From aisb!edcastle!uknet!mcsun!uunet!think.com!yale.edu!jvnc.net!netnews.upenn.edu!libra.wistar.upenn.edu Tue Jan 28 23:13:23 GMT 1992 Article: 2292 of comp.ai.philosophy Path: aisb!edcastle!uknet!mcsun!uunet!think.com!yale.edu!jvnc.net!netnews.upenn.edu!libra.wistar.upenn.edu From: weemba@libra.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener) Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy Subject: Re: Viruses: alive? Message-ID: <63805@netnews.upenn.edu> Date: 27 Jan 92 15:27:01 GMT References: <63531@netnews.upenn.edu> Sender: news@netnews.upenn.edu Reply-To: weemba@libra.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener) Organization: The Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology Lines: 50 Nntp-Posting-Host: libra.wistar.upenn.edu In-reply-to: todd@ai10.elcom.nitech.ac.jp (Todd Law) In article , todd@ai10 (Todd Law) writes: >>>>Who says that even biological viruses are alive? >>>My Collins English Dictionary gives the definition of 'organism' as >>Philosophy is not done by quoting dictionaries. >The question was "Who says...." and I gave an answer as "So-and-so says...", >which was direct and pertinent. It was direct. It was not pertinent: this is a philosophy newsgroup. If you look in the right dictionary, you'll find "intelligent" defined as able to carry out certain programmed functions. (As in, intelligent terminal) Does this mean AI=Artificial Intelligence has succeeded, and we can all go home now? Not in the least. >So how do you do philosophy? Seems to me that definitions are a >fundamental part of philosophy (and dictionaries are just full of them). >I'd like to see you get very far without them. Suggestions? >Constructive criticism? First: throw away your dictionary. Or at least, understand what it is. It was put together under severe budgetary and editing constraints that makes it useful for general questions but usually useless for the hard technical questions. You don't have to believe me: look up books on lexicography and see for yourself. Go back in time and read some of the nasty reviews of Mirriam-Webster's Third International Dictionary. It's easy to prove that dictionaries have their limits: look up the definition of "dog". Any definition will probably be incompatible with one or more of the following: "dead dog", "three-legged dog", "space alien dog", "ceramic dog", "three-headed dog". Calling definitions fundamental in philosophy is exactly backwards--you are thinking of formal proofs. In fact, this is precisely one of the reasons that natural language processing is so damnably difficult. You and I can use words with an apparently infinite complexity, and trying to program this has been frustratingly unsuccessful. We understand "understand" not because of what we found in a dictionary, but because of some innate process we possess and call "understanding", but, in the end, we simply don't understand. Because of this ease of use but lack of understanding, we find it easy to use regarding machines, but then later difficult to justify. It is this "difficult to justify" that makes for philosophy. Try it. For example: who says that even biological viruses are alive? Respond not with a dictionary, but an analysis of why this question should exist in the first place. -- -Matthew P Wiener (weemba@libra.wistar.upenn.edu)