Defining "life" has long eluded philosophers and scientists, with traditional approaches often leading to exclusions of borderline entities like viruses or over inclusions of clearly non-living systems. The Prober's Razor offers a novel, epistemically modest principle: If a space probe returns with an entity X, and contemporary scientists are compelled...
I would like to try to propose a potential novel terminology for a motif found in several languages. The following is a short description of the idea. Phonosemantic Duplication is a linguistic phenomenon where words that represent duplicity, duality, or redundancy exhibit clear internal phonetic repetition. for example Words for...
Defining "life" has long eluded philosophers and scientists, with traditional approaches often leading to exclusions of borderline entities like viruses or over inclusions of clearly non-living systems. The Prober's Razor offers a novel, epistemically modest principle: If a space probe returns with an entity X, and contemporary scientists are compelled to classify it as life, then X is life. This anchors the definition in evolving scientific consensus and discovery contexts, resolving stalemates in debates over viruses and potentially in silico life forms. By shifting from ontological essence to epistemological recognition, the razor accommodates paradigm shifts and advances astrobiology. Analysis of the perennial virus debate demonstrates how discovery context transforms classification, suggesting that... (read 1607 more words →)
I would like to try to propose a potential novel terminology for a motif found in several languages. The following is a short description of the idea.
Phonosemantic Duplication is a linguistic phenomenon where words that represent duplicity, duality, or redundancy exhibit clear internal phonetic repetition.
for example
Words for "Twin":
Greek: Δίδυμος (Didymos) {Di Di}
Hindi: द्वंद्व (Dwandwa) {Dwa Dwa}
Yoruba: Ibeji {E,E,E}
Bengali: যমজ (Yamaja) {Ya Ya}
Words for "Same/Identical":
Burmese: တန်းတူ (tanta) {Ta Ta}
Indonesian/Malay: sama sama {Sama Sama}
Malayalam: സമാനമാന (samanaman) {aman aman}
Words for "Redundancy":
English: Redundant {Dun Dun}
Haitian Creole: nesesè {Se Se}
Lao: ຊໍ້າຊ້ອນ (soason) {So So}
The concept highlights the relationship between sound and meaning, showing how phonetic structures can reinforce semantic concepts in language. Unlike "reduplication," which is a... (read more)
Insightful response. Thank you. My attempt here is provide a definition from a future accomodating perspective. I recognize that it may seem "open ended," and I agree with you In that respect. I was initially hesitant till I realized it did provide a solution to the stalemate between scientists that debate viruses as life or not. It also accomodated for non nucleotidic life forms that we find our selves in the presipis of, insilico for example. When I also realized it wasnt as open as to not reduce type I errors like fire and crystals, I thought it was worth publishing if nothing else but to inspire future evolution of the concept.