RE: den.list-d Digest V2001 #72

["Aidan Ward" <aidan_ward@antelopes.com>]

Michael, Denizens,

This passage nicely illustrates a deep divide in our community that causes
much debate and no resolution:

> My favorite section of "The Logic of Modern Physics" is
> Bridgman's chapter
> close on operational definitions:
>
> "Operational thinking will at first prove to be an unsocial
> virtue; one will
> find oneself perpetually unable to understand the simplest
> conversation of
> one's friends, and will make oneself universally unpopular by
> demanding the
> meaning of apparently the simplest terms of every argument.
> Possibly after
> every one has schooled himself to this better way, there will remain a
> permanent unsocial tendency, because doubtless much of our present
> conversation will then become unnecessary.  The socially optimistic may
> venture to hope, however, that the ultimate effect will be to
> release one's
> energies for more stimulating and interesting interchange of ideas."
>
> How true.
>

There is another way to make oneself deeply unpopular. It is to insist that
an operational definition is just that, a definition of how to characterise
something in the story that the definer is telling. What happens is that we
confuse the act of definition with the act of excluding other valid
meanings. An operational definition is fit for purpose in one story and
probably unfit for purpose in characterising the same thing in another
story.

For what it is worth, I advise my clients that having only one story, only
one set of definitions, is like having all their eggs in one basket. There
are no resources from which to reinterpret the purpose of the system when it
comes under pressure from an unexpected quarter. We are left saying we no
exactly why we do things this way and that the competition are no playing by
the rules. Why would they? The nature of competition is to subvert our
purposes and our definitions.

Far from much conversation being unnecessary, we need far more conversation
that is far less defensive.

Regards,

Aidan

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