Hacker News Reader

Comment by dahart | Hacker News Reader

> If there were another labelling system, it would have the same problems and would only serve to split the humans into multiple ways of doing the same thing.

If that were true, then you’re saying Linnaeus has the same problems as before it, and it only split people up? Maybe we should go back to the previous names? Of course the system could be improved and solve some problems, the relevant questions aren’t whether it’s possible, they’re about goals, scale, and agreement.

Feynman’s quote is cute but doesn’t seem completely relevant to a hierarchical taxonomic naming system that in fact does tell you something about what a bird is from the name, no?

View on HN

Feynman's quote is distinguishing knowledge of the thing itself (e.g. its behaviour, properties) which he thinks is useful, from ontological knowledge (naming and categorising) which he cares less about. As a physicist he only had to remember 61 particle names and 4 force names :)

That's not to downplay giving things names! Obviously it's essential to get any collaborative work done that everyone uses the same name when they mean the same thing.

On applying my logic back to the introduction of the binomial naming system... very clever! But I think it was Linnaeus's peers liked the properties of binomial naming so much it had a unifying effect on them... and now they have unity, and there are many more scientists worldwide depending on this system to communicate, they don't need a challenger system to provide a different form of unity?

> from ontological knowledge (naming and categorising)

The example clearly is discussing naming and not categorizing, which is precisely why Feynman’s anecdote is not fully applicable to the Linnaeus system.

> They have unity

I agree. That doesn’t mean the naming system can’t be improved, it just means unity is a goal and might be harder to achieve than before. This is what I meant about goals and agreement. If the new system were better enough, and unity was sought in advance, achieving unity might not be too difficult. It has happened before…

Reply on news.ycombinator.com