Today's post, Disputing Definitions was originally published on 12 February 2008. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):

You allow an argument to slide into being about definitions, even though it isn't what you originally wanted to argue about. If, before a dispute started about whether a tree falling in a deserted forest makes a "sound", you asked the two soon-to-be arguers whether they thought a "sound" should be defined as "acoustic vibrations" or "auditory experiences", they'd probably tell you to flip a coin. Only after the argument starts does the definition of a word become politically charged.

Discuss the post here (rather than in the comments to the original post).

This post is part of the Rerunning the Sequences series, where we'll be going through Eliezer Yudkowsky's old posts in order so that people who are interested can (re-)read and discuss them. The previous post was How An Algorithm Feels From Inside, and you can use the sequence_reruns tag or rss feed to follow the rest of the series.

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