wafflepudding comments on Arguing "By Definition" - Less Wrong

44 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 20 February 2008 11:37PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (38)

Sort By: Old

You are viewing a single comment's thread.

Comment author: wafflepudding 13 November 2015 03:52:51PM 0 points [-]

I love this series. Except, I have very particularly been in an argument where I said the phrase, "Hinduism is, by definition, a religion." Isn't agreement on common usage useful if you want to communicate efficiently? Maybe Wiggin shouldn't be used commonly, but one person defining Wiggin in a manner that contradicts the dictionary definition certainly doesn't do anyone any favors. And I think it's fine for common usage to define humans as mortal, as long as it consistently assumes that Socrates is inhuman when he goes on living forever.