ago

Africa is enough separate that you can make an argument that it isn't part of Asia+Europe. I can see no good reason to call Europe and Asia a separate continent. (I'm not sure if it is bigger than north+south America - it feels like it is, but maps can be deceiving and can't be bothered to look it up). Of course if Africa is not part of Asia+Europe then it is hard to argue America is one continent. In the end we don't have a good definition of continent though, so you can find plenty of weird things you can argue should be the definition and thus come up with a lot of contradictory answers.