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Posted by asdf on 10/01/14 12:01
"Kevin Scholl" <kscholl@comcast.DELETE.net> wrote in message
news:3pGdnYvt0LcnPAPanZ2dnUVZ_smnnZ2d@comcast.com...
> Neredbojias wrote:
>
>>> Ah Boji, you very significantly don't say what a bottomless cup is. Most
>>> of us would have no trouble, it is *a bottomless cup*. But all you can
>>> say is "Nope". I do understand your predicament. Having eschewed a
>>> perfectly natural form of words, you are at a loss to describe such a
>>> cup.
>>
>> A cup needs a bottom to be a cup. Is that unreasonable?
>
> Just to play devil's advocate, is that necessarily true? What about those
> cone-shaped paper cups that typically accompany water jugs in office or
> sports environments? If the cone is the side(s), then the cup has no
> bottom per se. Or, if the cone is in fact the bottom, then the cup has no
> sides.
>
> "What if, uh, C-A-T really spelled ... 'dog'?" :)
>
How Pythagorean :))
Folks, we've stumbled into the metaphysical now... So for my 2c, and to
obfuscate the discussion even further than has been achieved by dorayme et
al... a cup may have a bottom or not. Both are true, depending on who is
perceiving the cup.
Further... the cup does not exist *as a cup* until somebody actually drinks
from it, since a cup is (partly) defined as a drinking vessel. So, by that
logic, a cup *must* have a bottom, since if not, the liquid to be imbibed
would simply fall out the bottom, invalidating the object's definition...
....should the cup be cone shaped, then the cup has sides AND a bottom, the
functions of which are performed by the cone itself, and depending on from
which angle your are perceiving the cup.
....unless of course the cup was designed by a Govt. Dept. (esp. the Ministry
of Defence, Dept. of Defence, or what have you in your country), in which
case, the definition of "cup" would simply be rewritten, so that all the
bottomless cups thus produced or procured would not appear as unnecessary
expenditure, ensuring the supply of funds for the further production or
procurement of bottomless cups in the next fiscal year, and supplying lots
of meaningless employment for the shiny-bums.
When is a cup not a cup? When it's a useless, design-flawed figment of your
imagination.
Arguing metaphysics in an ostensibly technical newsgroup isn't really
useful. Can I point you all at: news:alt.paranet.metaphysics? LMGDAO
*metaphorically ducks to avoid the cup-abstraction just thrown at my head*
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