Re: "schizophrenic" reference

Re: "schizophrenic" reference

[Dusko Pavlovic]

peter selinger tells me that i viciously attacked tom leinster. i would
like to apologize for that appearance. i do not know tom, and had no
intention to address his post more than any of the previous 200 posts
about terminology. tom's was just the one where i blew up. i am sorry,
tom.

and i guess maybe i should say sorry to all that i blew up.

but i still think that it is a pity, and curious, that the best minds of
category theory don't have better things to do but to generate volumes of
email about words.

before i disappear, let me add two things.

1) the meanings of words evolve away from their origins, just like bat's
wings and seal's flippers evolved away from their ancestors' legs. the
original meaning of the word "word" was "promise". but people are
ignorant, and the meaning changed. if people start using the word
"schizophrenic" to describe a type of shoes, or a sexual orientation ---
that will in due time become the meaning of that word. that is how
languages work, if you don't mind.

2) proscribing some words for reasons of political correctness is often
patronizing. let us protect the weak by using the name of their weakness
only very very carefully, and with a serious face. because we are
stronger, so we should protect them. (and also use the opportunity to tell
everyone else what to do.)

once upon a time, black people used to be called the n word by some white
people. and what did black people do? yes, they wrote many petitions to
guardian pleading for good style and political correctness. but since that
somehow didn't work, they took the offending word and made it into their
own authentication token. they made music from it. and the white people
from whom the n word originated were left wordless.

please lets make category theory and let language live its life.

-- dusko


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Re: "schizophrenic" reference

[Tom Leinster]

On Mon, 1 Nov 2010, Dusko Pavlovic wrote:

> tom's was just the one where i blew up. i am sorry, tom.

No problem.

I understand that posts about terminology get tedious, but I do actually
think this matters.  Mental health organizations constantly have to fight
misconceptions about mental illness.  Those misconceptions can do real
harm to those who are ill.  Schizophrenia as "split personality" is one of
them.  For example, Mind, a well-known British mental health charity,
says:

     There is more media misinformation about schizophrenia than about any
     other psychiatric diagnosis.  It's not true that schizophrenia means
     'split personality'

Many websites on mental health contain statements along similar lines; a
few links are below.

We have the freedom to choose any term we like for the mathematical
concept.  We can do a small good thing by not choosing a term that
perpetuates a damaging myth about a serious psychiatric disorder.

Best wishes,
Tom

Links:
http://www.mind.org.uk/help/diagnoses_and_conditions/schizophrenia#danger
http://helpguide.org/mental/schizophrenia_symptom.htm
http://healthmad.com/mental-health/seven-myths-and-misconceptions-about-schizophrenia/
http://www.ehow.co.uk/list_6112881_common-misconceptions-schizophrenia.html
http://overcomingschizophrenia.blogspot.com/2008/09/common-misconceptions-about.html


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Re: "schizophrenic" reference

[edubuc]

Concerning terminology one more opinion exemplified by this example:

I think that it is a VERY BAD HABIT to attach a mathematical meaning to
words that have a comun use in every-day language, which come together
with all sorts of connotations. Like "schizofrenic".

Somebody proposed "schimatic", and I find this a good choice:

1) it is erudite and etimologically justified

2) it sounds right

3) (and more important). It is not a word known in everyday language.
For example, I did not know it (neither in spanish, english or french).

So, when I would see "schimatic" in a math text, I would say "what the
hell does it mean ?", and look at the mathematical definition. Then I
will know, and "schimatic" will have attached from now on only its
mathematical meaning.

I suggest that when in need of a word for a mathematical concept, to
look at the LATIN language, which is a DEAD language, so no problems.
And furthermore, it has a long tradition for scientific names.

(and plurals "topoi" for example ja! sorry Peter)

e.d.

Tom Leinster wrote:
> On Mon, 1 Nov 2010, Dusko Pavlovic wrote:
>
>> tom's was just the one where i blew up. i am sorry, tom.
>
> No problem.
>
> I understand that posts about terminology get tedious, but I do actually
> think this matters.  Mental health organizations constantly have to fight
> misconceptions about mental illness.  Those misconceptions can do real
> harm to those who are ill.  Schizophrenia as "split personality" is
> one of
> them.  For example, Mind, a well-known British mental health charity,
> says:
>
>     There is more media misinformation about schizophrenia than about any
>     other psychiatric diagnosis.  It's not true that schizophrenia means
>     'split personality'
>
> Many websites on mental health contain statements along similar lines; a
> few links are below.
>
> We have the freedom to choose any term we like for the mathematical
> concept.  We can do a small good thing by not choosing a term that
> perpetuates a damaging myth about a serious psychiatric disorder.
>
> Best wishes,
> Tom
>
> Links:
> http://www.mind.org.uk/help/diagnoses_and_conditions/schizophrenia#danger
> http://helpguide.org/mental/schizophrenia_symptom.htm
> http://healthmad.com/mental-health/seven-myths-and-misconceptions-about-schizophrenia/
>
> http://www.ehow.co.uk/list_6112881_common-misconceptions-schizophrenia.html
>
> http://overcomingschizophrenia.blogspot.com/2008/09/common-misconceptions-about.html
>

