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From: Willem <willem@toad.stack.nl>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc,comp.programming
Subject: Re: The Lisp Curse
Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2011 14:13:17 +0000 (UTC)
Organization: Stack Usenet News Service
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Xref: x330-a1.tempe.blueboxinc.net comp.lang.misc:402 comp.programming:676

Ben Bacarisse wrote:
) (a) I don't think the sky is blue.  I know that it is.
)
) (b) Keats: "Beauty is truth"
)     Carritt: "I don't think beauty is truth!"
)
) (c) I don't think all of this discussion is silly.
)
) Example (a) shows that we sometime want to put the emphasis on the
) thinking itself rather than on the "thinking not"
)
) (b) shows that we may want to keep the pattern "x is y" either for the
) rhetorical effect or simply to avoid a messy re-write.
)
) Finally, example (c) shows that some instantiations of x in "I don't
) think x is y" make "I think x is not y" quite a different statement.

Example (c) is a bit contrived, as the obvious way of putting it
pedantically is:

(c) I think not all of this discussion is silly.

Which is obviously because it wasn't "I don't think x is y" as is.


However, to put it more simply, "I don't think (proposition)" is a
qolloquially valid form of "I have doubts on (proposition)", even though
purely logically it means something different.  Language is not logic.

Note that it is *not* the same as "I think (not proposition)".
Claiming that it is, is the logical fallacy of the excluded middle.


SaSW, Willem
-- 
Disclaimer: I am in no way responsible for any of the statements
            made in the above text. For all I know I might be
            drugged or something..
            No I'm not paranoid. You all think I'm paranoid, don't you !
#EOT