Rationality: From AI to Zombies

by Eliezer Yudkowsky

If you want to know whether atheism should be clustered with supernaturalist religions for purposes of some particular empirical inference, the dictionary can’t answer you. If you want to know whether blacks are people, the dictionary can’t answer you. If everyone believes that the red light in the sky is Mars the God of War, the dictionary will define “Mars” as the God of War. If everyone believes that fire is the release of phlogiston, the dictionary will define “fire” as the release of phlogiston. There is an art to using words; even when definitions are not literally true or false, they are often wiser or more foolish. Dictionaries are mere histories of past usage; if you treat them as supreme arbiters of meaning, it binds you to the wisdom of the past, forbidding you to do better. Though do take care to ensure (if you must depart from the wisdom of the past) that people can figure out what you’re trying to swim.

The folly of arguing about the definition of a word.