Xref: utzoo comp.ai:3114 talk.philosophy.misc:1849 sci.lang:3958 Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!ncis.llnl.gov!ncis!helios.ee.lbl.gov!pasteur!agate!bionet!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!indri!nic.MR.NET!xanth!ukma!gatech!mcnc!rti!xyzzy!throopw From: throopw@xyzzy.UUCP (Wayne A. Throop) Newsgroups: comp.ai,talk.philosophy.misc,sci.lang Subject: Re: Categorization Message-ID: <2895@xyzzy.UUCP> Date: 17 Jan 89 20:49:56 GMT References: <681@cogsci.ucsd.EDU> <2959@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu> <179@calmasd.GE.COM> Organization: Data General, RTP NC. Lines: 26 > harnad@elbereth.rutgers.edu (Stevan Harnad) > Some categories are indeed arbitrary (such as "things bigger than a > breadbox," [...] but not the interesting and important > ones, such as [...] (edible) mushroom vs. (poisonous) > toadstool, The mushroom/toadstool distinction is no less arbitrary than is the bigger/smaller-than-a-breadbox distinction. After all, the consequences of not being bigger than a breadbox can be that one can hide inside it from a predator, every bit as important to somebody who *is* smaller than a breadbox as the distinction among fungi is to *you*. A visitor from a planet of silicon-based life would have a hard time saying that the mushroom/toadstool classification was anything other than completely arbitrary. After all, who cares about it's toxicity to some irrelevant biped? So, other than the motives and goals of the categorizer, there is nothing to make one categorization more "natural" or "less arbitrary" than another. Hence, categorization is inherrently subjective, not objective. -- "When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less." --- Lewis Carol -- Wayne Throop !mcnc!rti!xyzzy!throopw