From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.science.mathematics.categories/5786 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: John Baez Newsgroups: gmane.science.mathematics.categories Subject: autonomous terminology Date: Tue, 11 May 2010 22:19:39 -0700 Message-ID: Reply-To: John Baez NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1273757374 16770 80.91.229.12 (13 May 2010 13:29:34 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 13 May 2010 13:29:34 +0000 (UTC) To: categories@mta.ca Original-X-From: categories@mta.ca Thu May 13 15:29:31 2010 connect(): No such file or directory Return-path: Envelope-to: gsmc-categories@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from mailserv.mta.ca ([138.73.1.1]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1OCYTc-00074e-J3 for gsmc-categories@m.gmane.org; Thu, 13 May 2010 15:29:24 +0200 Original-Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1OCXwo-0006kL-Gc for categories-list@mta.ca; Thu, 13 May 2010 09:55:30 -0300 Original-Sender: categories@mta.ca Precedence: bulk Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.science.mathematics.categories:5786 Archived-At: Dusko wrote: colin mclarty's cryptic comment is very interesting to me, and it seems to > strike at the heart of some matters of interest. > Colin's comment didn't seem cryptic to me - let me guess what he meant. > On May 9, 2010, at 3:41 PM, Colin McLarty wrote: > > Dusko Pavlovic Asks >> >> is there any reason why words should be taken seriously? >>> >> >> That just depends on whether or not you want to be understood by people >> who do not already know everything you are going to say. >> > > there are at least two ways to interpret this. > > 1) "you can only say something new if you declare what your words mean. > otherwise, people will interpret them in their own way, and understand only > what they already know." > > 2) "you can only say something new if you contribute to the evolution of > language. otherwise, everything you say are just words that people already > know, mostly in combinations that they already tried." > I thought he meant: 3) If you don't take the prevailing meaning of words seriously, you're likely to talk in ways that people won't understand, unless they happen to already know everything you're trying to say. I worry about this point a lot, because I often want to "fix" standard mathematical terminology that I dislike, and I have to weigh my desire to do that against my desire to be understood by people who are unwilling to learn new ways of talking. For example: do I use "n-category" to mean "weak n-category", which will eventually be the most sensible course of action, but may be premature, or do I use it to mean "strict n-category", as tradition dictates? Best, jb [For admin and other information see: http://www.mta.ca/~cat-dist/ ]