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AVMA Take 2
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Yes, it's another round of that classic guessing game - Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, Abstract [or any combination thereof]. This effort - '03/'04 should address any queries, but then again, may just serve to confuse and baffle which some might say is the point of the game. Patience, integrity and a decent search engine may be useful ....
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A one word answer?
Work of fiction? Yes *applause*
Apocryphal? No.
Connected with politics? *amused laughter from audience* Some would say yes. Others (perhaps more?) would say no. One reasonable answer is "I don't know". Another is "if you like".
One word answer? No.

[IS,P!] At least as a working definition I take 'human construct' to mean something that requires the human brain for its existence. Most abstract things seem to be human constructs, but not all are. I would say that 'pain', for example, is not a human construct. There are thorny issues when we get into the old debate about whether mathematical issues are created or discovered. Is the following a human construct: on a Euclidean plane, any right-angled triangle has the property that the square on the hypotenuse equals the sum of the squares on the other two sides? I'm not sure.
Religious?
(CdM) The property of plane right-angled triangles that you mention exists regardless of whether humans are aware of it or not. Maybe a better example would have been imaginary numbers which have no physical meaning until humans invented them and ascribed a meaning to them (a frequency, for example) but are a supremely useful mathematical tool.
Written in the last 100 years?
Religious? *more audience laughter*. It is not a religious work, but if you are asking if it has religious connections, I point you to the answer to "connected with politics", above.
Written in last 100 years? Yes.

[Rosie] Well, but there is also something odd about saying the Pythagorean theorem is not a human construct. As I say, the question of whether mathematics is invented or discovered has troubled philosophers of science for a long time, and I don't think it's as straightforward as you suggest, even in this case. Is the number "2" a human construct? But I'm getting out of my depth here, so I'll let the real mathematicians weigh in if they like.
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