Nick's "metaphor" answer is generative (even if vague). Steve's "selection"
answer is constraint-based. So, they're in different categories. I'll posit another generative
answer: finite capacities. As social animals, we're bred to interact, even if there's nothing to
actually interact _about_. The best interactors (idealized by gossiping over too much coffee)
often seem to have no subject at all. They wander from subject to subject, never spending enough
time on any one subject to satisfy anyone, including themselves.
But when they finally tire out, they're satisfied that they interacted.
The reality of it is that every one of these interactors would _love_ to have
the time, energy, IQ, databases, etc. to do a complete analysis of every
subject that might come up during gossip time. But, of course, they don't.
So, the semantic drift is purely an artifact of finite capacity ... much to the
chagrin of the privileged, who have plenty of time, energy, IQ, and database
access to do a more complete analysis of any issue of their choosing.
Of course, one defining feature of the geek is that, when a subject with which they're
familiar comes up during gossip time, the cork is popped and out comes a gush of data
("info" is too generous a word for it). But when the subject is not something
on which they've already familiarized themselves, they shush right up. And that
self-imposed shushing is what _prevents_ them from being a good interactor.
Yes, you heard me right. The unwillingness to yap to no end about stuff you
know nothing about _prevents_ you from being a good, social, citizen ...
grooming your fellow morons, ensuring them that you're part of their clan. ;-)
I, for one, go to great lengths to ensure my fellow morons that I am a member
of the clan!
[email protected] wrote at 10/12/2013 05:29 AM:> If "we have a responsibility to
try to find" anything, I think it
is to try to find *why* some people insist on (1) glomming onto bits
of jargon with very well-defined in-domain meanings, (2) ignoring much
or all of those meanings while re-applying the jargon (often without
ANY definition to speak of) in a new domain, while (3) refusing to
let go of some (or all) of the Impressive Consequences derived in
the original domain by derivations that (4) depend on the jettisoned
definitions (and the rest of the technical apparatus of the original
domain).
Nick Thompson wrote at 10/12/2013 09:52 AM:
I [...] know, deep down, that this has something to do with the crucial role of
metaphor in science. Even Kuhn, right?, had something positive to say about
having conceptual Genies escape from one scientific bottle and infect the
next. Perhaps I have to take a kind of pragmatist position here: If we
don't assume (wrongly) that all uses of a word avert to a common core, then
we will never have the sort of conversation in which the different meanings
get articulated and the forementioned frauds (and Freuds) and hucksters get
exposed.
Steve Smith wrote at 10/12/2013 11:42 AM:
I am left to wonder if this isn't an artifact of the *evolutionary* nature of
ideas. To invoke a genetic analogy... it is perhaps more efficient in the
scheme of things for a phenotype (scientific discipline?) to appropriate memes
(terms, concepts) from other genotypes (the scientific literature of another
domain) and then (ab)use them (let semantic drift explore the adjacent likely
space of their meaning) until they fit (well enough) to have significant
utility.
--
⇒⇐ glen e. p. ropella
Who cares to care when they're really scared
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