Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2008 February 7

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February 7

urdu word

what is the translation (or most suitable phrase) for an urdu word 'NAA-CHEEZ'

in english? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.59.70.163 (talk) 12:32, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

It is Persian and it has many overlapping meanings, including: scruple, slight, slim, spare, trifle, trivial, unimportant, poor, etc. --Omidinist (talk) 15:55, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Emergent property

I read the paragraph on emergent properties in Emergence but I didn't really understand it. Please, can anybody tell me what emergent property means in the following sentence:
"Category-specific deficits are best viewed as an emergent property of the fact that different sources of information are needed to recognize living and nonliving objects." Lova Falk (talk) 14:21, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
PS I'm not native english)

It is no wonder that you are confused. The passage you cite combines several pieces of jargon in a sentence that really doesn't make sense. I suspect that the person who wrote this sentence really meant something like: "Category-specific deficits, like the inability to distinguish living and nonliving objects, probably result from an inability to recognize distinctive features of the affected category. As such, these deficits may be emergent properties of different kinds of sensory or cognitive impairment." Or, even clearer: "Several different kinds of sensation or cognition are involved in distinguishing living and non-living things. Like other category-specific deficits, the inability to recognize living objects is probably an emergent property arising from different sensory or cognitive impairments." In any case, the writer intends the phrase "emergent property" to mean a "property arising from the systematic interaction of different causative factors". Marco polo (talk) 16:28, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Another guess as to the meaning is as follows.

"We have observed two independent kinds of recognition deficits: some patient have one kind, some the other. One is an impairment in recognizing things from the category of living things. The other is an impairment in recognizing things from the category of non-living things. How can we explain this category-dependent specificity? In our opinion, a good explanation of this property is that it arises (emerges) from the fact that for each of the two categories the process of recognition needs a different source of information."

If this is the correct interpretation (and I think it is), the words "an emergent property of" in the sentence simply mean "a property arising from", without the specific connotations of Emergent property and not involving the interaction of factors.  --Lambiam 20:17, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Thank you both of you. I now understand what is meant. :) Lova Falk (talk) 20:25, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Just endorsing what Lambiam has said. It is not clear that this has anything to do with emergent properties properly so-called. But I am mystified: where is the sentence in that article? I can't find it. O, I see. It's from somewhere else.

– Noetica^♬♩ Talk 23:33, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Just to satisfy your curiosity: The sentence is from: Gazzaniga, Ivry & Mangun: Cognitive Neurosciences, 2nd edition, 2002 Lova Falk (talk) 14:23, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

cead mile failte

what do you mean by cead mile failte? i took that word from the irish... i need the answer of that word pleas...michael —Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.213.139.73 (talk) 21:25, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

We actually have an article on Fáilte which contains the answer. -Elmer Clark (talk) 21:35, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

And Wiktionary has a listing for the entire phrase at céad míle fáilte. —Angr ^{If you've written a quality article...} 21:41, 7 February 2008 (UTC)