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Re: "schizophrenic" reference

[Vaughan Pratt]

On 10/28/2010 7:34 PM, Tom Leinster wrote:
>
> I'm afraid I say this every time "schizophrenic" objects come up, but here
> I go again...
>
> Let's not use that word.

I have to agree with Tom here because to deny this would offend those 
upset by Holocaust deniers (which we all should be upset by).  This 
comes up repeatedly in the politics of global warming, where people 
complain on that basis about the use of the term "climate denier."

Sensitivity is chopping holes in the English language the way mad cow 
disease chops holes in the brain, obliging us to replace "he" by "he or 
she" (awkward) or "they" (ungrammatical), maintain an up-to-the-minute 
lexicon of who's allowed to call which groups by what names, keep track 
of which punishments are meted out to which groups for insulting which 
icons, and so on.

I'm not saying sensitivity should or shouldn't do this, I'm just 
pointing out that it's happening.  Nature does not judge BSE as good or 
bad, however badly done by its victims might feel.

This might not be the best time to advertise my paper "Communes via 
Yoneda, from an Elementary Perspective," Fundamenta Informaticae 123 
(2010) 1–16, DOI 10.3233/FI-2010-315, which (at long last) is the 
journal version of my CT'04 talk in Vancouver.  That's because I speak 
there about "the schizophrenic mind-body nature of Lewis's qualia" which 
I explicate in terms of the dual nature of the elements of the dualizing 
object and the states (functionals, open sets, dual points, intensive 
quantities) of the tensor unit as the dual of the dualizing object in 
*-autonomous categories, and the generalization thereof via profunctors 
to commune categories.  The "schizophrenia" is analyzed in terms of the 
two kinds of entities belonging to the same homsets.  All rubbish of 
course, but hopefully to emerge from that status at some point.

Vaughan


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Re: "schizophrenic" reference

[Dusko Pavlovic]

people, can we please please please stop with these evil schizophrenic
dogmatic discussions about terminology? i have been on this list for 20
years, and there were good times, and there were less good times, but i
was never really tempted to start filtering it out.

in the middle of the discussion about evil, and about the religious
conotations pointed out by jean benabou, a lurking student asked me: why
is it that category theorists have no sense of humor? i said all
scientists are a little serious, but she came at me with a collection of
recent terminology from chemistry:

> moronic acid, arsole, bastardin and bastardane, gossypole, buckminster
> fullerene...

all of it in refereed publications. people enjoy themselves creating new
molecules and then creating names the for them.

in physics they have MACHOs and WIMPs. they have the big bang. if we want
to attract more students, maybe we should use names like big bang, and
like pullback, and not like l-adic p-groups, or even galoisian cohomology
(especially since galois was dead <150 years when his cohomology came
about...)

when i say "i had a schizophrenic morning", it does not mean that my
morning has seen a psychiatrist, or even that it was split in two. when i
say "i had 3000 things to do", it doesn't mean that i counted. some people
would prefer to say "i had many things to do". these two statements
express the same fact, but they also express different speakers. the
difference between such expressions is called social life.

some people say that words should have a clear meaning, and that
conotations (religious, moral, ironic) should be avoided. but words
*always* accumulate connotations, entire mythologies, as roland barthes
explained. this cannot be decreed away. the standardized, official,
unambiguous expressions do not express only their standard meanings, but
also the adherence to the social context in which they were standardized.

the argument for standard unambiguous terminologies is usually that the
public would get confused with multiple terms. the rules to be obeyed are
almost always prescribed for the social benefit, and almost never to
assert authority. when i was a child in yugoslavia, you could never say
communism, you had to say socialism, because the difference might confuse
the public.

mathematical notations can be good or bad, and great mathematicians often
design great notations. but natural language is a living organism. words
evolve. in contrast with the mathematical notations, words do not obey
intelligent design, no matter how intelligent we are...

(sorry about the long rant.)

if anyone is interested, i think we should form A Categorical Liberation
Union to defend our terminology from moral and religious influences.

