X-Message-Number: 10066 Date: Wed, 15 Jul 1998 09:56:07 -0400 From: Thomas Donaldson <> Subject: reply to Cryonet #10059-#10065 1: Hi everyone! 2: 3: I generally dislike arguments about definitions. They don't really 4: advance our thinking, they just take up valuable time. It seems to me 5: that much of the discussion between Bob and Paul Wakfer is just that, 6: and I hope it does not continue. It looks to this observer that both 7: Bob Ettinger and Paul Wakfer agree, but do not want to admit their 8: agreement. 9:10: As for changes in English, I certainly agree. I too very much regret11: the changed meaning of "gay". I remember, in 1969, when I had just12: arrived in Australia and that changed meaning had not yet reached13: Australia, being called "gay" (I was, very much so --- I had just14: left the U of Chicago, where everyone was full of gloom and disaster15: about the Vietnam War, and found Australians to be far less gloomy16: and depressed). I had to ask what was meant.17:18: But well, the new meaning came to Australia, too, not long after. I19: can't say that made me feel unhappy, but it wasn't nice. Perhaps if20: (with immortality, maybe??) people become less obsessed by sex21: the older meaning of "gay" will reassert itself.22:23: I will add that a tolerance for such changes is likely to be important24: if we wish to adjust to the future after our revival. Sure, they may25: still speak English, but have you noticed all the changes that even26: 100 years can bring? Will English have degenerated? Not at all, it27: will only have changed. People use the words of their language to28: say what they mean, and if the meanings of those words change it29: says much more about what the people of the society of that time want30: to say than it gives a sign of degeneration. I doubt that the French31: feel that their language is a degenerate version of Latin, for instance.32:33: Nor are the meanings of words such as "science" or "scientific" immune34: from such changes. That is a point on which philosophers of science35: and others who are not practitioners may even have some influence;36: the current ideas are hardly even 100 years old. Remember, first there37: was "natural science" which conflated lots of things, and the whole38: idea of a "scientific proof" or "scientific argument" came into being39: through experiment, observation, and thinking over centuries. And40: so I would not be surprised to learn, on revival, that the discussions41: of Paul Wakfer and Bob Ettinger (if anyone remembers them) will be42: seen as curious, quaint instances of the outmoded thinking of the43: 20t Century. But will they still be doing SCIENCE, you might ask.44: Well, you'll have to watch and find out for yourself -- even the45: word might become forgotten or changed.46:47: But if English persists (it may not) you may be able to use it48: for hundreds of years, at least for simple communication (you'd have49: to be careful when the meanings of words have changed). But you wouldn't50: be dropped among a bunch of people mouthing gibberish at one another.51: You'd recognize it as English, albeit changed. I knew a classics52: teacher, once, who found that when he went to Greece (totally without53: studying modern Greek) he could still speak with the Greeks there, in54: his classical Greek. Sure, he had to learn lots of new words and55: changes in the meaning of the old words. But it was still Greek, and56: he could understand and make himself understood.57:58: Best and long long life,59:60: Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=10066