Posted: Nov 09, 2018 8:46 pm
Thommo wrote:
I thought you agreed that "true" or "not true" was all that needed to be said? Already you're deviating from Matt's point that I was contesting.
Not really, both Matt and I are assuming we employ the same definition of X and Y, so first we'd need to clear that up.
So either the dichotomy is Donald Trump Jr. is or is not the son of Donald Trump Sr.
or
Donald Trump Sr. is or is not the son of Donald Trump Sr.
Thommo wrote:
3) was going to be:
3) "Donald Trump is the president of the United States of America and Donald Trump is the son of Donald Trump" means the same as "Donald Trump is the president of the United States of America and he is the son of Donald Trump".
In fairness I'm fresher this morning and I could probably just have used the liar sentence:
"This sentence is false" and asked if it's true or false, anyway.
I think you would agree that it cannot be both true and false at the same time though, right?
Thommo wrote:A more practical example would be to ask why fact checking sites use scales with assessments like "mostly true" or "mostly false". Hopefully this will communicate some of the problems I was alluding to!
It does and I agree that depending on the claim made, there might be gradations of truth. But when we're talking about X existing, I don't see how you can have gradations of truth. Either X exists or it doesn't, right?