Talk:Non sequitur
10/10 ten points for unpredictability on the example, Barbara ;). --מְתֻרְגְּמָן שְׁלֹום
- I concur. Can we add some examples from another, any other, topic, at least? By the way, what happened to the peaches? They were tasty... human
16:10, 24 February 2008 (EST)
Ai think Ai dun gud :) Plez chek mai werk. human
19:14, 24 February 2008 (EST)
[edit] Christian non sequiturs
Just for a brief explanation of why the 'Christian non sequiturs' of Barbara's aren't proper N.S.s. Essentially, they're presenting the same syllogism, this one:
- P1: [Jesus/The Bible] says that [statement X].
- P2: Everything that [Jesus/the Bible] says is true.
- C: Therefore, [statement X] is true.
Internally speaking, this is a perfectly sound syllogism, since the conclusion follows entirely from the premises. It is highly doubtful that the second premise - and therefore the conclusion as well - is true, but that does not make this a non sequitur. --AKjeldsenGodspeed! 05:21, 25 February 2008 (EST)
- That is more of a begging the question then a non-sequitur.--
-PalMD --Trust me; I'm a doctor 08:22, 25 February 2008 (EST)
Hey Doc, I moved the one you put in place of Turing's. Can we possibly find one that people really do use, one day? "Real" examples are so much cooler (after the absurd ones, of course, that make it obvious what a non sequitur is). human
14:15, 25 February 2008 (EST)
- That shouldn't be too difficult. Let's have a look at CP... --AKjeldsenGodspeed! 14:43, 25 February 2008 (EST)
- Haha, nice work! human
15:35, 25 February 2008 (EST)
- Haha, nice work! human
[edit] Men and machines
I'm concerned about this example. Specifically
- P1) If each man had a definite set of rules of conduct by which he regulated his life he would be no better than a machine.
- Objection 1)...says nothing about whether or not men can be machines, but whether they would be better than machines.
- However, if we take "machine" to mean something that merely obeys rules in an input-output fashion, this makes more sense. The use of "better than" is an issue here because one can reword it in slightly less abstract terms to see that the point is about whether a human has greater capabilities beyond the input-output relationship.
- Objection 2) it ignores the possibility that men could be machines without such definite rules.
- Again, depends on how this set of premises define "machine". If it's restricted to input-output then following definitive rules is a key property of "machine", therefore the concept of a "machine" without such definite rules is nonsensical. Such a possibility fails the membership test for "machine", so the conclusion from the premises still follow.
In short, I'm not convinced by this example as a non-sequitur. The conclusion follows the premises, only by demonstrating that P2 is not true would the conclusion be shown to be false. Secondly, the definition of "machine" in the conclusion is dependent upon the definition of "machine" in P1. It is only a non-sequitur if these are semantically mismatched (a common trait of very subtle non-sequiturs and logical failures).
gnostic
01:48, 4 October 2012 (UTC)