3 ms·

What evidence do you have that a sausage is not functionally equivalent to a cucumber?

• fc417fc802 5mo ago
  I don't follow. If you provide criteria I can most likely provide evidence, unless your criteria is "vaguely cylindrical and vaguely squishy" in which case I obviously won't be able to. The person I replied to made a definite claim (that we are "very obviously not ...") for which no evidence has been presented and which I posit humanity is currently unable to definitively answer in one direction or the other.
  • CPLX 5mo ago
    When two things are obviously radically different (a squishy mass of trillions of interconnected carbon based blobs fed by some sort of continuous oxygen based chemical reaction, and a series of distributed transitors on silicon wafers) then the burden of proof shifts to the other guy to provide the clear and convincing evidence that they should be considered functionally the same thing.
    • fc417fc802 5mo ago
      But I made no such claim. I was explicit that my position is "humanity is currently unable to definitively answer in one direction or the other". Two things being physically different does not exclude their also having functional similarities. The argument presented amounts to A and B have large physical differences, A does X, therefore B does not do X. That doesn't follow.
• trinsic2 5mo ago
  [flagged]
• coldtea 5mo ago
  From certain aspects they're equivalent. Both have mass, have carbon based, both contain DNA/RNA, both are suprinsingly over 50% water, both are food, and both can be tasty when served right. From other aspects they are not. In many cases, one or the other would do. In other cases, you want something more special (e.g. more protein, or less fat).