On Thursday, June 29, 2006 12:43 PM the ever-sharp Bill Briggs noted
web> At 12:33 PM -0600 6/29/06, Grant Hogarth, self-professed pedant,
wrote:
GH>>To build still further on Eric's excellent discourse:
GH>>There also exists the possibility of a conditional dependency of
action.
GH>> E.g. "If your book wins a Pulitzer, [then] you
GH>> [will/can/must/shall/may/ought to/...] celebrate..."
GH>>
GH>>- If A, then B (explicit consequence,
GH>> implied (but not required) order)
GH>>- If A and B (explicit connection, both elements required)
GH>>- If A, and then B (explicit consequence, conditions must
GH>> occur in fixed order)
GH>>- If A, B (explict set construction with tacit connection,
GH>> but no required sequence)
GH>>
GH>>In the first three of these, the time separation element
GH>>is implied as a requirement;
web> Sorry, but that's not so.
I will grant you that it's not mathematically *complete* <g>
No excuse... I simply got lazy.
web> My example in a previous message has no time element and
web> satisfies the first just fine thank you. It's not necessary
web> that these things are sequences of instructions, they can
web> be existing conditions, which is how the constructs arise
web> in logic and in programming any kind of logic based system.
Good point. And one that I neglected to clearly address. Let me remedy
that.
To my way of thinking, the notion of "condition" intrinsically implies a
time element, as a condition is presumed to be in one of three states
(and state transition is instantaneous):
* currently existing
* currently not existing
* currently not determinable (usually treated as "not existing")
<SIDEBAR>
There are also the more esoteric cases, such as:
* previously existing, but currently not existing
* previously not existing, but currently existing and
continuing to exist (roughly equivalent to bullet 1 above)
* previously existing, but currently not determinable
* previously not existing, but currently not determinable
* ...
</SIDEBAR>
Given that we are observing from a time-bound environment, a state
transition, while taking no time in and of itself, creates a "before"
and "after" by the act of occurring.
If 'A' is a precondition for 'B', then 'A' perforce must exist prior to
'B'.
If 'B' already exists, then the occurrance of 'A' does not alter it;
instead creating 'C', which is pretty much the same as the first case.
web> Further, the first instance is a complete notion.
I can see how you got there. It really is only a portion of the larger
statement
"If A and B, then C".
web> The second and third are not and require a consequence to
web> complete the statement. The last is totally unclear to me.
web> Is it "if A and B" or "if A or B" or "if A given B" or
web> something else? It is not possible to ascertain from what
web> you've written.
Apologies -- have been doing too many chart equations of late. <g>
I can see that my statement is unclear; I intended
"If (A,B)" where B is the identity of a particular instance of A.
Does that help?
Grant
Realizing just how long it has been since he has had to write explicit
formal logic. <smile>
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