Are these two statements logically equivalent?

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Mw99
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18 Jul 2008, 8:03 pm

Alright.



SIXLUCY
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18 Jul 2008, 8:07 pm

Enough enough already

Men :roll: 8O



NeantHumain
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18 Jul 2008, 9:46 pm

Mw99 wrote:
Consider the statements:

I think he is not an aspie.
I don't think he is an aspie.

Are those two statements logically equivalent?

In the first example, you are making a positive assertion (albeit hedging a little by prefacing it with, "I think"); in the second example, you are expressing doubt. Colloquially, "I don't think..." usually sounds better in either case, though.



coyote
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18 Jul 2008, 10:14 pm

Je crois qu'il n'est pas...

Je ne crois pas qu'il soit...

mmm... to me, in my native language, those two sound the same.



t0
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18 Jul 2008, 11:38 pm

Mw99 wrote:
Consider the statements:

I think he is not an aspie.
I don't think he is an aspie.

Are those two statements logically equivalent?



I believe most people in casual conversation would treat them the same. I don't know anyone that would speak in the way the first sentence is written. They feel different to me but I think it's due to emotions that I'm tying to "I think" vs "I don't think" that makes them non-opposites.



qaliqo
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19 Jul 2008, 12:23 am

How can the opposite of something be nothing? In temperature there really is no "cold," only steadily more and more absense of heat. If you are cold, it is simply because the heat is actually lower, not "opposite." Whatever is considered "cold" really isn't classified as "cold," but as having less heat.

This is a distinction between math and, umm, reality. One of the "funny" things about the universe is that while the math of physics requires negative numbers, negative numbers do not exist outside of electromagnetism. No negative gravity, and no negative energy or mass. The only thing other than things is nothing.

Image

We have an axis! Axiology (polarity) is a function of electromagnetism and the human mind. Dimensions are all relative to the mass and velocity of the observer.

Just to see if I am thinking correctly, (9) is the opposite of (-9), am I correct? Zero is not the opposite of 9, because, zero would be the opposite of ANY number, the opposite is the "reflection" but on the negative scale, is it not?

That is the additive inverse, which is a definition of opposite.

I think love and hate are opposites, not love and absence of love.

That is the antonym, which is also a definition of opposite.
To speak clearly: the antonym of love is hate, and the additive inverse of love is negative love.
Under no circumstances is not love the opposite of love.

You claim to be behind the curve, but you are totally right. 8)


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2ukenkerl
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19 Jul 2008, 12:50 am

SIXLUCY wrote:
Enough enough already

Men :roll: 8O


Gee, why so sexist?



Hodor
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19 Jul 2008, 5:40 pm

Mw99 wrote:
Consider the statements:

I think he is not an aspie.
I don't think he is an aspie.

Are those two statements logically equivalent?


This is going into fairly complicated semantics. At first glance, the two sentences look very similar, but they are definitely not semantically equivalent.

In the first sentence, the negative 'not' follows the verb 'is,' which gives the idea that you definitely think he is not an aspie. In the second sentence, the word 'not' modifies the verb 'do,' which makes it a negative verb. This automatically gives some doubt over whether you think he is an aspie or not.

This isn't really anything about opposites, it's more about where the word 'not' is placed in the sentence.

2ukenkerl wrote:
Or "I didn't do nothing.", which means I did something! I figure this must be a feeble attempt to emphasize, or from spanish. I don't think any other common language has the concept of a double negative Go figure...


Sorry to derail the thread, but other major languages do use double negatives. Greek, Hungarian, Hebrew, Russian, Serbian and Polish can all use multiple negatives in one sentence, and so does French with 'je ne mange rien' (literally: I don't eat nothing.) Even in English, the double negative used to be quite common in English, even in literature.


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Mw99
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19 Jul 2008, 5:51 pm

Quote:
Even in English, the double negative used to be quite common in English, even in literature.


"I didn't do nothing." :)



Hodor
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19 Jul 2008, 5:56 pm

Mw99 wrote:
Quote:
Even in English, the double negative used to be quite common in English, even in literature.


"I didn't do nothing." :)


Quite so. I should have said that the double negative is still alive and kicking. Ain't nobody gonna take no double negative away from us.

