tcpkac comments on Entropy, and Short Codes - Less Wrong

36 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 23 February 2008 03:16AM

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Comment author: tcpkac 23 February 2008 07:48:19AM -2 points [-]

Firstly, saying "you can define a word any way you want" is not the same thing as "any way which is meaningful to you". Secondly, I don't believe the development on entropy has anything to do with the convenience of using short words for often used concepts. "chair" is a meaningful piece of jointed reality not because of its intrinsic physical properties but because of its handiness for humans. A dolphin would find "chair" as a significant piece of jointed reality absurd. Thirdly, there is an obvious distinction bewteen using language descriptively and using it predictively. I would agree with you that mistakes often arise when moving from the descriptive to the predictive incautiously. That doesn't, however, make the descriptive use of language invalid, or even unwise, 98% of the use of language is descriptive. (I have proof of that statistic, but it won't fit in this margin).