Another Destiny vs Mr. Girl, very heated and confusion.

[Carl-Richard]

8 minutes ago, Kksd74628 said:

@Carl-Richard

Wait a second, what you misunderstood. I thought own definion is something that you only by yourself agree and is different from original definition of that word.

We usually define words in conversation not to assign a previously non-existent meaning, but to add nuance to that preexisting meaning. This preexisting meaning is often very vague and only gives you a general sense of the concept. There is no "original" definition though. You're either talking about a general feeling in most people's minds, or some vague dictionary definition (for which there are countless versions).

[zurew]

@Kksd74628 In most of the cases, we don't use the hardcore original dictionary definition of a word, when we have a discussion about something. ( especially in cases, where the dictionary gives multiple definitions for the same word). We often have an underlying assumption, that our communication partner use the same definition as us, but in a lot of cases this assumption isn't true, and it leads to misunderstanding and miscommunication.

Defining words in a conversation, is often a good way to prevent miscommunication and misunderstanding and to gain clarity.

Edited September 7, 2022 by zurew

[Kksd74628]

@zurew @Carl-Richard

For example word nazi, like destiny showed, used to mean different thing that what we try to make it mean nowadays. I agree that in conversation we are going to face lot of nuances and that's the point of discussion from some perspective, but I don't think redefining words in middle of conversation has any positive use. If someone thinks some definition should be changed then have another discussion about that until people as a whole accept that. Until then we should stay with previous socially accepted definition.

Good example of why what I say is important is "what is woman or man" discussion. This whole problem wouldn't even exist if we agree that woman either means biological truth or then it means what you think about by yourself. People actually agree on this whole thing. Lefties usually say man can give birth and righties says that it can't and they actually agree, but the problem is that they have different definition of a word. That's why I'd just simplify whole thing and stay with original definition as the woman and man used to be and build nuances top of that making different words or something.

Problem in that example is that people misunderstand the difference between terms gender identity and gender itself. Usually people change definitions when they are about to lose argument and the goalpost is moved so you can't ever pinpoint why they failed an argument. I don't have any problem checking that people have correct idea of a word, but having some twisted idea of a word could make the conversation biased and one sided before anyone had chance to say anything even. That's why we should stay with common definitions of words.

[zurew]

47 minutes ago, Kksd74628 said:

but I don't think redefining words in middle of conversation has any positive use

You don't redefine a word, you make sure that you two are on the same page, you can't always assume that your convo partner will have the same defintion in mind as you.

47 minutes ago, Kksd74628 said:

If someone thinks some definition should be changed then have another discussion about that until people as a whole accept that. Until then we should stay with previous socially accepted definition.

I don't think language and our use of language in general, is as defined and as rigid as you think it is. There are many concepts that are based on feelings and intuition, because its impossible to define anything in a 100% accurate way, and that is one reason why there are sometimes multiple definitions and multiple meanings to a concept or a word. Some cultures use a word differently than others, is that bad or is that innacurate? I don't think so, also who is to say which dictionary should we refer to when we have a discussion, and why?

For example when you use the word 'table' i don't just have a concept in my mind "thing that has 4 legs and probably made of wood" but i have many pictures in my head and i have an abstract way to identify a table. A particular table might have 3 legs or might have 2 legs or more, but your definition of 'table' won't contain the concept of 'table' in its entirety. 

English language is a perfect example to show that 1 word can have multiple definitions and meanings depending on the context. If I stay with the word of 'table' that can mean multiple things and even 1 dictionary will give multiple definitions to that word, because in reality it has multiple meanings. The Oxford dictionary will give 5 different definitions, but it could give more if it wanted to, but all of those definitions are based on the context of the word. https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/english/table_1?q=table

The reason why I know what you refer to when you say the word 'table' is not because I looked up the dictionary definition, but because of my intuition and my mental baggage[my ideas about it, based on my experience with tables ] of that word. I also look at the context of the word and that way, I make an assumption that you want to use that word in one special way.

Just think about it :one word could be used as an adjective as a verb or as a noun etc.

47 minutes ago, Kksd74628 said:

That's why I'd just simplify whole thing and stay with original definition as the woman and man used to be and build nuances top of that making different words or something.

