>The riddle: "When is a horse not a horse: When it's a horse of a
different
>color" is like "a horse is a horse", a tautology; but when the tautology
is
>resolved one is left with an implied statement, "a horse of a different
>color" is/is not the same as "a different colored horse". The original
>statement survives to replicate "When IS a horse not a horse?". The final
>statement is an axiom "A horse is not a horse when 'of a different color'
>refers to horse and not when it refers to color."
So, you're saying that jokes are axioms, since to get the jokes you
tentatively assume the point or final statement of the joke to be
self-evident.
Aren't axioms a subjective phenomenon in which the subject decides what
is self-evident? You don't have to take anything as an axiom since you can
try to falsify anything. The statement that statements are either
falsifiable or axiomatic or tautological may not have gotten refuted yet,
but that does not mean it can't be.
What can you deduce from your axiom that statements are falsifiable,
axiomatic or tautological?
--David R.