DaFranker comments on 37 Ways That Words Can Be Wrong - Less Wrong

72 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 06 March 2008 05:09AM

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Comment author: beoShaffer 30 July 2012 03:02:21PM 4 points [-]

Exactly :-) Or to be less obtuse framster isn't supposed to mean anything in this context, hence how the sentence is an example of words being wrong. Also welcome to less wrong.

Comment author: DaFranker 30 July 2012 03:19:30PM *  1 point [-]

To explain even further, it could be seen as a demonstration of wrong usage of categorization and labels, where even if framster did have a meaning in the mental model of the speaker, it is completely arbitrary and there is no way to communicate this meaning effectively.

And then, even if it were communicated properly somehow, the question would be meaningless and one would want to know what hidden real question was actually behind it; the speaker having created the term framster from nothing, the question of whether Socrates is one or not is literally to be answered by definition.

Thus, the whole thing could (and really should) resolve instantly to a different question, e.g.: "Does Socrates have a large influence on the political ideals of local youths?"