Manfred comments on Stuff That Makes Stuff Happen - Less Wrong

51 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 18 October 2012 10:49AM

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Comment author: Manfred 17 October 2012 08:01:04PM 3 points [-]

The origins of the word aren't very relevant to its current meaning

If you'll allow me to take this a bit out of context, please think of typical Zen usage as "origins of the word" and usage in this sequence of posts as "its current meaning."

The difference is obvious, of course - you know what the word means, and anything else is wrong. Which is totally fine. I just wanted to point out that if you try to make your conclusions universal or absolute here, you will in fact create more relativism - the solution is to claim the non-universal knowledge of how words should be used if you're the audience.