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Kettle Logic

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Re: Kettle Logic

#61

Post by ambrozk »

danuker wrote: post #54
ambrozk wrote: post #5

There is a joke I love that illustrates the concept: "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, my client was nowhere near the scene of the murder, he didn't mean to pull the trigger, and that son-of-a-bitch had it coming!"

These three can in fact be all true at once, so the arguments are consistent, unlike kettle logic. "Didn't mean to pull the trigger" does not imply the defendant could pull the trigger.

The three incompatible scenarios are:

  1. The accused was nowhere near the scene of the murder
  2. The accused was at the scene of the murder, and in fact committed the murder, but on accident
  3. The accused committed the murder on purpose, because the victim had it coming.

Re: Kettle Logic

#62

Post by bjourne »

CrazyStat wrote: post #50
ambrozk wrote: post #5

There is a joke I love that illustrates the concept: "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, my client was nowhere near the scene of the murder, he didn't mean to pull the trigger, and that son-of-a-bitch had it coming!"

There's an old Russian joke about it as well, roughly "That was a long time ago and didn't happen anyway."

And the corollary: "Even if it didn't happen, it's still horrible!"

Re: Kettle Logic

#63

Post by rcoveson »

CapmCrackaWaka wrote: post #57
jrootabega wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I saw that on wikipedia, but I disagree. I think the way that he says each part of his statement implies that the previous part is wrong. So the parts are inconsistent with each other from his comedic perspective: - I didn't do it. - (I did it, but) nobody saw me do it. - (You saw me do it, but) you can't prove anything. The statements alone, not considering the perspective of the speaker in parentheses, don't strict…

"Nobody saw me do it" and "I didn't do it" aren't mutually exclusive. In fact, if I don't do something, then by definition nobody saw me do it.

Alice: "Nobody saw me swimming in the pool last night"

Bob: "Oh, how was it?"

Alice: "How was what?"

Bob: "Your late-night swim?"

Alice: "I haven't been swimming in ages."

Bob: "..."

Re: Kettle Logic

#64

Post by throwawaycities »

ambrozk wrote: post #5

There is a joke I love that illustrates the concept: "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, my client was nowhere near the scene of the murder, he didn't mean to pull the trigger, and that son-of-a-bitch had it coming!"

These kinds of jokes are often used to make mock lawyers and even the legal profession.

But under US criminal the defense doesn’t have to do anything, the entire burden is on the government to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that: 1) a criminal act happened, 2) the defendant committed the act and 3) defendant had intent to commit the crime.

Naturally opening/closing arguments actually sound very much like your joke…the government can’t prove a crime happened; if they can they can’t prove my client committed the act; and if they can they can’t prove my client intended to commit the act.

It sounds funny, but logically it makes a lot of sense to say things like we don’t need to a get to the question of if the defendant committed the crime because the government can’t prove beyond a reasonable doubt a crime was committed (e.g. no body in a murder case).

Re: Kettle Logic

#65

Post by sjmm1989 »

nwatson wrote: post #22
a_shovel wrote: post #13

It seems that this is a sort of "dual" to what's called "Argument in the alternative" [1], which I've seen confused for kettle logic more often than I've seen kettle logic used itself. It's a subtle distinction. Argument in the alternative considers multiple different possibilities as hypotheticals in order to rule them all out, but isn't that kind of what kettle logic does as well? Can a kettle logic argument be eas…

I think the difference is that in Kettle Logic the presenter knows the truth, and the truth doesn't match any of the inconsistent affirmatives ... or else it mostly matches one of them but the presenter believes it's easier for the audience to swallow one of the other, false, alternatives.

Perhaps, but this also implies that the presenter isn't just full of shit (or biased!). Sad fact is, people have attached truth to subjectivity in society as of late, and so one persons truth may not be another's even though both are wrong. Or right. Or a mix of both.

A good example of this is those rarer occasions when someone is accused of rape that never happened; and social media gets wind of it. To everyone who hears of it, mostly at least; the accuser is the honest one. And in some rare occasions, we find out they were not.

I know this specific examples happens, because it was how my mother was born.

Re: Kettle Logic

#66

Post by Shared404 »

rcoveson wrote: post #63
CapmCrackaWaka wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Nobody saw me do it" and "I didn't do it" aren't mutually exclusive. In fact, if I don't do something, then by definition nobody saw me do it.

Alice: "Nobody saw me swimming in the pool last night" Bob: "Oh, how was it?" Alice: "How was what?" Bob: "Your late-night swim?" Alice: "I haven't been swimming in ages." Bob: "..."

Eve: "Ugh those two are idiots."

Re: Kettle Logic

#67

Post by yongjik »

Victerius wrote: post #34
ambrozk wrote: post #5

There is a joke I love that illustrates the concept: "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, my client was nowhere near the scene of the murder, he didn't mean to pull the trigger, and that son-of-a-bitch had it coming!"

What would that be in programmer speak? The intern had no write access to the production database, he didn't mean to do the commit, and our network engineers had it coming?

The line must be useful for something; you can't prove it actually does anything; who cares, you can always just restart the server!

(...when presented with a line in the script that randomly hangs the server.)

Re: Kettle Logic

#68

Post by ffhhj »

ambrozk wrote: post #5

There is a joke I love that illustrates the concept: "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, my client was nowhere near the scene of the murder, he didn't mean to pull the trigger, and that son-of-a-bitch had it coming!"

Shouldn't kettle logic be considered a paradox of Logic? Those options are mutually exclusive only if there are no hidden variables. We could make them theories and assign probabilities:

There is X probability the client was nowhere near the scene of the murder, and Y probability he didn't mean to pull the trigger

That way these are not exclusive and the contradiction disappears. Now suppose the client is convicted because X is too high, years later a hidden variable is revealed that reduces the probability to zero. He is released from jail, but another hidden variable appears that increases Y to 100%.

There should also be a probability for unknown unknowns, when a fair coin falls sideways.

Re: Kettle Logic

#69

Post by SomeCallMeTim »

blastro wrote: post #37

Similar to the narcissist's prayer: That didn't happen. And if it did, it wasn't that bad. And if it was, that's not a big deal. And if it is, that's not my fault. And if it was, I didn't mean it. And if I did, you deserved it.

Which seems entirely too familiar for some reason...something that came up a lot for four years but then stopped about two years ago?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Re: Kettle Logic

#70

Post by aidenn0 »

prvc wrote: post #2

Is such a battery of arguments permissible in legal contexts, e.g. in a criminal defense?

My dad ran into something similar while on a Jury. It was for indecent exposure

Both sides agreed that the man was in the car with his pants down (defense claimed defendant was looking for a tick on his leg). The defense argued that with the window tinting on the car window, it was not possible to see into the car.

My dad's takeaway from this was that one of these must be true:

1. Someone coincidentally accused someone of having their pants down without being able to see them, and happened to be right

2. The window was rolled down

3. The defense is presenting false evidence

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