A rose by any other name

A few weeks ago I posted the following status to facebook:

"A shovel, by any other name, would still shovel dirt. A rose, on the other hand, would it still smell as sweet?"

This was the end result of one hour of deliberation, and it has significant philosophical depth. Apparently, facebook is not the place for something like that, so let me explain to you what it means. (I meant to do this two weeks ago, but you know...)

First one has to associate to it the well known saying by Shakespeare (said by Juliet in 'Romeo and Juliet', which is a good enough read, and written in funny English (by the way, has anyone noticed the similarities between Shakespeare-talk, and Yoda in Star Wars?)):

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet."

Modern research would answer: "Yeah, no, not really". Words, by their sound, and by their relation to other words (associations, connotations), does carry quite a bit of 'subconscious' prejudice.

How can this be? Studies show how the expensiveness of wine makes you like it more. So that if you don't know the price, most wines are equal (or even more expensive wines do poorer), but if you know that a wine is expensive, then you like it more. Now, you are probably thinking that the subjects reported to like it more, so that we can only conclude that the price affects how much we think we should like it. But no, alas, it also affects the amount of pleasant your brain generates. So the conscious price-information is taken into account when your brain decides how much it likes the wine on a subconscious level!

For the actual research article follow this link.

This should explain the second sentence of my facebook status, but what is the deal with the shovel?

Well, even if you are told that the shovel was expensive (maybe it's lined by gold or something) what happens? If it breaks, or is unable to contain enough dirt, then whatever it's called and how it's priced does not matter at all. Perhaps you like the expensive gold-shovel more, but the shovel that is best at shovelling dirt is the 'best shovel'.

To clarify, there is a distinction between two different values here. On one side it is the beauty, or the artistic value of a rose; it is summer and happiness, joy and love. On the other side it is the usefulness or practical value of the shovel. Even though it shovels dirt (a word with negative connotations) it is important to us. And this practical value would not be changed by renaming it.

As any other pair of concepts these are seldom seen apart. More often than not, the two values are entwined in any given object; there is a combination of artistic value and usefulness. But ideas, I think, are more powerful when we are able to distinguish between them.