It looks like we’ve stalemated again. We’re just running around in circles because everyone views the world in their own way and everyone wants to use certain words in certain ways. Even if we find a way to standardize our definitions, people still aren’t willing to drop their own perceptions of the world.
In this thread, we can’t agree on whether an engineer is someone who engineers, or someone who holds an engineering degree. Which came first? The engineer or the engineering degree?
In the
mentor-run vs student-run teams discussion, we couldn’t agree on exactly what FIRST is about. Whether FIRST is about learning or inspireing... Whether inspiration comes from watching or doing...
In our discussion of
life on other planets, we couldn’t agree on how probable (or improbable) something has to be before we can consider it possible.
Any discussion/debate that delves into the philosophy of life will ultimately end this way. And, as we’ve seen, starting out as a scientific discussion doesn’t mean that it won’t turn philosophical toward the end.