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Old 31st August 2011, 01:54 PM
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Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: Olympia, Washington
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Your analogy is a good one. If the goal is "not to get wet," we first have to define "what is wet?" How many droplets of water make one wet, versus merely moist? Is damp more or less wet than moist? Is soggy more than wet, or equal? Then, in what other locations may we find wetness apart from within the boundaries of the ocean — spray from the surf, for instance — and does that also count as wetness? What about lakes, rivers, or ponds? What about clouds? Fog? What about becoming wet from things other than water?

In linguistic terms, it is the paradox of the heap: at some stage, our language is insufficient to make a fine distinction between "small amount" and "heap," just as we have a hard time differentiating between "wet," "damp," and "dry." How do we define "human" when we know it's damned hard to define anything so indistinct? We're just not smart enough — or we're saddled with a language insufficiently expressive.
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