[WikiEN-l] fictional categories

[Surreptitiousness]

Ray Saintonge wrote:
> Ian Woollard wrote:
>   
>> On 04/11/2009, Steve Bennett wrote:
>>   
>>     
>>> On Wed, Nov 4, 2009 at 12:37 PM, Ian Woollard wrote:
>>>     
>>>       
>>>> Schroedinger's cat very definitely is fictitious; it's not an
>>>> experiment you can actually do and get an alive/dead cat that you can
>>>> actually see, you would get either an alive cat, or a dead cat.
>>>>       
>>>>         
>>> I agree with the statement that it should not be in that category.
>>> Essentially, because schrodinger's cat is not a cat.
>>>     
>>>       
>> Schrodinger's cat is a fictitious cat that is in the Schrodinger's cat
>> thought experiment.
>>
>> It is fictitious because it is not a factual cat; it is countrafactual.
>>   
>>     
>>> There is no notable fiction in which
>>> Schrodinger's cat features heavily, for example.
>>>     
>>>       
>> It is notably in "Schroedinger's cat" thought experiment.
>>
>> That's what a thought experiment is; it's a made up story about what
>> would happen if you did X,Y,Z which is used to illuminate aspects of
>> physics.
>>
>>   
>>     
> I would be inclined toward keeping it in the category, but mostly 
> because of subsequent references in works of science fiction.  In common 
> usage there is a tendency to ignore the difference between "fictitious" 
> and "fictional".  With reference to the original concept of 
> Schrodinger's cat it is fictitious because it is imaginary; it is not 
> fictional because it is not part of a work of fiction.
>   
As things stand currently Schrödinger's cat and Schrödinger's cat in 
popular culture are both categorised there.  To the person who said I 
should just fix it, yeah, I could, but there's enough discussion on this 
list to say I ain't got a strong consensus.  Besides which, there was an 
underlying point there somewhere about the philosophy of categorisation 
on Wikipedia which still, after, um six years? hasn't been resolved.