Dorothy's red slippers, and man's ability to understand.

[RJG]

~X=X is a logical impossibility

~X=X is an "I'm not really familiar with logic" way--and something that we often see from Randroids, with Ayn Rand as a good example of someone who wasn't really familiar with logic but who often liked to appeal to logic nevertheless--of stating a contradiction. Most logics do not have an equals sign as an operator/connective. The standard logical way of writing what you're getting at is ~(P&~P), which is the principle of noncontradiction in traditional bivalent logics.

I suspect your academics have made it impossible for you to recognize/grasp Simple Logic (...which is Gater's point of this topic - those unable to grasp simple logic can't understand the truths of reality)

• Simple Logic:
  X=X is true
  ~X=X is logically impossible
  X<X is logically impossible

If you can't recognize these basic logical truths, then there's no sense in trying to make sense with you. Have a good day.

[Terrapin Station]

The standard logical way of writing what you're getting at is ~(P&~P), which is the principle of noncontradiction in traditional bivalent logics.

Since I write software for a living (in C based languages), if X was a bool, I guess I'd tend to write something like X = !X.

Yeah, the equals sign is obviously used a lot in programming. Programming incorporates a lot of mathematics, too, obviously.

[Terrapin Station]

~X=X is a logical impossibility

~X=X is an "I'm not really familiar with logic" way--and something that we often see from Randroids, with Ayn Rand as a good example of someone who wasn't really familiar with logic but who often liked to appeal to logic nevertheless--of stating a contradiction. Most logics do not have an equals sign as an operator/connective. The standard logical way of writing what you're getting at is ~(P&~P), which is the principle of noncontradiction in traditional bivalent logics.

I suspect your academics have made it impossible for you to recognize/grasp Simple Logic (...which is Gater's point of this topic - those unable to grasp simple logic can't understand the truths of reality)

• Simple Logic:
  X=X is true
  ~X=X is logically impossible
  X<X is logically impossible

If you can't recognize these basic logical truths, then there's no sense in trying to make sense with you. Have a good day.

What do you take your variable "X" to refer to if not a statement?

[Steve3007]

Programming incorporates a lot of mathematics, too, obviously.

Yes and obviously Boolean logic.

[Prof Bulani]

The Universe has always been here, so any effort to discover a "beginning" is wasted effort. Space continues forever in every direction, logically and physically it has to.
Time is the measurement and labeling of the Constant Now. Time never slows or stops as Einstein theorized, and there was no beginning of time. The entire Universe experiences the same constant now.
The matter that is here, has always been here, acting according to the forces applied to it, forming everything from DNA strands to Galaxies.

I was with you until here. Feel free to state that you disagree with the conclusions scientists have come to based on what has been observed and tested. But don't assert that you know better without providing both evidence and your methods for coming to your conclusions.

[Prof Bulani]

I suspect your academics have made it impossible for you to recognize/grasp Simple Logic (...which is Gater's point of this topic - those unable to grasp simple logic can't understand the truths of reality)

• Simple Logic:
  X=X is true
  ~X=X is logically impossible
  X<X is logically impossible

If you can't recognize these basic logical truths, then there's no sense in trying to make sense with you. Have a good day.

What do you take your variable "X" to refer to if not a statement?

X can be any variable value and the above would still hold.

[Terrapin Station]

What do you take your variable "X" to refer to if not a statement?

X can be any variable value and the above would still hold.

What would we be saying about X in the case where it's some arbitrary thing, say? (Or in other words, how would we be saying something about it where what we're saying doesn't amount to statements?)

[Prof Bulani]

X can be any variable value and the above would still hold.

What would we be saying about X in the case where it's some arbitrary thing, say? (Or in other words, how would we be saying something about it where what we're saying doesn't amount to statements?)

Terrapin, just try it yourself.

X = X is true
~X = X cannot possibly be true
X < X cannot possibly be true

Try X = 4, X = "apple pie", X = "pineapple on pizza is delicious". Try other values of X

[RJG]

• Simple Logic:
  X=X is true
  ~X=X is logically impossible
  X<X is logically impossible

If you can't recognize these basic logical truths, then there's no sense in trying to make sense with you.

It's a logical impossibility if X is standing for statements.

Nonsense, it doesn't matter what X stands for (...it is just a variable!).

What do you take your variable "X" to refer to if not a statement?

X can be any variable value and the above would still hold.

...how would we be saying something about it where what we're saying doesn't amount to statements?

Terrapin, just try it yourself.

