But you're just making up percentages. How did you get 25%? Perhaps the correspondence is closer to 2%, but each person is assuming it's at 90% or 80% or 41.27782%.

Your answer makes no sense. Even if we assume two people's similarity of concept can be measured on a linear scale, what does it even mean for two people to have "25% correspondence" on a topic?

Again, if there are NO common denominators in two people's mental representations of a word, then why do we assume that when each person uses that word they're referring to the "same" concept? — YuZhonglu

This doesn't seem to be the topic of this thread, but... what the hell.

Occasionally people run into the problem of using a word for which several people assign QUITE different meanings. In those cases, communication breaks down. If one of the 3 thinks Jesus is the hispanic guy that lives down the street, somebody else thinks that Jesus is the son of god, and a third person thinks that there is nobody named Jesus, obviously they are not going to have a productive discussion of Jesus.

In real life it happens that people sometimes have difficulty communicating and it usually isn't the end of the world.

But you're just making up percentages. — YuZhonglu

I'll make up my percentages and you can make up yours. Works for me.

Communication is difficult when people are overly literal. 25% or 2% are guesses, conversational gambits. Tokens. The meter measuring the degree of correspondence between two people will be jumping all over the place as the conversation goes along, because some words will have 90%, 100%, or 2%, or 45%... correspondence.

Every now and then I come across words that have zero correspondence. I don't know what the word means. Like "phlebasing". I never did find out what that word meant. The author made it up. Camarilla means, in my terminology, a group of running dog lackeys. I had to look it up before it meant anything. How about 'flocculent', and 'synecdoche'. Two more words with zero correspondence. Many people like callipygian rear ends -- from the Greek meaning beautiful buttocks. Nice ass, in other words. I had to look it up. Zero meaning at first.

But what I don't get is why we're even assuming the "same" words mean the "same" concept. For example, Bob posts a video explaining the "evils of Buddhism." Buddhist Tom sees the video and then denounces Bob for being evil himself.

Question: Why does Tom assume Bob is referring to the "same" Buddhism as Tom? Buddhism is a very large and vague religion, with many different practices and beliefs. After watching Bob's angry video on Buddhism it's just asreasonable for Tom to assume that Bob is referring to a different Buddhism then Tom and then shrug his shoulders and say:

"Well, Bob must believe in a different Buddhism than me, and its obvious from his video that Bob hates his personal concept of Buddhism. This man, Bob, must have a lot of self-hatred in his soul."

And yet this almost never happens. Why?

Communication "works" because words have limited meanings. Buddhism and Judaism, for example, or Hinduism and Christianity have distinct properties that characterize the religion. When people use the word "Judaism" for instance, they are using a word that excludes the teachings of Buddha and the Apostle Paul, for example. Judaism, like Hinduism, may be diverse but it doesn't mean whatever you happen t wish it it meant.

Tom and Bob may not agree about aspects of Buddhism, but what Buddhism is (in its several main forms) isn't open to invention. It is what it is. The same goes for capitalism, organic chemistry, the French language, and a lot of other things. They all have specific meanings that don't overlap extensively with other terms. So, "capitalism" and "socialism" mean different things. A parliamentary system is not the same as one man rule. Anarchism and Communism have distinct meanings--they don't overlap.

Make sense?

But see, that's the problem. You say "Buddhism is what it is." So what is Buddhism?

Write a one paragraph definition of Buddhism (no cheating). If someone else writes a different definition of Buddhism (which is likely) then why do you assume you're discussing the same Buddhism as him?

"This is what it is" is not an argument. No one points at a bridge and says "this bridge exists because it is what it is." Or at least no one serious.

One says "it is what it is" when no more can be said.

I might possibly understand what you are aiming at. How do definitions have any validity when people have diverse, often incompatible definitions? (But again, we're off the topic here.)

The words in language have meaning by consensus. In the case of objects, the consensus is usually correct. 99% of the population agree on which bridge in the United States is the Golden Gate Bridge and which is the Brooklyn Bridge [100% made up statistic]. True enough, some small town with the name of "Brooklyn" might have a bridge which could be called the Brooklyn Bridge, but no body would confuse some small highway bridge with THE Brooklyn Bridge. [Fact: some small towns are named Brooklyn.]

"Justice" on the other hand is a condition whose meaning maybe only a small number of people will agree with. Everyone wants justice, but who has gotten screwed by the courts and who received justice is (often) in dispute. Should the cop who shot the guy who looked like he had a gun be tried for murder? Opinion will be all over the place. "Justice" will be hard to name. "It is what it is" will definitely not be the case.

There is (or was) a consensus about what the USSR was. It was a union of 15 republics. For all practical purposes it was a single state -- the same what the USA is a single nation, even if it has 50 sub units. It was run by the Communist Party of the USSR, with a very strong executive at the top (a dictator more or less). so on and so forth... The histories of the USSR and the USA are both known. These facts are not open to dispute. "Nations" are collectivities of many people, many points of view, many government units, many industries, and so on. Of course, someone growing up taking care of pigs in the USSR or the USA will have a different take on the country than someone dancing at the Bolshoi or making movies in Hollywood.

But the facts of history are still the same, pig farm or Hollywood.

Someone involved in organized crime in the Soviet Union or the United States will have a radically different POV than somebody engaged in honest work. But the facts of the nations history -- including the fact that some people engaged in crime -- remains the same.

Now, if someone has no idea of what the USSR was (this is possible -- the USSR went out of business almost 30 years ago) then they will just be at a loss to understand what knowledgeable people are saying about the USSR. Someone born and raised in New York City, who has never traveled much, probably doesn't know what a pig farm smells like. Or, for that matter, what a barn for milk cows smells like. That doesn't mean that their understanding of the USSR or the USA is invalid. One could know a lot about the history of both countries and not know what pig shit smells like.

I'm afraid I can't go any further here. My knowledge and interest in the topic is what it is. So, if you want to talk about this more, what you could do is take your opening question to me...

Here's a question: when two people argue about "USSR" or "America," are they arguing about the same USSR or America?

Perhaps the reason they argue so much is because each side is arguing about a different USSR or America (but call their mental representations by the same name).

and start a new thread. You might want to expand those two sentences a bit. Like, adding which Buddhism, or which Christianity people are talking about.

https://www.businessinsider.com/even-the-roman-empire-wasnt-as-unequal-as-america-today-2011-12?r=US&IR=T

https://persquaremile.com/2011/12/16/income-inequality-in-the-roman-empire/

rock bottom isn't so bad — Shamshir

Have you been there? I haven't.

Next time just say “No” or say nothing.

Everyday.