bigjeff5 comments on Empty Labels - Less Wrong

16 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 14 February 2008 11:50PM

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Comment author: Lewis_Powell 01 June 2008 06:52:16AM 0 points [-]

I should have phrased that as saying that I don't think Aristotle included mortal in the definition of human.

Comment author: bigjeff5 10 February 2011 12:13:38AM 3 points [-]

This wasn't actually about Aristotle's definition of a human. It was about deducing items already given in the definitions of Aristotlian labels.

I believe Aristotle's actual definition of a human was [rational, animal]. The point Eliezer is making is that, given this definition, it's an empty argument to say "Socrates is human, all humans are animals, therefore Socrates is an animal." This is blindingly obvious and completely unhelpful when you replace "human" with [rational, animal].

In other words, it sounds like a major insight, but that Socrates must be an animal if he is human is in the very definition of human. It did not give you any new insight in any way if you already knew Aristotle's definition of animal.

There are other things you can deduce logically from these definitions, but it's dumb to deduce something that is already given in the definition. That's the point.