Tuesday, October 25, 2005

Stuff and things

Boy was I bored at work today. Too much time spent trying to figure out VB macros in Excel. Better get used to it I guess. However, it is a good thing I never went into programming.

One fruition of my boredom was this quote I found while trying to mix up the day a little:

Vere C. Chappell has suggested that the chief property which sets stuff apart from things is that a parcel of stuff can be combined with other parcels of the same kind so as to form one single parcel of that kind (Chappell 1970:71). A parcel of gold can be fused with other parcels of gold to form a single parcel of gold, but there is no way of putting a cat together with other cats to form a single cat.

- Thought, Language, and Ontology: Essays in Memory of Hector-Neri Castaneda
by William J Rapaport, Francesco Orilia, Hector-Neri C Neda

Therefore a cat is a thing whereas gold is stuff. I could spend an eternity searching the internet for and reading random crap. Too bad real life beckons at my door.

5 comments:

Vaughn said...

I like stuff.

Kelton said...

I really think that I'll have to choose things for my liking. Although all cats should cease to exist (cept for the cool big ones like ligers, possibly my favourite animal...) Guess what? I was talking about Ligers way before that stupid movie. So take that things! I win a million stuffs! At place.

Jared said...

Of course, if you take parcel to mean "wrapped bundle," then a parcel of cats fused with other parcels of cats is still a parcel of cats.

*boink*

James said...

If you can call fusing parcels of cats scientific progress....

Wow you guys are up late. Oh wait, you're all in different timezones than me. I'll have to get used to that.

Except Vaughn. He's still in good old EDT. He just stays up late I guess, probably for spite. Probably has no 8:30 classes or anything dumb like that.

Anonymous said...

So I guess "random crap" would fall under the "stuff" category...

-Adam F