-- dusko

> From: Tom Leinster <Tom.Leinster@glasgow.ac.uk>
> Date: October 29, 2010 4:34:21 AM GMT+02:00
> To: <categories@mta.ca>
> Subject: categories: Re: "schizophrenic" reference
> Reply-To: Tom Leinster <Tom.Leinster@glasgow.ac.uk>
>
>
> I'm afraid I say this every time "schizophrenic" objects come up, but here
> I go again...
>
> Let's not use that word.
>
> To quote the Guardian style guide (http://www.guardian.co.uk/styleguide/s):
>
>    schizophrenia, schizophrenic
>
>    use only in a medical context, never to mean "in two minds",
>    contradictory, or erratic, which is wrong, as well as offensive to
>    people diagnosed with this illness.
>
> There is a concise summary of the history and terminology at
>
>    http://ncatlab.org/nlab/show/dualizing+object
>
> which also links to a discussion of alternatives.  "Dualizing object" and
> "ambimorphic object" are both used.
>
> Best wishes,
> Tom


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Re: "schizophrenic" reference

[Tom Leinster]

I'm afraid I say this every time "schizophrenic" objects come up, but here
I go again...

Let's not use that word.

To quote the Guardian style guide (http://www.guardian.co.uk/styleguide/s):

     schizophrenia, schizophrenic

     use only in a medical context, never to mean "in two minds",
     contradictory, or erratic, which is wrong, as well as offensive to
     people diagnosed with this illness.

There is a concise summary of the history and terminology at

     http://ncatlab.org/nlab/show/dualizing+object

which also links to a discussion of alternatives.  "Dualizing object" and
"ambimorphic object" are both used.

Best wishes,
Tom


On Thu, 28 Oct 2010, Fred E.J. Linton wrote:

> On Thu, 28 Oct 2010 05:14:24 AM EDT Prof. Peter Johnstone
> <P.T.Johnstone@dpmms.cam.ac.uk> wrote:
>
>> ... I don't claim credit (if that's the right word) for
>> introducing this use of "schizophrenic". I got it from ...
>
> I wasn't aiming for an attribution of credit -- only for
> a citation of use of the term in the accessible literature.
>
> Certainly I have, over the years, heard at least Isbell and
> Lawvere -- and others -- refer to schizophrenic objects,
> schizoid objects, objects with "split" -- or "multiple", or
> "more than one" -- personality, and the like.
>
> How far back, "over the years"? -- Probably at least to the
> early 'seventies, quite possibly earlier.
>
> Cheers, -- Fred
>
>
>
> [For admin and other information see: http://www.mta.ca/~cat-dist/ ]
>


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Re: "schizophrenic" reference

[Fred E.J. Linton]

On Thu, 28 Oct 2010 05:14:24 AM EDT Prof. Peter Johnstone
<P.T.Johnstone@dpmms.cam.ac.uk> wrote:

> ... I don't claim credit (if that's the right word) for
> introducing this use of "schizophrenic". I got it from ...

I wasn't aiming for an attribution of credit -- only for
a citation of use of the term in the accessible literature.

Certainly I have, over the years, heard at least Isbell and
Lawvere -- and others -- refer to schizophrenic objects,
schizoid objects, objects with "split" -- or "multiple", or 
"more than one" -- personality, and the like.

How far back, "over the years"? -- Probably at least to the
early 'seventies, quite possibly earlier.

Cheers, -- Fred



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Re: "schizophrenic" reference

[Prof. Peter Johnstone]

I don't claim credit (if that's the right word) for
introducing this use of "schizophrenic". I got it from
an early draft of Harold Simmons's paper "A couple of
triples" -- though Harold changed his terminology before
the published version appeared (Topology Appl. 13, 1982).
In "Sheaves in Geometry and Logic" (p. 280), Mac Lane and
Moerdijk credit John Isbell with having introduced the term,
but I don't know of any publication where John used it.

Peter Johnstone

On Wed, 27 Oct 2010, Fred E.J. Linton wrote:

> At the Halifax Octoberfest just ended, I had mistakenly,
> in a private conversation, suggested looking in or near
> Chapter 4 section 5 of PTJ's Stone Spaces for occurrence
> of the word "schizophrenic." I regret that error.
> Better places to look might be page 268 of that book,
> or passim on pages 254-262, and thereabouts. Grosso modo:
> not Chapter 4 section 5, but Chapter 6 section 4.
>
> Cheers, -- Fred
>
>
>
> [For admin and other information see: http://www.mta.ca/~cat-dist/ ]
>


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"schizophrenic" reference

[Fred E.J. Linton]

At the Halifax Octoberfest just ended, I had mistakenly,
in a private conversation, suggested looking in or near
Chapter 4 section 5 of PTJ's Stone Spaces for occurrence
of the word "schizophrenic." I regret that error. 
Better places to look might be page 268 of that book,
or passim on pages 254-262, and thereabouts. Grosso modo:
not Chapter 4 section 5, but Chapter 6 section 4.

Cheers, -- Fred



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