[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Christopher Hicks) writes:
> On Mon, 9 Jun 2003, Shlomi Fish wrote:
> > > Last I saw him, he was muttering "I think not..." at a party.
> > > Haven't seen him since.
> > When was that exactly?
>
> A Renee Descartes joke. Randal is a very funny guy. Remember "I think
> therefore I am" well the corollary is "I think not therefore I am not"
> which leads to several versions of Descartes philosophically humorous
> demise. It's the single most popular philosophy joke in my experience.
The only philosophy class I took in college was Logic. And there I
learned that you are wrong. "I think, therefore I am" does not imply
"I think not, therefore I am not." It does, however, imply "I am not,
therefore I think not" (and vice-versa). This is called "modus
tollens" and you can read more about it from Wikipedia, the
open-source encyclopedia:
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modus_tollens
--Bill.
--
William R Ward [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.wards.net/~bill/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by
little statesmen and philosophers and divines." - Emerson
