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> _______________________________________________ You are currently subscribed to Framers as [EMAIL PROTECTED] Send list messages to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.