Why do I consider my essays on distinction such an
important part of my contributions to aaqgs, i.e. my whole life and
belief system? Once you master a subject, the first realistic
summation of the entire work of life is a definition that only a
master can provide that correctly delineates “what is” and “what
is not”. So hard is this that one can simply ask the unbelieving
nut to define a human. A famous stoic joke goes the victim was Sir
Aristotle himself while the tormentor was a stoic. After lengthy
deliberations, Sir defined a human as a bipedal animal without
feathers. Next morning he was amazed to see a plucked chicken
strutting in his garden.
It is my belief that definitions are very hard, i.e.
semantics is very hard absent a category theoretic viewpoint and
mastery of philosophical fallacies – avoidable and intrinsic. Most
people are unfamiliar with Godel impossibility proof and often employ
second order logic for its conciseness. They can be easily
emfubarred! Lawyers don't emit as many, but do so from experience,
not knowledge and can be severely emfubarred with some patience. In
general, people avoid second order thinking in area of expertise, but
ARE second order outside often from efficiency reasons, likely to
think their expertise extends outside their area, and can be severely
mauled with some patience. Trick is to move them away from expertise.
This is a general trick, works in general. I am in
fact an excellent author of “How to make enemies and annoy every
one” and have slowly learned that not many are influenced by your
winning arguments but every victory generates a long term enemy.
Sugar coated pills are absolutely required in life. You must
understand the other argument and defeat it by pointing out its
shortcomings, some are NOT considered by other side.
Having broadly considered argumentation, why did Sir
Aristotle feel trapped, i.e. what did the stoic do? Create a distinct
object not found in nature. What Sir Aristotle was doing is a
qualified generality definition, where qualification were placed on
general idea of biped animal. Every such definition is lot easier if
made as distinction in likely confusing circumstances. There is NO
reason at all to make qualification so specific that ONLY the thing
being defined satisfies them! Sir could have defined human as
biped+no feathers+Delhi courts. The plucked chicken would be
considered as the exception While not all judges in Delhi are sane
enough, there is always high and supreme court. It is unlikely they
would let ANY judge who ruled Sir chicken as human, stand!
