For example, we have often wrestled for control of the term "Creationist" because some of our correspondents would like to paint everyone who believes in God the Creator as a Young Earth Creationist by attaching the meaning, YEC to the term "Creationist."
I also wrestle for control of certain terms which have strict meaning in mathematics but would be misappropriated applied to physical nature.
For instance, a person cannot say something is random in a system when he doesn't know what the system "is." A series of numbers extracted from the extension of pi may appear random but are in fact, highly determined. Using the term to describe a physical phenomena without the qualifier, i.e. "physical randomnness" - suggests that all that physically exists is both known and knowable to science. That is of course impossible since science cannot say that fields, particles and dimensions which have no measurable direct or indirect effect must therefore not exist.
Of course the stakes are very high indeed when the debate is political and the consequences, bloody. "Untermenschen" or 'under men' was the term the Nazis used to describe Jews, Gypsies, etc. and as a result the people who put them to death in great numbers could believe they were not actually killing humans. Ditto for mainstream media, liberals and Democrats relentlessly referring to the unborn human as a fetus.
I defer on the "isms" to betty boop and spirited irish. Just one battle on a crevo thread over the terms "realism" "idealism" and "nominalism" convinced me to take the back seat. LOLOL!
I defer on the "isms" to betty boop and spirited irish.
So you understand the consequences of one side having control of the terms, and you've willing to let one side have it?
LOLOL dearest sister in Christ! Indeed such "battles" are not everyone's cup of tea.
Such folks who do participate in such exercises in futility spend 99% of the time just trying to get agreement on the definition of such terms as "realist," "idealist," "nominalist" — rarely, it seems, to any avail.
FWIW, I am a tad suspicious of any kind of "ism" or "ist." It seems to me that "ism" or "ist" appended to any word signals some kind of mental abstraction has taken place that is already at once remove from Reality....
Well, FWIW.
But for those who wade into such murky waters, some of us have more fun than cats!
You wrote:
...[A] person cannot say something is random in a system when he doesn't know what the system "is." A series of numbers extracted from the extension of pi may appear random but are in fact, highly determined. Using the term to describe a physical phenomena without the qualifier, i.e. "physical randomnness" — suggests that all that physically exists is both known and knowable to science. That is of course impossible since science cannot say that fields, particles and dimensions which have no measurable direct or indirect effect must therefore not exist.Indeed. My own view is (FWIW): All that physically exists is not "both known and knowable to science," according to its present methodological understandings (largely premised on Newtonian mechanics). It seems clear enough to me that the foundation of Nature consists of non-observables, such as particles, fields, and (from the organizational standpoint), dimensions.
(Not to mention the Will and Purpose of God Creator.)
So I just figure that any scientist (or other sort of person) who tells you that the only things in the world that are "real" are those things which can be directly or indirectly "measured" must have some epistemically prior commitment that puts him in the category of "ideologist."
Just my humble opinion. Which I'm sure comes as no surprise to you, dearest sister in Christ!
Thank you so very much for your as-ever deeply perceptive essay/post!