Trees exist. The category “tree”, as opposed to “shrub” or “plant” or “region of space-time” is a modeling choice—a question of tradeoff between compression efficiency and precision in the domain you’re predicting.
Likewise “Christmas”, and “Adult”. If you get better understanding of what it means to individuals or regions, you can predict better how they’ll behave.
Which leads to my definition of “socially constructed”—these are categories or definitions where it’s necessary (or at least very convenient) to have shared understanding of the heuristics used in generating and executing a mental model for communication and behavior. Almost all language fits into this framework. Everything worth talking about (perhaps everything possible to talk about) is socially constructed.
Basically, IMO, this is just standard abstraction—we call it “socially constructed” when a given abstraction has some social pressure or mechanism to be adopted at scale across a group.
Trees exist. The category “tree”, as opposed to “shrub” or “plant” or “region of space-time” is a modeling choice—a question of tradeoff between compression efficiency and precision in the domain you’re predicting.
Likewise “Christmas”, and “Adult”. If you get better understanding of what it means to individuals or regions, you can predict better how they’ll behave.
Which leads to my definition of “socially constructed”—these are categories or definitions where it’s necessary (or at least very convenient) to have shared understanding of the heuristics used in generating and executing a mental model for communication and behavior. Almost all language fits into this framework. Everything worth talking about (perhaps everything possible to talk about) is socially constructed.
Basically, IMO, this is just standard abstraction—we call it “socially constructed” when a given abstraction has some social pressure or mechanism to be adopted at scale across a group.