If there were always only any, “free-floating” definitions, then it would be as if there were also only any, “free-floating” meanings. If neither concepts needed a definition nor words a meaning, then we could not create any theories, do any philosophy, not even talk to each other, because we would then be exposed to something like the “Babylonian confusion of languages”. Everybody thinks and says what everybody wants - well and good, but this must also have limits, because one must at least still know the meanings.
Why is it not okay to define a prime number as it was defined earlier: “a prime number is divisible only by itself and 1”, thus without the new addition of “greater than 1”?
I believe that there are extra-mathematical reasons behind it and the “mathematical reasons” are only pretended reasons (sham reasons). There are interests!
I was glad to have seen it (although it tempts me even further into spending way too much time responding on this board - taking away time from my wife, work, and wealth commitment - and drawing me into the world of philosophy - strictly forbidden by my wife ).
Well don’t hold back mate (unless it would reveal something about you best not revealed - as it would in my case - nothing illegal but a lot of fuss, complication, and confusion).
If you are merely talking about observing children up close - since university and not counting the childlike adults I too often encounter - then - no I haven’t.
I was just wondering if that was the kind of thing you have been referring to.
It would involve “what it is that defines and distinguishes a thing or group or society or government or…” and related to the Ship of Theseus (an issue my wife simply cannot grasp - or cares to).
Not so fast, mate.
It is easy to think that merely changing a public definition helps simplify matters, so why not. But society is far more complicated than that - and in some seriously bad ways - to elucidate -
In the new USA they are even trying to redefine a “domestic terrorist” and “hate speech” as anyone who doesn’t agree with the socialist party narrative.
They have redefined “socialist” as “democrat” - its opposite.
They tried for years to redefine “equality” as “equity” but recently gave up on that.
They have redefined “racist” and “white privilege” as “being white” or “relating to anything from white Europe” - obviously a racist definition.
They have redefined “social justice” as “communist equity”.
They have redefined “Communist Agenda” as “Black Lives Matter”.
They have redefined “Antifa” as “Fascism in the name of Socialist Authoritarianism”.
They have redefined “science” as “socialist preferred agenda”.
They redefined “socialism” as “having compassion for the under privileged” - usually its opposite.
They seem to have redefined “Darwin’s Selection Principle” as “any natural changes” (and anti-God communist agenda).
They redefined “COVID death” as “dying with any minute trace of COVID-19 detected on the body”.
They redefined “essential worker” as “the privileged class and anyone they favor”.
Long ago they redefined “God” to mean “a conscious all powerful creator, overseer, and manipulator of events”.
They redefined “build back better” as “utterly destroy the USA and its constitution in favor of global domination and authoritarianism”.
They redefine older movie narratives keeping the same title - “rewriting history”.
and I am sure many more - all with deception at heart.
Notice that it the socialists/communists (sometimes including religions) doing all of this altering of words to manipulate the population toward their agenda.
But even getting out of the political manipulating arena there are more redefinings that are based in deception -
They have redefined “reality” to mean “subjective belief”.
They have redefined “philosophy” to mean “promoting doubt”.
They redefined “particle” in science to mean “any quanta of energy that we can measure” - to justify “Quantum Theory”.
They redefined “bending” to mean “appears to bend from a distance” - to justify Relativity Theory.
They redefined “time travel” to mean “anything returning to a former state” - to justify funding.
They redefined “a calculated possibility” as “an existent alternate reality” - to justify Multi-universe Theory.
They redefined “the limit of a sum” as “the sum” - (1 = 0.999…).
They redefined “logical” to mean “what a person might normally think”.
All of those pointed out by James - I’m sure there are many more (I am not a science or maths geek).
And it seems that they have redefined “prime number” so as to justify using favored formula from prominent people.
My point is that all of these redefinings going on in high and far away places are intentional deception to accomplish a justification for an already chosen agenda - having nothing to do with any effort to be more logically correct or simplifying the language - often quite the opposite.
So as to that “why not” - there is a very good reason why not - to reduce social manipulation and deception - especially in science and politics.
Exactly.
Redefining words directly implies maleficence that undermines the confidence much needed in society and contributes to global authoritarianism (because no one can do anything on their own any more).
I believe you wrongly assumed I said something I did not really say.
I can agree that there is a significant number of people who are using the word “philosophy” to refer to something that isn’t philosophy and/or that there is a significant number of people who believe that bad philosophy is actually good philosophy. I can also accept that such is a consequence of political manipulation. But I cannot accept that there’s a significant number of people who define the word “philosophy” to mean “promoting doubt”. That does not seem to be the case right now though it may be at some point in the future.
The word “definition” has a specific meaning. It stands for “what the word means” and not “what the word is used to represent in practice”. If I use the word “liar” to describe someone who is not a liar, that may not be because I changed the definition of the word “liar”, but perhaps because I am blind to the fact that the person in question is not actually a liar. I hope we agree on this. (A lot of people confuse the two.)
I can’t answer that question because I don’t know. My position is neutral. But since yours appears not to be – you think that the word should be define the other way – I thought it would be nice of you to present your case.
He’s supposed to explain why he thinks the term “prime number” should be defined to mean “a prime number is a natural number that is divisible exclusively by itself and 1”. He didn’t do that in the above quote.
He said it should be that because that was the original intent and definition (for 2000 years) and the changes have been illicit special interest concerns - not to be allowed to reign free over vocabulary.
And who is it that Magjs thinks you are a sock-puppet of?
Why should the term “prime number” be defined to mean “a natural number that is divisible exclusively by itself and 1”?
If a definition is original or merely older it does not follow that it is a better one. (According to some sources, such as Wikipedia, the definition he favors is an older but not an original one. Perhaps he thinks those sources are wrong though that does not seem to be particularly relevant.)
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