Re: One and Zero

"Nadav Har'El" <nyh-TS7m/[email protected]>
Newsgroups gmane.culture.hackers.israel
Message-ID <[email protected]>
On Wed, May 02, 2007, Uri Even-Chen wrote about "Re: [hackers-il] One and Zero":
> I realized that constants cannot be defined.

And I realized that the notion that constants cannot be defined, cannot be
defined.

> Probably yes.  I don't know.  I don't completely understand how I
> think.

Neither do we. This is why writers normally try to think on what they're
writing, proofread it, and focus on making the essay easy to read and
understand by others. Apparently, you forgot all about this, and decided
to just go ahead and use your own private terminology, your own logic,
your own language, and who cares about the readers.

> [quote: "The truth is that the label schizophrenia, like the labels
> pornography or mental illness, indicates disapproval of that to which
> the label is applied and nothing more.

I find this nonsense. Why is, for example, "pornography", a useless label,
indicating disapproval and nothing more? Pornography has a very real meaning,
which is depictions of sexual situations, through pictures, film, and so on.
People who like to watch pornography also call it that (or more usually
in the US, "porn"). Most content can easily be classified by everyone as
being "porn" or "non-porn" (except, of course, some border cases), and this
doesn't mean that you need to disapprove of porn. Any more than anyone can
classify a movie as being a "cartoon" or not a cartoon, and it doesn't mean
you disapprove of cartoons.

Similarly, the symptoms of schizorphrenia can be defined, and people
classified whether they show these symptoms or not. It doesn't mean the
doctors understand what exactly causes this condition - whether it's some
sort of infection, a certain gene, or what, or perhaps there are several
different causes. Defining a medical condition, or "illness" or "disease"
doesn't make it bad, or people with it outcasts. The "common cold" is a
generic name for many types of somewhat similar virus-caused illnesses,
and yet when you have the common cold, you can accept that and not say
"the common cold doesn't exist" or "it's just a label used to show the
speaker's dislike for sneezing people". It doesn't automatically mean that
people with this illness should be shuned, jailed, or shot. But there's
nothing wrong with using this label.

-- 
Nadav Har'El                        |    Wednesday, May  2 2007, 15 Iyyar 5767
nyh-TS7m/[email protected]             |-----------------------------------------
Phone +972-523-790466, ICQ 13349191 |Ms Piggy's last words: "I'm pink,
http://nadav.harel.org.il           |therefore I'm ham."
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