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

[Youn J. Noh]

On Tue, 15 Aug 2000 kmhyde at wm.edu wrote:

> 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."

Thanks, Kevin.  A grandfather's opinion is very important, and you were
very brave to risk it. Both of you were right, of course.  Here are a
few hits from google:

"Pure as the Driven Snow A Working Girl's Secret by Paul Loomis"

"...Nuclear Sewage Water Pure as Driven Snow A New Technology Makes..."

"Pure as the driven snow...yeah, sure."

"Pure as the driven snow: study dispels myth about street heroin" 

Yeah, they were chosen selectively.  But am I the only one who thinks the
expression is used ambiguously in the song?

> 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.

Exclusive and inclusive readings apply to 'or', not to the definition of a
tautology.  I agree that it seems that the exclusive reading is meant, but
I think that is evident, without taking speaker intentions into account,
from the use of either/or.  A contingent statement is neither a tautology
nor a contradiction, so we're basically saying the same thing.
 
> I would go into the modal logic 

All I meant is that if you believe that it is possible for anyone to be
successful, then the statement "you could be successful" is a tautology.
There is no need to work this out in propositional logic because it is
intuitively obvious. 
(What I said in my previous email implied that the scope of 'could'
relative to 'or' matters, but it doesn't because the following statements
are true in the same situations:  "it is possible for you to be successful
or it is possible for you to be us"; "it is possible for you either to be
successful or to be us".)

I'm not so sure anymore if tautologies depend on literal interpretations
though I can't think of any non-literal ones.  If not, then what Nick was
pointing out, why the statement might thought to be a tautology but isn't
one, has merit and at least greater audience appeal then the stuff above.
A common form for tautologies is p or not p, but natural language doesn't
follow the law of the excluded middle, i.e. you can be neither successful
nor unsuccessful - just middling.

I know that Kevin wanted the thread to end, but everyone wants to have the
last say.  And these things are exciting to me.

I decided to keep my Clientele cd.  I'll be able to hear it in a week.
Then I've got to find the one featuring a duet with Pam Berry.  Would
Steady (Mvi) * (~kve) happen to know if it's going to be on the upcoming
album?  (This question will never get answered down here.)

Yours,
Youn


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