While I think it's usefull to subjectively agree what a "statement" is...I
don't think that changing the interpretation of "statements are either
falsifiable, axiomatic or tautological" falsifies my intent: Which is that
*everything* is either falsifiable, axiomatic or tautological. Obviously,
if something is senseless it is falsifiable. I already addressed
exclamations, questions, and commands...I won't go there again, not easily
(no matter what Eva calls them).
Brett
At 12:19 AM 9/30/97 -0400, you wrote:
>Eva wrote:
>>Looks like we're in need of some clarification about what is and is not a
>>statement. Questions, commands, and interjections (such as "Great
>>Scott!") are not statements; that's why we have other terms for them.
>>There are nonsense strings which are not statements (such as both the
>>examples quoted above, one of which uses English words but not in a
>>coherent fashion), and there are also nonsense statements, utterances
>>which are grammatical but fail to make any sense and are thus
>>non-falsifiable (such as Noam Chomsky's classic example "Colorless green
>>ideas sleep furiously").
>What is Chomsky's statement called? It doesn't seem like it's falsifiable,
>axiomatic or tautological. (That would falsify Brett's statement that
>"statements are either falsifiable, axiomatic or tautological".).
>> And there are statements which do hold meaning,
>>yet are non-falsifiable, such as "That's a really good movie"; statements
>>of opinion are dependent on internal standards, and thus can't be
>>coherently argued with without establishing some common bases for
>>judgement ("But you said the star sucked!").
>What do you call an ambiguous statement like that? It too, does not seem
>to fall into any of the 3 categories mentioned.
>Is the statement, "Tautologies are useless but falsifiable statements are
>useful" tautological or falsifiable?
>--David R.
Returning,
rBERTS%n
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Real Programmers don't write in PL/I. PL/I is for
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