X = X is true
~X = X cannot possibly be true
X < X cannot possibly be true

Try X = 4, X = "apple pie", X = "pineapple on pizza is delicious". Try other values of X

The Professor (Prof Bulani) is correct! -- Another example:

"Married" [X; married]
"Bachelor" [~X; not-married]

A "married bachelor" is logically impossible -- [~X=X] is logically impossible

[Steve3007]

Terrapin, just try it yourself.

X = X is true
~X = X cannot possibly be true
X < X cannot possibly be true

Try X = 4, X = "apple pie", X = "pineapple on pizza is delicious". Try other values of X

So the logical operator '=' is equivalent to the English words "is" and "equals" isn't it?

Now you're happy that it would be logically self-contradictory to say "~X = X" or "An apple is not an apple" (what a surprise!) can you find any examples of anybody actually claiming anything different?

RJG, over and over again, re-states the above three obvious logical truths, almost as if somebody somewhere has denied them. Can you see a purpose in doing that? Coz I can't. Except, of course, for the purpose of constructing an argument against a position that has not been taken by anybody, because it's easier than constructing an argument against a position that somebody has, actually, taken. (That's often referred to as a "straw man" technique, where the metaphorical "straw man" is the constructed position being attacked.)

[Belindi]

Gater, in your original post on this thread you illustrated how children and adults learn. Any decent teacher of humanities knows this too, having well learnt this lesson by way of their own lives or by stories from others' lives. ' The Wizard of Oz' is one such story. Fortunately humans don't have to learn social sensibility only via personal experience and instincts as other animals do. We can learn alos from the arts, and that is what the arts are for.

[Prof Bulani]

Terrapin, just try it yourself.

X = X is true
~X = X cannot possibly be true
X < X cannot possibly be true

Try X = 4, X = "apple pie", X = "pineapple on pizza is delicious". Try other values of X

So the logical operator '=' is equivalent to the English words "is" and "equals" isn't it?

Now you're happy that it would be logically self-contradictory to say "~X = X" or "An apple is not an apple" (what a surprise!) can you find any examples of anybody actually claiming anything different?

RJG, over and over again, re-states the above three obvious logical truths, almost as if somebody somewhere has denied them. Can you see a purpose in doing that? Coz I can't. Except, of course, for the purpose of constructing an argument against a position that has not been taken by anybody, because it's easier than constructing an argument against a position that somebody has, actually, taken. (That's often referred to as a "straw man" technique, where the metaphorical "straw man" is the constructed position being attacked.)

We would like to think that basic logic, at least this foundational level, is obvious and self evident. However, having had discussions with Terrapin Station about the relationship between logic and philosophy, it is understandable why this level of granular dissection of logic is necessary.

[Terrapin Station]

What would we be saying about X in the case where it's some arbitrary thing, say? (Or in other words, how would we be saying something about it where what we're saying doesn't amount to statements?)

Terrapin, just try it yourself.

X = X is true
~X = X cannot possibly be true
X < X cannot possibly be true

Try X = 4, X = "apple pie", X = "pineapple on pizza is delicious". Try other values of X

Okay, so let's say "shoes = shoes" --is that true? Who knows. That's not a normal usage of the equals sign. What shoes are we talking about? What are we saying about them? What does it mean for shoes to equal shoes? Shoes equal shoes in what sense?

And then "not shoes equal shoes"--what the heck would that be saying? What is equality for shoes?

We'd have to wind up with essentially a statement.

Statements are the sorts of things that can be true or false.

[Steve3007]

So the logical operator '=' is equivalent to the English words "is" and "equals" isn't it?

Now you're happy that it would be logically self-contradictory to say "~X = X" or "An apple is not an apple" (what a surprise!) can you find any examples of anybody actually claiming anything different?

We would like to think that basic logic, at least this foundational level, is obvious and self evident. However, having had discussions with Terrapin Station about the relationship between logic and philosophy, it is understandable why this level of granular dissection of logic is necessary.

So, as I asked, can you quote Terrapin Station, or anybody else, stating something that is logically equivalent to "X is not X" or "an apple is not an apple"? I've repeatedly asked RJG the same thing. He declines to do so.

[Terrapin Station]

"An apple is not an apple" seems to be about analyticity (see for a discussion of this Quine's "Two Dogmas of Empiricism"). As with Quine, I agree that analytic truths/falsehoods are simply a matter of the (variable) meanings and concepts that individuals apply.

In this case we're saying something about how people utilize concepts, and we're noting that they usually do that in a consistent way.