The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #59418   Message #1215895
Posted By: Rapparee
28-Jun-04 - 08:39 PM
Thread Name: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
Subject: RE: BS: The Mother of all BS threads
If you think the answer is "no" then you must also think that the answer is "yes" because inherent within the statement "I think the answer is no" lies the statement "I think the answer is yes." This being the case, the answer can be neither yes nor no since we are dealing with a two-valued logic system ("either-or" if you will) which does not allow for any third value ("either this or this or this"). Within a two-valued system, then, both statements would have a null value. This, however, is the MOAB, and we must therefore allow for a third possibility within the two-valued system defined: call it Schroedinger's Cat. Hence even within the two-valued, yes-no system there exists a third possibility which we will, for want of a better term, call "neither". Because we can neither apprehend or understand the "neither" term, we must again call upon the philosophers of the natural world and postulate, along with Werner Heisenberg, uncertainty. The correct phrasing should therefore be, "I am uncertain about thinking that the answer is 'no,' but I am equally uncertain about thinking that the answer is 'yes'."

I hope that this clarifies Amos' answer to Little Hawk.