> Ontological fuzziness: when the line between “thing” and “not thing” is blurry. For example, where exactly does a cloud end?
Another day, another rationalist/substack blogger writing about an established philosophical problem without mentioning the existing literature, and giving it a new name. Today it is "the problem of the many" for those that are interested: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/problem-of-many/ (although it's a paid post so maybe he mentioned it at the end or in the footnotes and I'm just not allowed to see it).
Me too tbh, but we should still attempt to stick to the terminology in well established literature as much as possible so we can easily find and build on each others' knowledge.
This is in fact mentioned in the footnotes (downside of the paid post cutting off the footnotes). I really dislike "vagueness" as a label for this property, so I made a conscious choice not to use it (and "the problem of the many" describes the problem that arises from it, not the property itself).
I read quite a lot of the existing philosophical literature, which you can probably tell given that there's a decent chunk of literally citing it in the post. I just don't find much of the existing literature on vagueness especially useful, because it's starting from such a different set of problems than I actually care about.
IMO this feels a bit too much like punishing someone for rederiving something which is a bad thing to punish someone for. Tangential, but I think it's better to try tackling a problem by yourself before checking the existing literature.
If you like to puzzle things out of course it's better to puzzle it out for yourself, I object to presenting it under a new name. I don't care as much about who gets the credit (although there are good reasons to care about that too), I care more so about the fact that if we want to build on each others knowledge it's important to use the same terminology so we can find each others work. If philosophers have plotted out a web of arguments, counter-arguments, counter-counter-arguments etc and the rationalists want to spend their finite time on earth contributing to the expansion of epistemology, then it would be huge waste of time if, because they don't know that it's already an established branch, they spend their time on rediscovering old concepts instead of building on the existing concepts.
Are you perhaps from the UK? Is it more natural-sounding over there? I'm thinking of how R0 is supposed to be pronounced "are not", but every time I see it I still think of it as "are oh".
In addition to the post about queerness in Lord of the Rings, this post makes a strong argument that the Shire's population demographics and family sizes only match up if you assume polyamorous families, such that if one claims they have seven children this does not strictly imply that they have seven biological offspring. It's not as serious of a literary interpretation but it blends very well what is canonically known about hobbit social structures: https://www.tumblr.com/elodieunderglass/728733189963759616/you-get-it
> Rationality
> Ontological fuzziness: when the line between “thing” and “not thing” is blurry. For example, where exactly does a cloud end?
Another day, another rationalist/substack blogger writing about an established philosophical problem without mentioning the existing literature, and giving it a new name. Today it is "the problem of the many" for those that are interested: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/problem-of-many/ (although it's a paid post so maybe he mentioned it at the end or in the footnotes and I'm just not allowed to see it).
I like "ontological fuzziness" better as a name, ngl!
Me too tbh, but we should still attempt to stick to the terminology in well established literature as much as possible so we can easily find and build on each others' knowledge.
This is in fact mentioned in the footnotes (downside of the paid post cutting off the footnotes). I really dislike "vagueness" as a label for this property, so I made a conscious choice not to use it (and "the problem of the many" describes the problem that arises from it, not the property itself).
I read quite a lot of the existing philosophical literature, which you can probably tell given that there's a decent chunk of literally citing it in the post. I just don't find much of the existing literature on vagueness especially useful, because it's starting from such a different set of problems than I actually care about.
IMO this feels a bit too much like punishing someone for rederiving something which is a bad thing to punish someone for. Tangential, but I think it's better to try tackling a problem by yourself before checking the existing literature.
If you like to puzzle things out of course it's better to puzzle it out for yourself, I object to presenting it under a new name. I don't care as much about who gets the credit (although there are good reasons to care about that too), I care more so about the fact that if we want to build on each others knowledge it's important to use the same terminology so we can find each others work. If philosophers have plotted out a web of arguments, counter-arguments, counter-counter-arguments etc and the rationalists want to spend their finite time on earth contributing to the expansion of epistemology, then it would be huge waste of time if, because they don't know that it's already an established branch, they spend their time on rediscovering old concepts instead of building on the existing concepts.
We have a name for decades like 1600 - 1609: The 16 aughts.
I don't think very many people know that name.
Are you perhaps from the UK? Is it more natural-sounding over there? I'm thinking of how R0 is supposed to be pronounced "are not", but every time I see it I still think of it as "are oh".
I'm American actually, not sure where I first picked it up, I suppose it's not very common
In addition to the post about queerness in Lord of the Rings, this post makes a strong argument that the Shire's population demographics and family sizes only match up if you assume polyamorous families, such that if one claims they have seven children this does not strictly imply that they have seven biological offspring. It's not as serious of a literary interpretation but it blends very well what is canonically known about hobbit social structures: https://www.tumblr.com/elodieunderglass/728733189963759616/you-get-it
People talking about the "late 1900s" is funny. It's only going to get more common!