And I just realised I put 'in English' twice in one sentence...damn un-proofread, unedited post. :?


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ecky
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20 Jul 2008, 3:30 am

The only difference logically [although I agree with the first reply about degrees of doubt], is that one is an affirmative statement, while the other is negative.



NeantHumain
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20 Jul 2008, 1:25 pm

Hodor wrote:
Sorry to derail the thread, but other major languages do use double negatives. Greek, Hungarian, Hebrew, Russian, Serbian and Polish can all use multiple negatives in one sentence, and so does French with 'je ne mange rien' (literally: I don't eat nothing.) Even in English, the double negative used to be quite common in English, even in literature.

Sorry, but in contemporary French, ne is just a clitic with little semantic weight; the negation really rests with rien. Originally, ne carried the semantic meaning of negation, and words like pas, point, etc. were added for emphasis ("I don't have any cake," vs. "I don't have one crumb of cake"). Now that the negation rests with what were once emphatic particles, the ne is disappearing from informal speech as redundant.



NeantHumain
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20 Jul 2008, 1:28 pm

Hodor wrote:
Mw99 wrote:
Quote:
Even in English, the double negative used to be quite common in English, even in literature.


"I didn't do nothing." :)


Quite so. I should have said that the double negative is still alive and kicking. Ain't nobody gonna take no double negative away from us.

Yeah, but who says that? The double negative remains only in a few socioliguistically stigmatized dialects like Ebonics and blue-collar speech.



NeantHumain
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20 Jul 2008, 1:32 pm

Lumina wrote:
The opposite of love is apathy. Same principle can be applied to hate. Both love and hate are intense emotions. Whereas apathy is a lack of emotion.

If you are looking at an emotion's intensity, apathy would be the opposite of unbridled love. If you are looking at an emotion's polarity (the direction it impels a person to act), hate is the opposite. The old "Hate isn't the opposite of love," cliché is mainly given as advice to help people get over lost loves.

For example, the opposite of fear is approach/curiosity (obviously one can be curious about something while still being afraid of it, which is what makes emotions complicated! but then the same can also be said for love and hate).



lou1978
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20 Jul 2008, 1:51 pm

there not the same, end of!



Hodor
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20 Jul 2008, 5:21 pm

NeantHumain wrote:
Hodor wrote:
Sorry to derail the thread, but other major languages do use double negatives. Greek, Hungarian, Hebrew, Russian, Serbian and Polish can all use multiple negatives in one sentence, and so does French with 'je ne mange rien' (literally: I don't eat nothing.) Even in English, the double negative used to be quite common in English, even in literature.

Sorry, but in contemporary French, ne is just a clitic with little semantic weight; the negation really rests with rien. Originally, ne carried the semantic meaning of negation, and words like pas, point, etc. were added for emphasis ("I don't have any cake," vs. "I don't have one crumb of cake"). Now that the negation rests with what were once emphatic particles, the ne is disappearing from informal speech as redundant.


Okay, fair enough. I guess ne...pas and ne...rien aren't true double negatives. At least in Hungarian, though, double negatives are actually sometimes required (unfortunately I can't cite any examples because I don't know Hungarian.)

NeantHumain wrote:
Hodor wrote:
Mw99 wrote:
Quote:
Even in English, the double negative used to be quite common in English, even in literature.


"I didn't do nothing." :)


Quite so. I should have said that the double negative is still alive and kicking. Ain't nobody gonna take no double negative away from us.

Yeah, but who says that? The double negative remains only in a few socioliguistically stigmatized dialects like Ebonics and blue-collar speech.


Maybe the use of the double negative is more common in Britain than in other English-speaking countries. Many, many dialects in the UK still frequently use the double negative, including some well-known dialects, notably Cockney. Where I was brought up, in rural South Wales, it's also very common.

I have a suspicion that double negatives were only discouraged because Latin doesn't use them. The mindset of the 18th century grammarians was that Latin was among the highest and most ordered of the world's languages, so therefore other languages should follow their examples from Latin. This is why split infinitives and prepositions at the end of sentences were rewarded with a slap on the wrist.


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