1234.times(4321) is something slightly different than 1234.times(4321)
I guess you wanted one of those to be the other way around. In any case, that's commutativity not associativity, it has nothing to do with object orientation (you could equally say that times(1234,4321) and times(4321,1234) are different), and since it happens that multiplication of numbers is commutative it again seems like a total red herring.
because you rate precision by an objective standard
I do? Please, tell me more about how I rate precision.
My disagreement is about a fundamental issue.
Which I think simply amounts to the fact that the same sentence may denote different propositions in different contexts, because meaning is context-dependent. Which I think is not at all controversial.
I may well be misinterpreting you, but in that case I think it's time for you to be clearer about what you mean. So far, all the examples we've had have been (so it seems to me) either (a) cases where meaning or reference is context-dependent but it's at least arguable that once the meaning is nailed down you have a proposition whose truth value is not context-dependent, or (b) just observations that life is complicated sometimes (September 1752, leap seconds, etc.) without any actual context-dependent proposition in sight.
As I remarked above, I'm not certain how precise one can make the distinction between context-dependent meaning and context-dependent truth value. But since (I think) intelligent thoughtful people are generally entirely unbothered by the idea of context-dependent meaning, any version of context-dependent truth value that can't be clearly distinguished from context-dependent meaning shouldn't be that controversial :-).
I guess you wanted one of those to be the other way around. In any case, that's commutativity not associativity
In python I can overwrite the times function of one element that means that different elements have slightly different times functions. As such it's important to know whether X times Y means that times is a function of the X or of the Y object.
But you might be right that associativity is not the right word.
I do? Please, tell me more about how I rate precision.
When I see the word precision I see it has having a certain meaning that people ...
As per a recent comment this thread is meant to voice contrarian opinions, that is anything this community tends not to agree with. Thus I ask you to post your contrarian views and upvote anything you do not agree with based on personal beliefs. Spam and trolling still needs to be downvoted.