Re: Liar paradox, one more time

From: Paul Holbach (paulholbachSPAMBAN_at_freenet.de)
Date: 07/30/04 

Date: 30 Jul 2004 12:25:14 -0700

> "Poker Joker" <Poker@wi.rr.com> wrote in message news:<
> YkiOc.56407$vN3.20520@twister.rdc-kc.rr.com>...
> > "Paul Holbach" <paulholbachSPAMBAN@freenet.de> wrote in message
> > news:881c8779.0407291735.34ac845a@posting.google.com...

> > Would you mind revealing your definition of "semantically acceptable"?

> Let's just say that a sentence is semantically acceptable if its meaning
> is well understood; Almost everyone who would be expected to receive
> the message would gather the same meaning. With regards to the
> following sentence: "This sentence is not true." What meaning do you
> gather?

The meaning I gather is that the sentence "This sentence is not true"
says of itself that it is not true.

> Do you think it is the same meaning I gather?

I beg your pardon, but I happen to be incapable of scanning your mind
telepathically.

> > Gibberish looks like "3j6)=!GDk+*j"!

 
> Are you telling us it doesn't look like "3j6(=!GDk+*j"!
>
> If it does, then each of the following are also gibberish:
>
> Do cars wonder if three years know?

This sentence is both grammatically ill-formed and semantically*
incongruous.

(* refers to linguistic semantics)

> Never revolve his night.

This sentence is semantically incongruous, but not ungrammatical.

If you want, you may call these two sentences "gibberish", for they do
not make literal sense.

> This statement is not true or it is gibberish.

This sentence is both grammatical and semantically congruous.
There is nothing intrinsically wrong about self-referential
statements.
You wouldn´t object to eg "This is an English sentence", would you?!

> If this statement is not true then it isn't gibberish, otherwise it is
> gibberish.

This sentence is both grammatical and semantically congruous.

> This statement only looks like it isn't gibberish.

This sentence is both grammatical and semantically congruous.

And so is

"This sentence is false."

I´m afraid the contention that the Liar sentence is gibberish or
meaningless is indefensible!

Regards
PH

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Test of the "Intelligence Theory"
    ... Others claim that amino acids came together through ... meaning that because of inherant ... find your location on the keyboard, at random type letters. ... (that is, he wants to define "random" as "producing gibberish", so anyone who types something non-gibberish is not typing randomly, which proves random only produces gibberish. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Test of the "Intelligence Theory"
    ... fj - gibberish ... .fj is the domain for Fiji. ... Obviously this is useful information if, say, you want to get in touch with Vijay Singh. ... I expect that fu will also demonstrate some meaning, to those that know the appropriate languages. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • what does the Link count mean for directories
    ... After creating file and create hard link to ... I could not understand the meaning of the link ... Best regards, ... Asiye Yigit ...
    (SunManagers)
  • service sometimes-rpc11 in FC4
    ... run nmap for a fresh installed FC4 server reports ... What's the meaning of this? ... Best regards / Mit freundlichen Gruessen ... Joachim Backes ...
    (Fedora)
  • Re: stubborn Keylogger !
    ... I noticed that RxK was a very similar handle to RJK - but I didn't ... understand the meaning of his post either. ... :> regards, Richard ... :>> Hi Richard! ...
    (microsoft.public.security.virus)