OK well

Apr 28, 2007 11:31

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Aside: Food For Thought kurrs April 28 2007, 20:35:27 UTC
The exception isn't necessary, you can produce functions that look at themselves and still give you actual results. Theoretically, if you had enough information, you could not only predict someone's actions but you could also predict someone's actions when they knew you were predicting them.

PS The comic was lovely.

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Re: Aside: Food For Thought arrogant_gamer April 29 2007, 20:06:59 UTC
Hi

Wait, Kurrs you seem be saying that behaviour is determinable, but not predetermined: which I agree with? How is that not a subscription to companibalism?

Wait, you mean to make the difference between things that can be/are rigorously defined vs things that are/can not be so rigorously defined? Maybe?

z.

PS I have some questions: are there "categories of things" (such as moons), "examples of things" (such as this moon before us), and "proper things" (such as The Moon) that can all be discussed? Can arguments about categories, about examples, and about things all occur? What is the difference between things and examples? It still seems arbitrary to me...

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Re: Aside: Food For Thought conjuncts May 1 2007, 00:44:46 UTC
I don't usual get involved with this sort of thing, but I feel I should point out that the idea the properties can have qualities is a heavy assumption, although depends I suppose on how much ontology you want to commit to. When you start talking about categories, types, forms, and instances thereof, you're building up quite an impressive metaphysical structure for which I believe the (extensive) burden of proof rests on you to demonstrate exists, or at least is plausible. So I suppose I'm saying that its' worth considering the simple explanation is that the things you're talking about (categories) don't exist in the sense you want them to, and that's why it's difficult to reason about them.

Also, I should add, that, at least in my experience with logical studies of analogy, the area is not well-defined, and is somewhat controversial (I don't really know much about linguistic or psychological research into this though).

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