tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post8044083406463850010..comments2024-03-29T08:55:55.727-05:00Comments on Computational Complexity: A new logical fallacyLance Fortnowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06752030912874378610noreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-64058230472023676462008-11-08T13:50:00.000-06:002008-11-08T13:50:00.000-06:00Anonymous, why choose a loaded word word "offensiv...Anonymous, why choose a loaded word word "offensive" rather than a less-loaded word like "imprecise"?<BR/><BR/>Nothing has been more dismaying (to me) in the present election, than the prevalence of factions whose members are incurious, uncompromising, readily offended ... and proud of it.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-63241056387195552532008-11-08T12:35:00.000-06:002008-11-08T12:35:00.000-06:00I think the very terminology of "if [...] we were ...I think the very terminology of "if [...] we were more clearly winning the Iraq War" is offensive, no matter what the author's opinion is about what is happening in Iraq. <BR/>(Both the choice of the words "winning" and "War", for example.)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-53562499424665387292008-11-08T07:01:00.000-06:002008-11-08T07:01:00.000-06:00Postscript to the above ...On checking, I found no...Postscript to the above ...<BR/><BR/>On checking, I found not only numerous web pages (including a Wikipedia page) devoted wholly to discussions of "Checkhov's Gun", there is even a 1997 movie titled <A HREF="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0190299/plotsummary" REL="nofollow"><I>Chekhov's Gun</I></A> whose summary is as follows: <BR/><BR/><I>In 1897, Anton Chekhov first articulated the most famous axiom of story structure: if a gun appears on stage in a play, someone must be shot by the final curtain. Chekhov's Gun imagines what might happen if the characters in a film somehow discovered this "rule" and and then set about avoiding their fate. </I><BR/><BR/>In the immortal words of James T. Kirk, "Sounds like fun!" :)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-38650014933429976842008-11-08T06:46:00.000-06:002008-11-08T06:46:00.000-06:00It is a convenient simplifying approximation to as...It is a convenient simplifying approximation to assume that mathematical reasoning is strictly about logic. But of course, the real-world context of mathematics (and logic too) much larger.<BR/><BR/>Especially in politics, but also in politics, business, romance, and gambling, mathematical logic is a too for constructing narratives. With these broad, narrative-driven venues, the assertion "a->b" reliably allows one to assume that "a" will play a role in the narrative.<BR/><BR/>In playwriting, this is know as Checkhov's Gun Principle: "A gun on the mantelpiece in Act 1 must be fired by Act 3".Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-81261139486641667912008-11-07T22:58:00.000-06:002008-11-07T22:58:00.000-06:00http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pragmaticshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PragmaticsAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-27180049700084407812008-11-07T20:07:00.000-06:002008-11-07T20:07:00.000-06:00should we discuss the over-generalization of the c...should we discuss the over-generalization of the commenter? they are proving a universal statement with a single instance<BR/><BR/>"...just taught me how coldblooed the americans can be..."<BR/><BR/>no, he just taught you how one person (you) can interpret the words of one American (gasarch) as being coldblooded<BR/><BR/>the commenter could be wrong about gasarch, and certainly can't generalize to the other 300+ million Americans<BR/><BR/>I read this as someone who is anti-America and anti-Americans looking to justify their feelings.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-45143937128028659012008-11-07T19:07:00.000-06:002008-11-07T19:07:00.000-06:00Like aranb said, English can give you much more in...Like aranb said, English can give you much more information than logic. Even when writing about math, as noted by Terry Tao<BR/><BR/>http://terrytao.wordpress.com/advice-on-writing-papers/take-advantage-of-the-english-language/Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10339754475280762514noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-32614671761275373082008-11-07T17:50:00.000-06:002008-11-07T17:50:00.000-06:00Please don't mix mathematical logic when you're di...Please don't mix mathematical logic when you're discussing your commenter's point, which is based on a murky English sentence.<BR/><BR/>You said something like:<BR/>"if [A (oh, and btw, AND B and C and D)] then maybe E".<BR/><BR/>Since we know E didn't happen, and your primary comment was your lamenting Not(A), together with the fact that Not(B) and Not(C) are so obviously true, it stands to SIMPLE HUMAN REASONING, without any knowledge about your biases and prejudices, that you believe Not(D) as well.<BR/><BR/>No math here, no mathematical logic here, just making a standard social inference. Your comment wouldn't have passed any test of mathematical rigor, any way, and you almost certainly didn't intend to give it a mathematical rigor that you now seem to claim you did.<BR/><BR/>The commenter correctly called your bluff, and you're now hiding behind obscurities.<BR/><BR/>By the way, I fully grant that even if you think that we (the U.S.) "aren't more clearly winning the war", it does not mean you *wish* we were more clearly winning the war. Making that mis-inference would be bad, and is quite common.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-70939564529786821192008-11-07T14:07:00.000-06:002008-11-07T14:07:00.000-06:00I find the diversity of posts refreshing.I find the diversity of posts refreshing.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-74188636837048255312008-11-07T13:36:00.000-06:002008-11-07T13:36:00.000-06:00Gasarch and Lance have quite different posts in te...Gasarch and Lance have quite different posts in terms of content. Why not split the blog?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-83612659748008225862008-11-07T13:26:00.000-06:002008-11-07T13:26:00.000-06:00I agree with arnab. You can almost always infer so...I agree with arnab. You can almost always infer something about someone's opinion of what they're saying by their choice of words and phrasing and other contextual clues (e.g. if that person is Keith Olbermann, as you say). Even if they go out of their way to phrase something neutrally, you then gain the non-trivial information that they felt that this statement was something that should be made with neutral language, at least to their current audience.<BR/><BR/>The real response to the commenter isn't that their conclusion isn't supported by formal logic, it's that it isn't supported by your actual language or context. There are cues that can be pointed to as evidence, but ultimately it will always be subjective since there are countless connotations in everyday language that will be interpreted very differently depending on the hearer. So we just have to settle for the heuristic argument of "people who agree with anonymous's politics still disagree with their interpretation of Gasarch's post", which is something I suspect is empirically true in a great number of cases.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-55929758860200543232008-11-07T13:10:00.000-06:002008-11-07T13:10:00.000-06:00English semantics is not logic.English semantics is not logic.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16095579069590680426noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-58055955506776931662008-11-07T13:04:00.000-06:002008-11-07T13:04:00.000-06:00If people view A as offensive, then A => B may ...If people view A as offensive, then A => B may be offensive also.<BR/><BR/>Example: If group X is generally bad at Y, then doing Z would not help much.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com