From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.science.mathematics.categories/6233 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "Eduardo J. Dubuc" Newsgroups: gmane.science.mathematics.categories Subject: Re: subculture Date: Sun, 26 Sep 2010 00:43:33 -0300 Message-ID: References: Reply-To: "Eduardo J. Dubuc" NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1285542297 20544 80.91.229.12 (26 Sep 2010 23:04:57 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 26 Sep 2010 23:04:57 +0000 (UTC) Cc: Ruadhai , Categories list To: David Leduc Original-X-From: majordomo@mlist.mta.ca Mon Sep 27 01:04:55 2010 Return-path: Envelope-to: gsmc-categories@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from smtpy.mta.ca ([138.73.1.139]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1P00H9-0003vU-0r for gsmc-categories@m.gmane.org; Mon, 27 Sep 2010 01:04:55 +0200 Original-Received: from mlist.mta.ca ([138.73.1.63]:40020) by smtpy.mta.ca with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1P00GE-0002Uq-1k; Sun, 26 Sep 2010 20:03:58 -0300 Original-Received: from majordomo by mlist.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1P00G8-0004oX-7K for categories-list@mlist.mta.ca; Sun, 26 Sep 2010 20:03:52 -0300 In-Reply-To: Precedence: bulk Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.science.mathematics.categories:6233 Archived-At: 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/ ]