Return-Path: Message-Id: <9110172104.AA12789@relay1.UU.NET> Date: Thu Oct 17 18:07:29 1991 Reply-To: Raymundo Morado Sender: Lojban list From: Raymundo Morado Subject: Consequentia Mirabilis To: John Cowan , Eric Raymond , Eric Tiedemann Status: RO X-From-Space-Date: Thu Oct 17 18:07:29 1991 X-From-Space-Address: cbmvax!uunet!CUVMA.BITNET!LOJBAN Chris Dollin writes: >"Not to decide is to decide". [...] >It may not have all the connotations of the original, but how about treating >it as ``There are no events-of-not-deciding''? [...] >The context in which the proverb might be used (when a decision is being >avoided for whatever reason) seems to make both the original form, and my >revised one, equally appropriate, although not equivalent (in any logical >sense). Very good observation, Chris. And there might even be a logical sense in which they ARE equivalent. I quote from A. N. Prior: From the law of excluded middle it follows that whatever is implied by its own denial (that is, what we are compelled to affirm even when we try to deny it) is true. (The later Schoolmen called this the _consequentia mirabilis_. (The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, V p. 461) In logical pseudo-code, (x) { [~Is_an_event_of_deciding(x) -> Is_an_event_of_deciding(x)] = Is_an_event_of_deciding(x) } which is an amusing exercise for introductory logic courses.