Re: subculture

["Eduardo J. Dubuc" <edubuc@dm.uba.ar>]

I give my opinion simultaneously to several postings;


(1) Ruadhai wrote:

  >> With regards the
  >> original problem, that evil is a poor choice, I personally see little point
  >> in changing a word no one would be offended by.

Precisely, we should not accept a terminology just because it does not offend
anybody.

Jesus Christ !!, with this philosophy we could accept any ridiculous
terminology so far "it does not offend".

Terminologies may have an strong "ideological" connotation. To call something
"evil" it is not harmless, neither unintentional (do not forget the
unconscious part of the brain of those that promote "evil").

It also has a marketing attitude (compare with "catastrophe theory" to refer
to the classification of singularities of C^oo maps).

(1) David Leduc wrote:

  > It is certainly not the case of the work "kosher" used by some people
  > on this list.

Well, I can not imagine the word "not kosher" to offend anybody if applied to
something that it is not accepted by the rules of a discipline.

(like constructivism, intuitionism, or "accept only concepts invariant by
equivalence").

Of course, if "not kosher = evil", then some people would not like it. But the
blame is in those that introduced the terminology "evil" to refer to something
which is not necessarily evil.

(3) Joyal wrote:

  > I am displeased with the idea that
  > terminology is purely conventional
  > and that everything is acceptable.
  > The "evil" terminology is promoted
  > by a small group of peoples active in the nLab.
  > It does not reflect a commun usage in the
  > mathematical community.

Well, certainly true what Andre says.

"evil" is a terminology so far used by some people, certainly not the
mathematical community. It has also the weakness to remain for ever within a
"subculture" that we do not want to be identified with category theory.

(Rene Thom had sufficiently strong contributions to mainstream mathematics to
impose his "catastrophe" terminology. This is not the case for the "evil"
terminology).

All the best to all, and welcome controversy !!.

e.d.

[For admin and other information see: http://www.mta.ca/~cat-dist/ ]