Monday, July 11, 2005

P & ~P; therefore Q

My first paper is underway! I just handed in my rough draft today, as a matter of fact, and it will be returned to me hopefully tomorrow with what criticisms I will need in order to rework and rewrite it. I hope the process goes well. My paper is on Peace, Reconciliation and Thich Nhat Hahn and the Dalai Lama. It came out decently.

I also got back my first test, and I was happy to see that I got an A- on my first test. (A friend suggested it was probably because he's grading on a curve; either way, 32/38 becoming an A- is awesome.) There was one killer which I think got me because it had a contradictory premisis and a seemingly unrelated conclusion. It was:

P & ~P

therefore

Q

The P & ~P is the contradictory part. In case you're interested, it goes:

P & ~P
P
P v Q
~P

therefore

Q

Another friend actually did get the question right, and the professor confirmed this. I actually remember when I was in class taking the test and the professor (he's actually a PhD) mentioned that that problem wasn't a misprint. Well, I think I'm just about done for today. I know the post is probably a bit shorter than usual. For what it's worth, I still have to do my bass practice later.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

congratulations on the A. i of course do not get the problem, but then I don't have to, do i?

Anonymous said...

Formal logic is, well, so formal.