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The seven specification ur-languages

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Re: The seven specification ur-languages

#2

Post by simiansays »

> All taxonomies are broken, full stop. Your categories are gonna be completely wrong and everybody’s going to argue over every single thing. There is no such thing as a tree.

Is this a serious statement? If so, wouldn't it be incompatible with the theory of evolution? Would an alien taxonomy of human binary numbers not be a legitimate tree?

Re: The seven specification ur-languages

#3

Post by kirushik »

simiansays wrote: post #2

> All taxonomies are broken, full stop. Your categories are gonna be completely wrong and everybody’s going to argue over every single thing. There is no such thing as a tree. Is this a serious statement? If so, wouldn't it be incompatible with the theory of evolution? Would an alien taxonomy of human binary numbers not be a legitimate tree?

Well, this clearly references this wonderful article: https://eukaryotewritesblog.com/2021/05/02/theres-no-such-th...

The idea is that our taxonomy selects a group named "trees", but there's little internal coherence in that group, which probably results in more online hilly wars in the plant-loving communities than we the laypeople can think of.

See also: is Pluto a planet?

Re: The seven specification ur-languages

#4

Post by spenczar5 »

simiansays wrote: post #2

> All taxonomies are broken, full stop. Your categories are gonna be completely wrong and everybody’s going to argue over every single thing. There is no such thing as a tree. Is this a serious statement? If so, wouldn't it be incompatible with the theory of evolution? Would an alien taxonomy of human binary numbers not be a legitimate tree?

Are you sure evolution is tree like? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convergent_evolution

That said, some categories are real, precise, and useful, like integers vs reals vs complex numbers.

Re: The seven specification ur-languages

#5

Post by klyrs »

spenczar5 wrote: post #4
simiansays wrote: post #2

> All taxonomies are broken, full stop. Your categories are gonna be completely wrong and everybody’s going to argue over every single thing. There is no such thing as a tree. Is this a serious statement? If so, wouldn't it be incompatible with the theory of evolution? Would an alien taxonomy of human binary numbers not be a legitimate tree?

Are you sure evolution is tree like? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convergent_evolution That said, some categories are real, precise, and useful, like integers vs reals vs complex numbers.

Are real numbers actually "real" or do they just have good PR?
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