On Sat, Apr 18, 2020 at 2:41 PM Matt Mahoney <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Saturday, April 18, 2020, at 2:20 PM, James Bowery wrote: >> >> Essence precedes existence. -- Avicenna >> Existence precedes essence. -- Sarte >> Identity precedes existence. -- Rota >> Existence Identifies Essence. -- My attempt to express Langan >> >> Philosophical arguments tend to boil down to disagreements over the > meanings of words. > And reaching semantic consilience is the main purpose of my compilation of aphorisms. Each of these philosophers is using overlapping terminology in ways that hint at decidable (ie: not not-even-wrong) conciliation of meanings. Aphorisms are almost always exoteric slogans but because they reach into the vernacular they provide a potential common ground. Yes, there may be some haggling over whose meaning, gets the "1)" by it in the Oxford English Dictionary one day -- or if the consilience requires, a new such meaning -- but there are worse fates, such as Babel's. ------------------------------------------ Artificial General Intelligence List: AGI Permalink: https://agi.topicbox.com/groups/agi/T117bc2d94b89dd03-M8f80e2d1594ad467ae072adb Delivery options: https://agi.topicbox.com/groups/agi/subscription
