I was interested in philosophy in my late teens and early twenties and this thread has reminded me of why I generally dislike it. Purely from my laymen perspective (no offence to enthusiasts like Z10) you could play the semantics game and justify any garbage, like Hamza Tsortzis does.
contrawice...if it was so, it might be; and if it where so, it would be but as it isn't, it aint. Thats logic
Alice: What a funny watch! It tells the day of the month, and it doesn't tell what o'clock it is!
The Hatter: Why should it? Does your watch tell you what year it is?
Alice: Of course not, but that's because it stays the same year for such a long time together.
The Duchess: Be what you would seem to be -- or, if you'd like it put more simply -- Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise.
Alice: I think I should understand that better, if I had it written down: but I can't quite follow it as you say it.
March Hare: …Then you should say what you mean.
Alice: I do; at least - at least I mean what I say -- that's the same thing, you know.
Hatter: Not the same thing a bit! Why, you might just as well say that, 'I see what I eat' is the same as 'I eat what I see'!
March Hare: You might just as well say, that "I like what I get" is the same thing as "I get what I like"!
(Alive in wonderland) btw lewis carrol was a logician and mathematician
You talk about semantics and words--- rationality IS language and language can be reduced to nonsense (absurdity). Science is an invention of our rational it can also be reduced to nonsense. As to the argument that science works---who says nonsense cant work or that meaning cant be find in it