----- Original Message ----- From: "J. van Baardwijk" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Thursday, October 03, 2002 5:39 PM Subject: Re: Intellectual output from the Arab World
> At 17:30 03-10-2002 -0500, Dan Minette wrote: > > > > The authority on this is called "plain and simple logic". If X equals Y, > > > then -X equals -Y. If X equals Y, then -X does not equal -0.5Y. > > > >So, anti-matter has negative mass? > > > >Out of curiosity, have you ever taken a course in logic? I don't think > >that word means what you think it does. > > Then what do you call the reasoning "if X = Y, then -X = -Y"? Illogical? No, I'd say its a statement that may be true or false, depending on the formal system it is applied to. It depends on what you substitute for =, -, X, and Y. A language is an interesting thing, the meaning of words do not always follow the general rules. Assuming that they must is ignoring data in favor of one's own theorizing. Words mean what the speakers of a language agree they mean, not what you think they mean. The fact that the compound word anti-Semite means something different than one would expect by simply following the usual rules of the language to derive meaning is not surprising in English. English is full of exceptions to the rules; one must just know them. Your argument would be valid iff you could prove that English is not a valid language. (The iff is not a typo it is a logical term for if and only if) Dan M. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
