| Jamie Dallaire on Tue, 23 Dec 2008 12:40:24 -0700 (MST) |
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| Re: [s-d] [s-b] Ballot for Nweek/152 |
On Tue, Dec 23, 2008 at 2:23 PM, Jay Campbell <bnomic@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>wrote: > > Even then, that would be impossible. You can't define every single words >> within a ruleset inside of that ruleset, just like you can't develop a >> logically consistent, non-circular system of (e.g.) geometry without >> relying >> on some unproven axioms. The ruleset requires the use of terms that are >> defined externally. >> >> > > > Dictionaries are self-contained. They are, but they're not logically coherent, IMO. Which a ruleset-as-dictionary would have to be. The problem, to me, is that dictionaries will invariably rely on some version of the following: mountain: *n*. a large hill hill: *n.* a small mountain Of course, it's usually not that simple (though you can find a few instances this blatant in many dictionaries). But no matter how complex your definitions get, they rely on the use of other terms which are defined within the same system. It's very incestuous, in a way. The mountain-hill issue ends up becoming a problem even if it takes a longer chain to get there. Ultimately, then, the definition of many terms depends on definitions that include themselves... I think the only reason it's not an actual problem, in a dictionary, is that we DO cognitively have knowledge of the meaning of thousands of words independently of their definitions in terms of other words (I've got direct access to a "table" concept which, even though the edges are fuzzy in that some objects are only ambiguously tables, I understand without recourse to definitions of all the constituent parts of tables. Therefore other objects/concepts can be defined in terms of a table, and I will know what they mean even if the "table" ends up being defined in terms of those same objects, in the dictionary). So basically, I see us as being able to deal with this self-contained circularly-defined dictionary because we don't actually treat it that way. We take a lot of the terms for granted, in an axiom-like fashion, and only because we do that can we build other definitions on top of them. BP _______________________________________________ spoon-discuss mailing list spoon-discuss@xxxxxxxxx http://lists.ellipsis.cx/mailman/listinfo/spoon-discuss