I wouldn’t eat flies or squids either. But I know that that’s a cultural construct.
Let’s ask another question: would I care if someone else eats Yoda?
Well, I might, but only because eating Yoda is, in practice, correlated with lots of other things I might find undesirable. If I could be assured that such was not the case (for instance, if there was another culture which ate the dead to honor them, that’s why he ate Yoda, and Yoda’s will granted permission for this), then no, I wouldn’t care if someone else eats Yoda.
Well, I might, but only because eating Yoda is, in practice, correlated with lots of other things I might find undesirable.
In practice? In common Yoda-eating practice? Something about down to earth ‘in practice’ empirical observations about things that can not possibly have ever occurred strikes me as broken. Perhaps “would be, presumably, correlated with”.
If I could be assured that such was not the case (for instance, if there was another culture which ate the dead to honor them, that’s why he ate Yoda, and Yoda’s will granted permission for this), then no, I wouldn’t care if someone else eats Yoda.
In Yoda’s case he could even have just asked for permission from Yoda’s force ghost. Jedi add a whole new level of meaning to “Living Will”.
“In practice” doesn’t mean “this is practiced”, it means “given that this is done, what things are, with high probability, associated with it in real-life situations” (or in this case, real-life-+-Yoda situations). “In practice” can apply to rare or unique events.
I really don’t think statements of the form “X is, in practice, correlated with Y” should apply to situations where X has literally never occurred. You might want to say “I expect that X would, in practice, be correlated with Y” instead.
“In practice” doesn’t mean “this is practiced”, it means “given that this is done, what things are, with high probability, associated with it in real-life situations” (or in this case, real-life-+-Yoda situations). “In practice” can apply to rare or unique events.
I wouldn’t eat flies or squids either. But I know that that’s a cultural construct.
Let’s ask another question: would I care if someone else eats Yoda?
Well, I might, but only because eating Yoda is, in practice, correlated with lots of other things I might find undesirable. If I could be assured that such was not the case (for instance, if there was another culture which ate the dead to honor them, that’s why he ate Yoda, and Yoda’s will granted permission for this), then no, I wouldn’t care if someone else eats Yoda.
In practice? In common Yoda-eating practice? Something about down to earth ‘in practice’ empirical observations about things that can not possibly have ever occurred strikes me as broken. Perhaps “would be, presumably, correlated with”.
In Yoda’s case he could even have just asked for permission from Yoda’s force ghost. Jedi add a whole new level of meaning to “Living Will”.
“In practice” doesn’t mean “this is practiced”, it means “given that this is done, what things are, with high probability, associated with it in real-life situations” (or in this case, real-life-+-Yoda situations). “In practice” can apply to rare or unique events.
I really don’t think statements of the form “X is, in practice, correlated with Y” should apply to situations where X has literally never occurred. You might want to say “I expect that X would, in practice, be correlated with Y” instead.
All events have never occurred if you describe them with enough specificity; I’ve never eaten this exact sandwich on this exact day.
While nobody has eaten Yoda before, there have been instances where people have eaten beings that could talk intelligently.
I share Qiaochu’s reasoning.