WikiDiscuss

WikiDiscuss


BPFK Section: Epistemology sumtcita

posts: 2388


wrote:
The fact that some heuristics work
> extremely well, to the point of defining the
> word
> involved, does not mean that they are other
> than
> heuristics. some words just have easy
> definitions. Others may not, but calling
> attention to a brivla may still help finding
> what
> that definition is.
>
Looking this over, it occurs to me that
"heuristic was the wrong word; "mnemonic" is
better. It is not that knowing the associated
brivla will help you figure out what the BAI
means — though it might, it is that the
associated brivla will help you remember whatever
it is that the BAI means. Some even give a rule
(more or less) for reconstructing that meaning,
other just work by association. Obviously, the
rule cases are a little better for their job than
the free-form ones (though sometimes not much:
which place does the abstraction go in and what
results from putting it there?) Some are pretty
remote: {du'o} being the example of the day. (You
know {xu'a} is available for the meaning given
{du'o} — and it even works as a mild pun in my
idolect.) But either may serve to trigger memory
-- by association in lists, if not by content.