posted
but a valid argument based on valid foundations is true. Quibbling over whether or not true and valid have the same conotation is avoiding the problem. Actually, the fundamental difficulty is with the claim that "This statement is false." is a statement. Logically we do not allow a thing, just because it can be put into the structure we call a sentence, to be a statement (no not just an utterance either......anything vocal or audible might qualify if we allowed that) unless it isn't self contradictory (which "This statement is false." would be). There are other restrictions on what a statement may be, but consistancy if fundamental.
Posts: 11304 | From: Fort Worth, Texas | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
One of the most popular failures and claims results from the common mis-belief that in logic, mathematics, set theory, etc., it is true that "a set can be anything you want it to be". First, who designated you as having the power to decide what a set is? Thereby, under the assumption that a set can be anything you choose, Bertrand Russel chose to designate the "set of all sets that do not contain themselves". Now that one will tease your notions about being a logical being unless you give up the notion that you can control what sets are and the belief that what sets can be is "undefined", in the sense of being without restriction.
Posts: 11304 | From: Fort Worth, Texas | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
bdgee, lol, you lost me, dude--but somehow I think we agree...
it's like the "logic" my ex and new spouse come up with...ha ha ha, when they chime together, it sounds like grackels...which is my private name for them...lol, squwaaaakk grate hisss
what I'm saying is, you know as well as I, you can posit a perfectly "valid" argument that has nothing to do with "truth."
My retort when faced with these:
"them": How many legs does a dog have, if you count the the tail as a leg?
me: "Dudn't matter how you count the tail, dog's got four legs."
posted
Gotta define your terms. If you define a dog's tail to be a leg, then it's true....he has four legs....and also five legs. Now define his ears to be legs too and hel have seven, provided he has the standard assortment. But if you're busy quibbling about who has the authority to do the defining, you are NOT considering the logic. Arguments about who makes the rules or what they are is politics, not logic.
Posts: 11304 | From: Fort Worth, Texas | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
A lot of time and energy is going to waste as far as I'm concerned, I read Bertrand Russell in the late 50s or early 60s, a lot of it was good reading. A normal dog has four legs, I don't know who made the rule I don't care, why quibble over it? A little common sense goes a long long way. For every solution to a problem there's another problem. Follow that line of thinking you'll never get done. Just my opinion.
Posts: 280 | From: w.sacto.ca. u.s.a. | Registered: Feb 2004
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posted
Most of what Russel wrote was egotistical crap patting himself on the back....most was claimed to be phylosophical. He did write some mathematical things that thrill mostly non-mathematicians and an ocassional algebraist, but most of that reduced to self praise, too. It was that trait that caused his teacher and early collaborator (Alfred North Whitehead) to refuse to ever work with him again. However, in all his nonsense, there is one jewel that is so brilliant it is enough to mark him as a great scholar.......the paradox of the "set of all sets".
Posts: 11304 | From: Fort Worth, Texas | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
reputation aside? i don't know that it actually made him as a great scholar.. the problem of the "set of all sets" is more about linguistics than it is about logic.... Let S be the set of all those sets which are not members of themselves. Then this set can not exist.
he shoulda gone into politics...he woulda "fit in" with that set better
-------------------- Don't envy the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise. Posts: 36378 | From: USA | Registered: Sep 2003
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In most "schools" of logic almost all logic reduces to very careful and very precise linguistics. I point out that Russel did not belong to such a school.
Actually, as is hinted at and evidenced by his frequent "troubles" with governmental authority, he did a lot more politics than he did logic.
Posts: 11304 | From: Fort Worth, Texas | Registered: Mar 2005
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allowed me to reduce "documentation" to--more or less--"if-then" statements. Didn't have to know their particular "language," all I had to know was their starting points. Reduced to symbology, flaws in their coding/documentation showed up like a June bug against a porch light...
posted
Yes, I too notice the failure of the original poster to come back. Or maybe he came back and after reading a couple of replies, didn't think we were taking him seriously?
Posts: 11304 | From: Fort Worth, Texas | Registered: Mar 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Machiavelli: well you have to ask what the problem or question is in order for us to try to answer it...
doubt it--that he/she thought we not were serious--the most exellent poster, Machster, was her/his first reply...my guess? 1st poster couldn't get his /her thoughts together well enough to state her/his "problem" and simply w-e-n-t a-w-a-y...
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