Re: OT: In the 'ignorance on parade' file

claudio wrote:

> ambiguity is not only bad , its evil.
The question is not so much whether ambiguity is a desirable thing,
but rather, if it is possible for the world to exist without it.  There is
no such thing, for example, as a logical system that can express all
possible theorems within it without an infinite number of axioms (vide
Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem).  The result of this is that trying to
force the world into categories of meaning is a fruitless activity, because
such categories are discrete units being imposed on a continuous substratum.
There is, for example, no such thing as a 'fish';  there are only individual
entities which we to greater or lesser degrees choose to categorize in
the slot arbitrarily marked 'fish'.  Where we draw the line between one
category and another is entirely up to us, and not something that we can
find out through the world around us.  All this means that any word you
choose to use will be semantically ambiguous, because you could be more
specific in refering to a particular entity, rather than to the type.

(And therein rests my apologia of artlanging.  Here I stand; I can do
no other.)

It is for these reasons that I gave up on Degaspregos as a profoundly
naive attempt to systematize and organize the world through language.
I decided though that rather than obliterating the work as a failure, a
greater testament to that failure would be to leave it be, unchanged
and incomplete, analogous to the way that logical systems must be
incomplete.

> and foreign words disturb the pureness of a langauge,
You are assuming (a) that there is such a thing as a 'foreign word';
(b) that there is such a thing as 'purity'; (c) that there is such a thing
as a 'language'.

I would assert that none of those things exist in any absolute sense.

> and thats where i
> agree wih the french policy to avoid anglicisms to keep the cultural
> personality intact.
Here, again, you are assuming that there is such a thing as 'culture'
and 'personality'.  Many philosophers would question the existence
of either.

> please dont bother me with such stupid comments.
Come now.  We need not be rude.  This is the great beauty of this list:
that people have, traditionally, accorded others the greatest respect,
even when they disagree violently and viscerally with each other.

===================================
Thomas Wier | AIM: trwier

"Aspidi men Saiôn tis agalletai, hên para thamnôi
  entos amômêton kallipon ouk ethelôn;
autos d' exephugon thanatou telos: aspis ekeinê
  erretô; exautês ktêsomai ou kakiô" - Arkhilokhos




--
===================================
Thomas Wier | AIM: trwier

"Aspidi men Saiôn tis agalletai, hên para thamnôi
  entos amômêton kallipon ouk ethelôn;
autos d' exephugon thanatou telos: aspis ekeinê
  erretô; exautês ktêsomai ou kakiô" - Arkhilokhos

Replies