[SEQ RERUN] Extensions and Intensions
Today’s post, Extensions and Intensions was originally published on 04 February 2008. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):
You try to define a word using words, in turn defined with ever-more-abstract words, without being able to point to an example. “What is red?” “Red is a color.” “What’s a color?” “It’s a property of a thing?” “What’s a thing? What’s a property?” It never occurs to you to point to a stop sign and an apple.
Discuss the post here (rather than in the comments to the original post).
This post is part of the Rerunning the Sequences series, where we’ll be going through Eliezer Yudkowsky’s old posts in order so that people who are interested can (re-)read and discuss them. The previous post was Words as Hidden Inferences, and you can use the sequence_reruns tag or rss feed to follow the rest of the series.
Sequence reruns are a community-driven effort. You can participate by re-reading the sequence post, discussing it here, posting the next day’s sequence reruns post, or summarizing forthcoming articles on the wiki. Go here for more details, or to have meta discussions about the Rerunning the Sequences series.
A typo in the title: intensions, not intentions.
Thanks for the catch. Upvoted.