In Polish we have this short and sweet phrase "dawno i nieprawda" - "a long time ago and not true". In my experience, obligatorily uttered when a friend is sharing an embarassing story about you.
Kettle Logic
71–80 of 85 posts
Re: Kettle Logic
#72It’s interesting that one implicitly assumes that there’s an AND between the arguments. Assuming an OR would remove the apparent inconsistency. :)
Re: Kettle Logic
#73There 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!"
it is actually illustrates QM superposition. Also reminds a situation when you're troubleshooting some complicated issue while not having yet enough information - you kind of running several, frequently mutually incompatible, scenarios in your head at the same time.
Re: Kettle Logic
#74There 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!"
The funny thing is, if you spend too much time arguing with anonymous people on the Internet, you will routinely run into arguments that are both invalid and have false premises.
Re: Kettle Logic
#75It 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…
The difference is that the kettle argument is simultaneous making multiple claims which are mutually inconsistent, and thus a kettle argument is by definition invalid. Even if it's true that any one of the kettle subarguments being true would achieve the desired goal of the overall argument (e.g. exonerating the accused person), the fact that all subarguments are being claimed simultaneously means that at the bare minimum we know the person is lying.
Of course, the "argument in the alternative" is only different by a slight technicality: you just put an "and even if I were lying in the previous step, ..." between each subargument.
Re: Kettle Logic
#76Earlier 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.
In my opinion it's clear that the implied interpretation of "Nobody saw me do it" is "When I did it, there was no one there to see it."
Re: Kettle Logic
#77It's fitting that Freud's the one to describe this (and unironically tout its benefit? I can't tell.) as there's plenty of his own work that can be suchly described.
Re: Kettle Logic
#78Similar 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.
Thanks, I hate it. This is just a quick reminder to everyone to check yourself and make sure you aren't falling into the trap of thinking like this, I know it happens to me occasionally. And there's very little I've seen that damages relationships[0] more. [0] All kinds, not just romantic.
Yes, a lot of us do this. My wife keeps telling me to read "mistake were made, but not by me", she says it's paradigm shifting, and helpful to allow you to spot this behaviour early.
Re: Kettle Logic
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I got the joke. But it is arguable whether the wording implies "the accused was at the scene of the murder" or "the accused committed the murder on purpose".
Re: Kettle Logic
#80My father-in-law argues against climate change with both "we can't trust natural/historical temperature records" and "the earth has seen far more significant climate change than we're experiencing now".