I would agree with making more words and with the creation of new words and concepts, however if there are no new words yet, you have to be aware, that people will use words in potentially different ways compared to you  and you have to keep that in mind when you have a convo with someone, and when you feel like that you two are not on the same page.

Edited September 7, 2022 by zurew

[Kksd74628]

@zurew

I understand that lot of different things can affect on one's ideas of particular words, but I also acknowledge that we should aim to build our vocabularity in our society in a way that most of people share the most definitions in their head. When I think about term the "own definition" that we used in this discussion I get in my mind picture that I can start saying bottle of wine and mean front door, because everyone can use their own definitions. It doesn't matter what you think about word table, because we can check the definition from wikipedia or something similar and see what should we use. I thought my point was pretty straighforward.

[Danioover9000]

   This is an interesting video, related but showing it at a different view:

 

[zurew]

13 minutes ago, Kksd74628 said:

but I also acknowledge that we should aim to build our vocabularity in our society in a way that most of people share the most definitions in their head.

Okay so what you have is a prescription (how it should be) what I was talking about was more of a description (how it is).

I might agree with your prescription, but we need to be aware, that most of our learning process, and our learning of our first language is more about having an experience or experiences with a certain word or a concept and a lot less about looking up a concept in a dictionary.

I don't know how producitve and useful it would be , if we would ignore all our experiences and we would only focus on the rigid definitions in a dictionary.

[Kksd74628]

@zurew

We shouldn't ignore experiences and it doesn't necessarily mean that you have to waste your life front of dictionary book neither, but the point is that you have to be able to correct your sense of what the word might be when I show you what it actually is. So what I was talking about the whole time is that I think following sentence that I see lot in debates doesn't make any sense - "maybe we just disagree on the definition". How could you disagree on the definition, because by the definition the definition is what it is. What I am arguing for is definition is not an opinion, but a fact to some extent.

[Danioover9000]

   Would you guys be in favor for de platforming?

[zurew]

1 hour ago, Kksd74628 said:

What I am arguing for is definition is not an opinion, but a fact to some extent.

I agree that language is not 100% abstract, but it isn't 100% rigid either, thats what makes it complex.

1 hour ago, Kksd74628 said:

but the point is that you have to be able to correct your sense of what the word might be when I show you what it actually is.

Carl have a very good and very clear response to the 'what it actually is' idea.

I reject the idea of a "universally correct definition". We can refer to a dictionary but that dictionary still wont be universally correct. 

Every definition have some number of words in it and each of those words also have different definitions and we can go down and around like that forever.

So we have a big web of words and we have our own mental model of these words and concepts based on our own experiences.

When you say that we should refer to a dictionary , the problem is that , that dictionary will only give a very vague idea of what that particular thing is. Why is it vague? Because it assumes, that the reader uses all of the underlying concepts and words (that used for definition making) the same way as defined in the dictionary. - so ideally to be 100% precise we should look up a 1000 different words in the same dictionary or even more to get the 'right' mental model thats needed to make sense of dictionary concepts and words.

3 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

This preexisting meaning is often very vague and only gives you a general sense of the concept. There is no "original" definition though. You're either talking about a general feeling in most people's minds, or some vague dictionary definition (for which there are countless versions).

 

 

Edited September 7, 2022 by zurew

[Carl-Richard]

2 hours ago, Kksd74628 said:

I agree that in conversation we are going to face lot of nuances and that's the point of discussion from some perspective, but I don't think redefining words in middle of conversation has any positive use. 

But we do it all the time. It's a necessary part of communication. Communication is messy. It shouldn't matter if you have to take a moment to define a word. What does matter is that you're being internally consistent with how you generally use words, because you shouldn't create unnecessary mess. Unnecessary mess is what Fuentes capitalizes on and what Destiny is participating in because he thinks it's strategically important.

