[ExI] Free will was: Everett worlds

[Dan TheBookMan]

On Sun, Sep 13, 2020 at 8:09 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat
<extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
> Do you think, John, that kids cannot define the words they use?  Sure, they see a man doing the high jump and learn the definition of that skill.  I would argue that examples ARE definitions.  But abstractions are much harder to provide examples of, which is why people like me cannot grok quantum theory.  You can't show it to me.  Usage, for us liberal guys, is what defines words, and the dictionaries follow that, mostly, though some hold out for years, as they did on 'ain't'.  It is for sure a word.
>
> I am peculiar, as we all know.  I spent a good deal of my life, and still a part of it, with my nose in a dictionary, preferably a big one - right now I have three large tomes of the OED - too expensive online - and an icon that sends me directly to etymology.com.  I also need one for modern slang.  "Mansplained" is a recent entry for me.  bill w

In ordinary usage -- and even in non-ordinary usage -- there is a
difference between an example and a definition. Showing someone an
example -- for instance, showing my neighbor's dog -- is not the same
as offering a definition. Now it's true in real life people often
offer up examples to clarify meaning, but that's not the same as
offering up a definition. (And, sadly, there is sometimes the common
confusion here of saying of someone or something that they are 'the
very definition of' some word.)

Showing an example sometimes works well enough but can be confusing
too -- as in what's the relevant feature of the example? For instance,
imagine someone doesn't know what democracy is and you say, 'Well,
like the US today.' Might that not lead to confusion?

Regards,

Dan