Re: Coloring of a map

From: Mok-Kong Shen (mok-kong.shen_at_t-online.de)
Date: 10/15/04 

Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2004 01:37:41 +0200

Guy Macon wrote:

> Mok-Kong Shen <mok-kong.shen@t-online.de> says...
>
>
>>Traditional logic is two-valued. You have either true or
>>false. I don't think that such logic applies to all situations
>>in the real world. I suppose that's a point that one has
>>to take into consideration.
>
>
> Nothing you wrote above changes the fact that you have been
> engaging in a logical fallacy that is so well-known that it
> is listed in the encyclopedia:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_silence
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_fallacy
>
> It's a fallacy. It's an invalid argument. It is that which departs
> from being logical. It's wrong-headed. It makes you look like a fool
> every time you use it. It proves nothing. It wastes the reader's
> time with statements that have no real content. Stop it. Don't use
> the argument from silence ever again. Drop it from your bag of
> debating tricks. It does not work anymore. Don't make excuses or
> rationalizations - just stop doing it.

I am not a logician, but let me say something nonetheless to
a paragraph from the above source:

   If Jack continues to refuse to give John the password,
   John cannot reasonably conclude that he does not in fact
   know it. In other words, his ignorance is not the most
   plausible explanation for his silence.

   Whether reasonable or not, it would be a logical fallacy
   to say that you have proven the premise to be false solely
   on the basis of argument from silence.

To the first paragraph 'not the most plausible explanation'
does not exclude some other comparatively less plausible
explanations. In case such exist, the most plausible
explanation, if found, isn't sure of being really true.
(It could be the 'preferred' one, on the other hand.)

To the second paragraph, the issue under consideration may
be connected with a probability, i.e. one wants only to
determine that something is fairly 'likely' to be true (one
couldn't do better for practical reasons in many situations).
In that case there is no means to 'prove' that within the
framwork of the traditional two-valued logic in my view.
(Fuzzy logic is developed for that, if I don't err.)

Returning to the topic of silence, I agreed that that
there are several possible reasons for that. Now each
could be assigned some (subjective) probability. One
could certainly then talk of them in connection with
the assumed subjective probabilities in my view. (Whether
the assigned probabilities turn out to be right 'objectively'
is another issue.)

M. K. Shen

Relevant Pages

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