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Article 3172 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: weemba@libra.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Viruses: alive?
Message-ID: <63805@netnews.upenn.edu>
Date: 27 Jan 92 15:27:01 GMT
References: <TODD.92Jan23223358@ai12.elcom.nitech.ac.jp> <63531@netnews.upenn.edu> <TODD.92Jan25121302@ai10.elcom.nitech.ac.jp>
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In-reply-to: todd@ai10.elcom.nitech.ac.jp (Todd Law)

In article <TODD.92Jan25121302@ai10.elcom.nitech.ac.jp>, todd@ai10 (Todd Law) writes:
>>>>Who says that even biological viruses are alive?
>>>My Collins English Dictionary gives the definition of 'organism' as
>>Philosophy is not done by quoting dictionaries.

>The question was "Who says...." and I gave an answer as "So-and-so says...",
>which was direct and pertinent.

It was direct.  It was not pertinent: this is a philosophy newsgroup.

If you look in the right dictionary, you'll find "intelligent" defined
as able to carry out certain programmed functions.  (As in, intelligent
terminal)  Does this mean AI=Artificial Intelligence has succeeded, and
we can all go home now?  Not in the least.

>So how do you do philosophy?  Seems to me that definitions are a 
>fundamental part of philosophy (and dictionaries are just full of them).
>I'd like to see you get very far without them.  Suggestions?
>Constructive criticism?

First: throw away your dictionary.  Or at least, understand what it is.
It was put together under severe budgetary and editing constraints that
makes it useful for general questions but usually useless for the hard
technical questions.  You don't have to believe me: look up books on
lexicography and see for yourself.  Go back in time and read some of the
nasty reviews of Mirriam-Webster's Third International Dictionary.

It's easy to prove that dictionaries have their limits: look up the
definition of "dog".  Any definition will probably be incompatible
with one or more of the following: "dead dog", "three-legged dog",
"space alien dog", "ceramic dog", "three-headed dog". 

Calling definitions fundamental in philosophy is exactly backwards--you
are thinking of formal proofs.  In fact, this is precisely one of the
reasons that natural language processing is so damnably difficult.  You
and I can use words with an apparently infinite complexity, and trying
to program this has been frustratingly unsuccessful.  We understand
"understand" not because of what we found in a dictionary, but because
of some innate process we possess and call "understanding", but, in the
end, we simply don't understand.  Because of this ease of use but lack
of understanding, we find it easy to use regarding machines, but then
later difficult to justify.

It is this "difficult to justify" that makes for philosophy.  Try it.

For example: who says that even biological viruses are alive?  Respond
not with a dictionary, but an analysis of why this question should exist
in the first place.
-- 
-Matthew P Wiener (weemba@libra.wistar.upenn.edu)


