[MD] Doug Renselle & Language

[Ian Glendinning]

Magnus, Krim,

Krim said
"My personal preference is to rely on common usages for common terms. In the
spirit of being able to explain complex ideas to children."

Obviously Krim, we'd all PREFER to do that. But we are dealing with
the whole of reality.
"Common" language cannot be comprehensive and unambiguous for a
metaphysics covering life, the universe and everything, which is just
as well otherwise the language would be useless for everyday living.

Common language is fine (necessary) where people are happy with
ambiguity of detail, but for people who see clarity as paramount, then
some additional complexity of language for the given context / purpose
is necessary by agreement. (Personally I'm one of those happier with
greater ambiguity and easier language, but ... people can't have it
both ways is my point.)

Magnus, I think you are half there ... yes there are some unspoken
understandings about the way we use recognizable terms in this space
.... but that doesn't stop people confusing discussions with common
usage (I do it myself, but as I say, I'm cool when it comes to
ambiguity ... value is more er... valuable.)

Ian

On Wed, Aug 18, 2010 at 3:55 PM, Krimel <Krimel at krimel.com> wrote:
>> [Magnus]
>> I don't think we can avoid it. I think it has already happened. As soon
>> as we started getting tired of explaining what "pattern" "dynamic" and
>> "static" means in MoQese, we simply stopped explaining them and assumed
>> everyone knew what we meant by those terms. And that happened just a
>> month after starting the list and has been going on ever since.
>>
>> [Krimel]
>> I think a very real problem is that after lo' these many years there is no
>> real consensus on what even those three terms mean. I fear that fixing,
>> kludging and rearranging levels is just adding a new coat of paint or a
> new
>> frill to the frou-frou on our head boat. Devising our own private "prayer
>> language" as Doug has done, in my view is a quantum leap forward in
>> frou-frou formation.
>
> [Magnus]
> I can agree it's a problem that we use our own version of those, and
> other, terms. But what is the alternative? I mean, we only have two
> books and there simply aren't that good definitions in those books to
> get even those three terms right. So whether we're "devising" our own
> language explicitly or it just happens to grow implicitly is the choices
> we have. We can't avoid it altogether.
>
> [Krimel]
> My personal preference is to rely on common usages for common terms. In the
> spirit of being able to explain complex ideas to children. Furthermore I
> thing the use of specialized language just tends to obscure rather than
> highlight our meanings. Further furthermore I don't think the MoQ is
> complicated enough to warrant a specialized vocabulary.
>
> [Magnus}
> And what is frou-frou?
>
> [Krimel]
> Frivolous ornamentation, like smokestacks on a diesel power vessel.
>
> [Magnus]
> And regarding quantum leap. That's a tiny, minuscule, step. But that was
> perhaps your intention?
>
> [Krimel]
> Actually I meant that as a pun on Doug's creation of quantum speak. But I
> think it also means a jump from one electron shell to the next without
> passing through the intervening space. These seems an odd sort of "atoms and
> void" effect that contributes to quantum weirdness. For your purposes that
> jump is a kind of absolutely discrete boundary line but even there what you
> have is an electron "cloud".
>
>
>
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