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Since we're going into this meta-philosophical thing, your statement is false. If I call a tail a leg, dogs definitely have five legs. Unless they were of cours
by stefncb 3y ago
Since we're going into this meta-philosophical thing, your statement is false. If I call a tail a leg, dogs definitely have five legs. Unless they were of course born without a leg, or have otherwise lost one. There is no "reality" from a human perspective, it's all sensory input that goes through a lot of very subjective processing.
You can't _really_ categorize things. You can mostly sort of do it, but it never actually works out, because categories are human stuff, and human stuff is subjective and thus different depending on who you ask. Sometimes unclear even to the same person.
I can say dogs have five legs and the only reason most people will think I'm wrong is that society has come to categorize limbs based on function instead of length.
- tough 3y agoGetting a little pedantic 2. a large branch of a tree. "the bare limbs of a high tree" Similar: branch limb (n.2) late 14c., "edge of a quadrant or other instrument," from Latin limbus "ornamental border, hem, fringe, edge," a word of uncertain origin. Just thought of the limbic system and how that might be related, doesn't seem to be about function but about positioning against a core system
- stefncb 3y agoMy point was that categorizing limbs (differentiating them from one another) is done by function. Now that I think about it limb isn't what I had in mind anyway, what I meant to say was that we categorize parts of the body in terms of function. But you're right, limbs are not defined by function.