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Article 1947 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: zeleny@zariski.harvard.edu (Mikhail Zeleny)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,sci.philosophy.tech,comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Existence
Message-ID: <1991Dec7.230631.6291@husc3.harvard.edu>
Date: 8 Dec 91 04:06:30 GMT
References: <1991Dec7.070815.6257@husc3.harvard.edu> <1991Dec7.190338.2203@Princeton.EDU> <1991Dec7.154729.2221@arizona.edu>
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In article <1991Dec7.154729.2221@arizona.edu> 
bill@NSMA.AriZonA.EdU (Bill Skaggs) writes:

>In article <1991Dec7.190338.2203@Princeton.EDU> 
>egnilges@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Ed Nilges) writes:

EN:
>>  [you just read it, didn't you? ]

BS:
>  Thanks for your defence, but I don't quite agree with all of it
>(especially the politics).

I applaud your good judgment.

BS:
>  As far as I am concerned, philosophers have the right to be
>prescriptive about words, so long as they are *explicitly*
>prescriptive.  My problem with Mikhail Zeleny is not that he
>wants to use words such as "exist" in unusual ways, but that
>he refuses to explain what his usage is.  He somehow thinks that
>reeling off a list of names is an adequate explanation, but it
>is not.

On the contrary, the names serve to show that I use the term in a fairly
conventional sense, not different in principle from its colloquial use.

BS:
>  What is especially amusing is that Zeleny thinks his attitude
>is shared by mathematicians.  I am a mathematician (though I'm
>now doing neuroscience), and I assert that any mathematician who
>took Zeleny's approach would be lynched.  I can just imagine
>the scene:
>
>Mathematician:  "Now if we look at the projection of the 
>	cotangent bundle . . ."
>
>Audience:  "How do you define the 'cotangent bundle'?"
>
>Math:  "What!  This is thoroughly discussed by Smale.  If you
>	haven't read Smale, what the fuck are you doing at my
>	lecture?!"
>
>Aud:  "Kill."
>
>Math:  "Gug-gug-gug."

For a better analogy, try the following:

Mathematician:  "Now if we look at the projection of the
        cotangent bundle . . ."

Audience:  "You are committing a common fallacy of assuming that 
	mathematics makes sense."

Mathematician:  "So long."


>	-- Bill


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: Mikhail Zeleny                                                     :
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