Re: ?? Functional Dependency Question ??

Apologies for double click posting.

On Oct 23, 2:23 am, David BL <davi..._at_iinet.net.au> wrote:
> On Oct 22, 7:20 pm, JOG <j..._at_cs.nott.ac.uk> wrote:

> > Ax [ inRoom(x) ^ isHippo(x) ^ Wearing(x, pink panties) ] = false
>
> Is this actually the case? There doesn't appear to be any defined set
> over which the universal quantification is defined, so I think the
> left hand side is meaningless not false.
>

While you're right, could you not read that first statement as: Ax [Exists(x) -> inRoom(x) ^ isHippo(x) ^ Wearing(x, pink panties) ]

How do you like them apples! Either way, false or meaningless, its clearly not what the lecturer was saying so the second statement was the banker:
Ax [inRoom(x) ^ isHippo(x) -> Wearing(x, pink panties) ]

which is true (material implication is always true if the antecedent is false). Hence, as far as formal logic is concerned all the hippos in the room are indeed wearing pink panties. And blue panties too in fact. And no panties as well...

> I think a meaningful universal quantification must be able to be
> written in the form
>
> Ax [ P(x) -> Q(x) ]
>
> where { x | P(x) } is a well defined set.
>
> We can write
>
> Ax [ inRoom(x) ^ isHippo(x) ^ Wearing(x, pink panties) ]
>
> as
>
> Ax [ true -> inRoom(x) ^ isHippo(x) ^ Wearing(x, pink panties) ]
>
> So it seems that we must define P(x) = true, but then { x | P(x) } is
> the set of all things which is meaningless.

Why is the "set of all things" meaningless? Received on Mon Oct 27 2008 - 01:36:36 CET