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moving finger
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Western logic is by convention "two-valued", ie any statement must be either true or false.
Consider the statement "The king of France is bald". Is this true or false?
France is a republic. There is no king of France at the present time.
Clearly therefore the statement "The king of France is bald" is not true.
But neither is the statement "The king of France is bald" false (this would imply the king of France is not bald, which is also incorrect).
Conventional logicians may resort to saying that the statement "The king of France is bald" is in fact meaningless.
But we can argue the statement (as an English language statement) is certainly NOT meaningless. The fact that there is no king of France at the present time does NOT make the statement "The king of France is bald" a meaningless statement.
What does that leave us with? Perhaps "The king of France is bald" is neither true nor false, but indeterminate. But this implies that 2-valued logic is inadequate - we need to resort to 3-valued logic to solve the question.
Comments?
MF
Consider the statement "The king of France is bald". Is this true or false?
France is a republic. There is no king of France at the present time.
Clearly therefore the statement "The king of France is bald" is not true.
But neither is the statement "The king of France is bald" false (this would imply the king of France is not bald, which is also incorrect).
Conventional logicians may resort to saying that the statement "The king of France is bald" is in fact meaningless.
But we can argue the statement (as an English language statement) is certainly NOT meaningless. The fact that there is no king of France at the present time does NOT make the statement "The king of France is bald" a meaningless statement.
What does that leave us with? Perhaps "The king of France is bald" is neither true nor false, but indeterminate. But this implies that 2-valued logic is inadequate - we need to resort to 3-valued logic to solve the question.
Comments?
MF