• andros_rex@lemmy.world
    191·
    6 days ago

    The meme does get at an important point though -

    Our classifications of things have no impact on the things themselves. They are descriptive, not prescriptive. We create the category “planet” as a useful tool for referring to certain categories of astronomical objects. These objects would exist whether we had words for them are not.

    There are patterns in what the word “planet” describes that would also be shared, whether all of those things were called “planets” are not, but the words themselves are just useful shorthands depending on the context that we use them in. The map is not the territory; the referent is not the reference.

    (This is also about sex/gender.)

      • andros_rex@lemmy.world
        2·
        6 days ago
        1. Compare knowing and saying:

        how many feet high Mont Blanc is

        how the word “game” is used

        how a clarinet sounds.

        If you are surprised that one can know something and not be able to say it, you are perhaps thinking of a case like the first. Certainly not of one like the third.

        1. Consider this example. If one says “Moses did not exist”, this may mean various things. It may mean: the Israelites did not have a single leader when they withdrew from Egypt–Or: their leader was not called Moses -Or: there cannot have been anyone who accomplished all that the Bible relates of Moses-Or: etc. etc. We may say, following Russell: the name “Moses”-can be defined by means of various descriptions. For example, as “the man who led the Israelites through the wilderness” , "the man who lived at that time and place and was then called 'Moses " “the man who as a child was taken out of the Nile by Pharaoh’s daughter” and so on. And according as we assume one definition or another the proposition "Moses did not exist? acquires a different sense, and so does every other proposition about Moses. -And if we are told “N did not exist”, we do ask: “What do you mean? Do you want to say . . . … Or . . . … etc.?” But when I make a statement about Moses, am I always ready to substitute some one of these descriptions for “Moses”? I shall perhaps say: By “Moses” I understand the man who did what the Bible relates of Moses, or at any rate a good deal of it. But how much? Have I decided how much must be proved false for me to give up my proposition as false? Has the name “Moses” got a fixed and unequivocal use for me in all possible cases? Is it not the case that I have, so to speak, a whole series of props in readiness, and am ready to lean on one if another should be taken from under me and vice versa?

        Consider another case. When I say “N is dead”, then something like the following may hold for the meaning of the name “N”: I believe that a human being has lived, whom I (1) have seen in such-and-such places, who (2) looked like this (pictures), (3) has done such-and-such things, and (4) bore the name “N” in social life. Asked what I understand by “N”, I should enumerate all or some of these points, and different ones on different occasions. So my definition of “N” would perhaps be “the man of whom all this is true”. But if some point now proves false?-Shall I be prepared to declare the proposition “N is dead” false- even if it is only something which strikes me as incidental that has turned out false? But where are the bounds of the incidental?-If I had given a definition of the name in such a case, I should now be ready to alter it.

        And this can be expressed like this: I use the name “N” without a fixed meaning. But that detracts as little from its usefulness, as it detracts from that of a table that it stands on four legs instead of three and so sometimes wobbles.)

        Should it be said that I am using a word whose meaning I don’t know, and so am talking nonsense? Say what you choose, so long as it does not prevent you from seeing the facts. (And when you see them there is a good deal that you will not say.)

        Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations

        • brbposting@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          1·
          5 days ago

          iOS! Spotlight search on an iPhone.

          Tapping the short definition at the top produced the lengthier one. But nothing compares to the Oxford English Dictionary itself online! (Yay a local public library subscription)

          Anyway pretty UI eh?

          • pyre@lemmy.world
            2·
            5 days ago

            not a fan of the rest of the UI tbh but the typography on the dictionary is beautiful.

    • Dettweiler@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      6·
      6 days ago

      If we include Pluto, we will have 14 planets in our solar system, and I’m okay with that.
      In order of proximity to the sun, we have Ceres, Pluto, Huema, MakeMake, and Eris.

      Granted, there’s currently only 5 officially recognized, and the IAU says there may be more than 100 objects in our solar system that qualify that are yet to be discovered.

  • Blackmist@feddit.ukEnglish
    74·
    7 days ago

    The good thing about Pluto is it’s a planet whether you believe in it or not.

  • gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de
    33·
    7 days ago

    The current classification is a mess.

    IMO, it should be a planet iff it can hold an atmosphere. I.e., it doesn’t actually have to have an atmosphere, but if it had any, it should have enough surface gravity to hold that one.

    If you define it that way, Pluto is just barely a planet.

    • zqps@sh.itjust.works
      9·
      7 days ago

      So whatever hypothetical density constitutes an atmosphere becomes the arbitrary line in the sand.

      • Spzi@lemm.ee
        11·
        6 days ago

        Similar to the arbitrarily defined density of other stuff in the same orbit. We need to draw lines somewhere to impose categories on nature.

        • turmacar@lemmy.world
          10·
          7 days ago

          Planet has never been very well delineated. The Sun was a “planet”. Ceres was a “planet”.

          When we find enough things to break up the classification, we make a new classification. Like “asteroid” or “dwarf planet” or “gas giant”.