Text 40902, 77 rader
Skriven 2006-10-07 13:59:00 av Michiel van der Vlist (2:280/5555)
  Kommentar till text 40822 av mark lewis (1:3634/12.0)
Ärende: pi
==========
Hello mark!

On Thursday October 05 2006 21:25, you wrote to me:

 MvdV>> Suppose I had not made the typo and written:

 >> It does not matter if I agree or not any more than if I
 >> agree that it would be better if pi would be equal to 3.0
 >> instead of 3.14159.. It just isnt so.

 MvdV>> Had I written that, would I have stated that pi equals 3.14159?
 MvdV>> I say no.

 ml> actually, to most english speakers, yes, that is what you'd have
 ml> said...

Had I written it in Dutch, most Dutch speakers would have read it the same way
I think. Most people - no matter what their native language - are poor on
formal logic and have trouble properly interpreting sentences containing an
"if".

How about this one:

"If two plus two equals five then the moon is made of green cheese".

Would you say that this is a true statement? Maybe you would, but most people
would say it is not. Everyone knows the moon is not made of green cheese don't
they? Formal logic however says that when the "if" is not satisfied, you can
put anything after the "then" - true or false - and the statement as a whole
will always be true.

 ml>  to take it the other way as you are saying above, is to really
 ml> be playing with the words and in effect "setting a trap"...

Only someone out to "get me" would make an issue out of a simple typo. It could
have been construed as a trap had the typo been intentional. It was not, so
whoever was trapped got trapped by his own doing.

 MvdV>> Just as in the first variant I would merely have claimed
 MvdV>> that my agreement did not matter any more than my agreement to
 MvdV>> a preferred value of pi of 3.0. The value of pi isn't subject
 MvdV>> my preference.

 ml> then why didn't you just state that as plainly as you did just now?

Because at the time it seemed like a good idea to state it the way I did. I did
not account for making a typo. In hindsight the latter way would indeed have
been more clear. Well hindsight is always 20/20 and this is a hobby. When I
have to weigh every word on a gold scale as if if were a legal document the fun
will quickly wear of.

 ml> it would have been a whole lot simpler and we'd not have had all the
 ml> arguments going back and forth as they have been... is it just a
 ml> method of generating traffic so that the echo looks "alive"?? LOL!

Even better would have been to simply stop writing all together and just
disconnect this echo.

 ml>> another and refuses to admit that truth... michiel, just admit
 ml>> the truth...

 MvdV>> What truth? That I made a typo? Of course I made a typo. Anyone
 MvdV>> could see that. Including the one who twisted my statement into
 MvdV>> me claiming pi equals 3.12145.

 ml> "the one who"... hunh? it wasn't just one... there are quite a few
 ml> native english speakers who read it that way...

Well, they were wrong but it would have been no issue if those focussed on
finding me at fault would not have made an issue out of it. And that includes
you sir.


Cheers, Michiel

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