[From Rick Marken (960201.0810)]
Hans Blom (960201)--
Do you really think that a simple interchange of words can solve
any of our problems?
I'm personally going with "no". But I have to admire Bill Powers for his
(usually) good natured persistance in the face of obviously hopeless
situation.
Would a rose by any other name be something else?
I think this is the wrong question.
We have a problem where a thorn (determine, influence) is consistently being
called "rose" ("control"). That is, the word that refers to the phenomenon of
control (the word "control") is being used to refer to phenomenena that
should be referred to by other words (the words "determine" and "influence").
So Bill has decided to give the rose of control an ugly new name
("spontefaction") so that those of us who are interested in roses (the
phenomenon of control) can talk about them with people who have a penchant
for using the "official" rose word ("control") to talk about thorns.
So the question isn't "would a rose by any other name be something else?"
but, rather, "would a rose by another name make things less confusing".
We can now test to see if you know what phenomenon is being pointed to
by the word "spontefaction" because Bill invented this word specifically to
refer to that phenomenon. Here's one test of your understanding of what we
mean by this new word:
Does the environment spontefact behavior?
If you know the phenomenon to which the word "spontefact" points, then there
is only one correct answer to this question (just as there is only one answer
to the question "Is a rose a hard, sharp, pointed protrusion from a branch?"
So, what is the answer to the above question. (Hint: The correct answer is
one word, it starts with "N" and it doesn't disparage any ethnic group).
Best
Rick