Sinister: don't hit me plaese. tautologies are mean

[kmhyde at xxx.edu]

> > Here's another oxymoron that might be more 
interesting:
> >
> > "I am a lazy gett, she is as pure as the cold 
driven snow"
> >
> >but it depends on an interpretation of 'driven' as 
driven through, or
> >maybe driven away, as an outcast?  This is iffy and 
probably has to do
> >with my original mishearing of 'cold' as 'coal', 
i.e. perfect snow that
> >has been blackened by human traffic.  A point in my 
favor: snow is suc> h a
> >cliched image for purity, he must have meant to use 
it in a new way.
> >Otherwise, what does 'driven' have to do with 
purity, unless it's purity
> >of the repressed or frigid sort, not innocence.
>
> I don't see what you mean here, Youn.  Isn't 'cold 
driven snow' just a st> ock
> phrase? It might sound odd, but I'm pretty sure lots 
of people use it.  I> t's
> kind of poetic, as cliches go.  I always assumed it 
meant 'driven' in the>  sense
> of a blizzard that 'drives' down hard.  But I have to 
say I was never qui> te
> sure.

yeah, that's what it means- blizzard of snow that's 
fiercely packed down. it sounded like an old phrase, so 
i called my eighty year old grandfather, and he assured 
me that it's an old phrase, and it means like, when the 
snow is all in drifts and such because there's so much.

yikes, that was an awkward call. "yeah, grandpa...no, 
nobody i know in real life...yes, on the computer...no 
I still like girls."



>
> >But aren't tautologies supposed to be literally 
tautological?  Then it> 's
> >contingent on either interpretation of 'or'.  But 
this isn't taking
> >into account the meaning of 'could'.  It's a 
tautology with a wide sco> pe
> >reading for the modal, which is justified 
because 'either' follows it,
> >unless you don't believe it's possible for anyone to 
be successful.  A> nd
> >say that we mean something is possible if it is at 
all possible.
>


Okay, we can settle this with a little symbolic logic. 
(that, by the way, is an ace thing to say in bed. try 
it, and watch the ladies' faces pop into a rictus of 
terror)
in logic, tautologies are true under every 
interpretation. that means it must be true no matter 
what *individual* truth values are assigned to the 
atomic sentences of 'you are us' and 'you are 
successful'. Stuart seems to be using this in 
the "exclusive" sense, in that he seems to be saying
"you could be successful, or be us, but you can't be 
successful AND be us." or in symbols- where U is (you 
could be us) and S is (you could be successful) 
SvU * (~[U*S]). So, when both S and U are assigned the 
truth value of "true", it comes out as false. so, it's 
not a tautology.

okay, for that all, I deserve to be hit, I know.

I would go into the modal logic and Wittgensteinian 
language games that would blow all this away, but that 
would require a special program, and even then, I would 
hate myself for posting it. to say nothing of all those 
people who are saying "what the...an asterisk?". i'm 
sorry.hopefully this ends the thread. if we're lucky..


keep watching the lyric sheets! (oxymoron- the reality 
of the dream- space boy dream)


kevin

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