Re: [MLUG - DISCUSSION] is it possible to define "a lie"?

[Mike Miller <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

On Thu, 1 Mar 2007, Stephen Montgomery-Smith wrote:

> Stephen Montgomery-Smith wrote:
> > Mike Miller wrote:
> >
> > > On Thu, 1 Mar 2007, Stephen Montgomery-Smith wrote:
> > >
> > > > Mike Miller wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > On Thu, 1 Mar 2007, Stephen Montgomery-Smith wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > > Quiz - what is wrong with this discussion?
> > > > > >
> > > > > > A.  Person X did a bad thing.
> > > > > > B.  Here is a plausible reason your allegations might not be true.
> > > > > > A.  But you cannot prove your plausible reasons.  Therefore my 
> > > > > > original assertion is true.
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > That isn't what has been happening here.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Yes it is.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Umm.. no it isn't?
> >
> >
> > Is!
>
> Sorry.  I meant to say "Is times infinity!"


Well, now you've got me, but you didn't specify cardinality.  I guess it 
has to be countable though.

Anyway, I do think, more seriously, that there is a difference between our 
ways of thinking about "truth."  You are a mathematician and things are 
either true, not true, or unknown.  I think more like a 
statistician/scientist and see things as only shades of gray.  Looking at 
the same thing you might say "unproven" and I might say "give me a break" 
because what I'm thinking is "obviously almost black."  For the 
mathematician, "unproven" isn't in the same spectrum as black and white, 
but nothing in science is ever proven in the sense that things are proven 
in mathematics.

So I think that is one reason why we sometimes disagree more than we 
should.  We aren't thinking about evidence in the same way.

Mike

_______________________________________________
discussion mailing list
EMAIL:PROTECTED
http://mlug.missouri.edu/mailman/listinfo/discussion