Re: What is the definition of "definition"?

From: Eliezer Yudkowsky (sentience@pobox.com)
Date: Sun Feb 02 1997 - 23:55:56 MST

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[John K Clark:]
> You did fine for "information", "formation", and "symbol" but you didn't
> give an explanation of "explanation", and that's all a definition is.

Since I adequately defined "symbol formation", what's left to define
about "explanation"?

Given "information", "formation", and "symbol":
Explaining: Presenting the information used in the formation of a
symbol.
Definition: The information contained by a symbol.

Non-circular, unless you'd care to challenge "presenting", "used", or
"contained"? Maybe "presenting", but I can define that as the encoding
of the information as linguistic speech, the pronunciation of that
speech, and the decoding of that speech by the recipient. Trivial.

-- 
         sentience@pobox.com      Eliezer S. Yudkowsky
          http://tezcat.com/~eliezer/singularity.html
           http://tezcat.com/~eliezer/algernon.html
Disclaimer:  Unless otherwise specified, I'm not telling you
everything I think I know.

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