False Beats / Loose pins

[Ric Brekne]

Grin... back to logic 101 I see.

The example you site is of the sort  <<If A then B>> and you are testing 
whether A is present by assessing whether B  IS present. (the opposite 
of the previous example where one can discount A if B is NOT present).  
The problem here is that many things can cause B. However... if B isnt 
present... then neither are any of the causes... whatever they are. And 
that doenst even get into the <<what if>> B is present and A is 
confirmed (by other means) to be not present... which is often enough 
the case in our loose pins / false beats problem.

What you CAN say is that in the absence of B, whatever causuals that are 
attributed to B have not occured. What you can NOT say is that avoiding 
any given known cause will preclude B.

Pick up one of those Logic 101 books at the local University bookstore. 
They are typically 100 pages long or so... very easy reading.  Fun stuff 
really.

Cheers
RicB


Richard:

So I was told that eating ice cream will make me fat.  Does this mean
that if I avoid all ice cream that I'll stay slim?

dp

David M. Porritt
dporritt at smu.edu