[Corpora-List] What is corpora and what is not?

John F Sowa sowa at bestweb.net
Tue Oct 9 11:44:38 UTC 2012


Undefined terms by scientists:

No physicist can define the term 'physics' -- except in some
verbal definition that is empty, such as "physics is the study
of physical phenomena".

No biologist can define the term 'biology' -- except in some
verbal definition that is empty, such as "biology is the study
of life".

In each case, the defining term is just as undefined as the
term that is being defined.

You can replace the word 'physics' or 'biology' with the
name of any science.

Every philosopher from Kant to Wittgenstein has said that only
arbitrarily stipulated terms, such as those in mathematics,
can be defined by necessary and sufficient conditions.

Many terms in physics are defined mathematically in terms of
others, but physicists keep changing the definitions whenever
they find new evidence and formulate new theories.

John Sowa



_______________________________________________
UNSUBSCRIBE from this page: http://mailman.uib.no/options/corpora
Corpora mailing list
Corpora at uib.no
http://mailman.uib.no/listinfo/corpora



More information about the Corpora mailing list