Edited September 7, 2022 by Carl-Richard

[Kksd74628]

@zurew@Carl-Richard

The correct usage of a word is that how it's usually used and that needs to be aligned with the definition in a dictionary. Definition of a thing is always perspective and I understand that there are many perspectives to things and that's good. The problem I try to point is that the perspectives you give needs to stay in certain area or the thing you're describing vanishes, because it loses its ground. My view is that we should have strong ground to all words and therefore we need to pinpoint it to something. I'd argue that dictionary is right now the best thing we got, because it pretty much stays the same and is stable.

[zurew]

7 minutes ago, Kksd74628 said:

I'd argue that dictionary is right now the best thing we got, because it pretty much stays the same and is stable.

https://ideas.ted.com/20-words-that-once-meant-something-very-different/

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_change

[Carl-Richard]

9 minutes ago, Kksd74628 said:

The correct usage of a word is that how it's usually used and that needs to be aligned with the definition in a dictionary.

...bro, that doesn't mean anything. How should I use "communist"?

[zurew]

20 minutes ago, Kksd74628 said:

The correct usage of a word is that how it's usually used and that needs to be aligned with the definition in a dictionary.

Often times how it is used is not aligned with the dictionary , also which dictionary should it be aligned with?

Edited September 7, 2022 by zurew

[Kksd74628]

@zurew

I understand that dictionary changes, but as I said I argue that the speed how fast dictionary changes compared to how people change their way of speaking is slower and therefore better thing to pinpoint towards.

14 minutes ago, zurew said:

Often times how it is used is not aligned with the dictionary

That's the problem I'm speaking about the whole time and that causes lot of mess in conversations.

14 minutes ago, zurew said:

also which dictionary should it be aligned with?

Dictionary should be aligned with an average usage of a word in longer timeframe and because it's refresh rate is slower than how people change the meanings of words in day to day life I'd continue arguing that it's more stable to pinpoint towards dictionary definition than mainstream usage in specific day.

@Carl-Richard

I have to say that I'm not that great in that field, but anyways. Communist is a person who supports communism which is an ideology where all resources are shared and we don't need goverment and money anymore. The problem comes if we start to name all far lefties with a name communist, because that would be incorrect usage of a word.

@Carl-Richard @zurew

I don't understand why you both deny the importance of stable definition for words that stays longer than couple debates, because the fact is that people change their definitions all the time if they see it's more beneficial for them. That's the reason I'd want people to be more grounded the way the talk or we're going to hit point that most of the time goes to defining words that should be obvious like the word communist. Conversation should be worldview against another one not definition against another one.

Edited September 7, 2022 by Kksd74628
Typo

[zurew]

@Kksd74628 One big reason why we use our own definitions and not the dictionary is because we think in terms of our own definitions and not in terms of dictionary definitions.

 

So if you want to force people to use the dictionary definition, then you actually force people to think differently.

Edited September 7, 2022 by zurew

[Danioover9000]

@zurew

3 minutes ago, zurew said:

@Kksd74628 One big reason why we use our own definitions and not the dictionary is because we think in terms of our own definitions and not in terms of dictionary definitions.

 

So if you want force people to use the dictionary definition, then you actually force people to think differently.

   That's a good point, especially when we look at this from different contexts, like with law, people have their own ethics they follow in their life and from family, but have to adjust to state laws or get punished.

[Kksd74628]

@zurew

One fun "coincidence" is that the people who agree with you most of the times usually share the definitions and people who disagree with you disagree on definitions. I think that alone should show that it's not about defining word way that works in your brain the best, but a way that works with your own ideology. You can define things any way, but the second you start including your own ideology in it, it starts to collapse. For example calling all far lefties as communists would be making them look laughable under that definition alone.

@Danioover9000

4 minutes ago, Danioover9000 said:

 That's a good point, especially when we look at this from different contexts, like with law, people have their own ethics they follow in their life and from family, but have to adjust to state laws or get punished.

That proves my point that it was always about your own agenda not the way your brain works. The thing I tried to prove whole time proved itself . Amen ??.

[zurew]

@Kksd74628 Having the same definitions or using the same definitions has nothing to do with agreeing or disagreeing. We can clarify and discuss definitions beforehand and still end up disagreeing.

We can have the same set of definitions and we can still have radically different ideologies.

Just to make my point stronger: I and @Danioover9000 disagree on many things, so I dont think your rule works or have strong explanatory power.