On Sat, 01 Feb 1997 Eliezer Yudkowsky <sentience@pobox.com> Wrote:
>>Me:
>>please give me a non circular definition of the word "definition".
>Eliezer:
>Definition (n): An explanation intended to convey all information
>necessary for the formation of a symbol.
Well that's a real nice start Eliezer, but you didn't complete it. Talking
about "a symbol" won't do, I want you to explain "the symbol", after all,
I didn't ask a general question but a very specific one. So please explain
all the information necessary for the formation of the symbol "definition".
Actually I cheated, it's foolish to ask for the definition of "definition".
If you already know then it's a waste of time and if you don't then the
question is gibberish. Let's suppose you run across a word you've never seen
before and know nothing about, let's call it "Klognee". I don't think the
first question you'd want to ask is "what is the klognee of klognee?"
and if I told you the answer it wouldn't be of any help to you.
John K Clark johnkc@well.com
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