How to refute "a thing can be true and false at the same time"?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Ben_Sinner
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
Tomdstone said:
It is a legal issue. According to the law of NY, it is true, but according to the law of Saudi Arabia it is false.
Click to expand...
If we are talking about two different things, then the question in the OP is moot. A marriage in one jurisdiction is not classed as such in the other.

To use another example, a virus cannot be both alive and not alive. It simply depends on your definition of life.
 
Tomdstone said:
A surface plasmon polariton does act like a wave and does not act like a wave at the same time (simultaneously). Here is the proof:
nature.com/ncomms/2015/150302/ncomms7407/full/ncomms7407.html
Click to expand...
Te article is interesting; however…, did you read somewhere that the experimenters observed and did not observe a wave like behavior, or that they observed and did not observe a particle like behavior? I did not. If you can tell me where does it say so, I will appreciate it.
 
JuanFlorencio said:
Te article is interesting; however…, did you read somewhere that the experimenters observed and did not observe a wave like behavior, or that they observed and did not observe a particle like behavior? I did not. If you can tell me where does it say so, I will appreciate it.
Click to expand...
The abstract says:" In analogy to photons, they exhibit wave–particle duality."
The title says Simultaneous observation of the quantization and the interference pattern of a plasmonic near-field.
Quantization means particle behavior.
Interference pattern means wave like behavior.
The article gives the details of the experiment and how they reached that conclusion.
 
Tomdstone said:
The abstract says:" In analogy to photons, they exhibit wave–particle duality."
The title says Simultaneous observation of the quantization and the interference pattern of a plasmonic near-field.
Quantization means particle behavior.
Interference pattern means wave like behavior.
The article gives the details of the experiment and how they reached that conclusion.
Click to expand...
Yes, it certainly says so, and it repeats the same thing in the body of the article: so, to the question “did the experimenters observe a wave like behavior?”, the answer is a categorical “Yes, they did”. And to the question “Did they observe a particle like behavior?”, the answer is again a categorical “Yes, they did”. No contradiction at all.

Do you know the platypus? That mammal which lays eggs, looks like a duck, but has a tail similar to that of a beaver, and other peculiar features. Do you think its existence is a violation of the principle of non-contradiction? After all, it has features of a duck and features of a “non-duck”, for instance.
 
JuanFlorencio said:
Yes, it certainly says so, and it repeats the same thing in the body of the article: so, to the question “did the experimenters observe a wave like behavior?”, the answer is a categorical “Yes, they did”. And to the question “Did they observe a particle like behavior?”, the answer is again a categorical “Yes, they did”. No contradiction at all.

Do you know the platypus? That mammal which lays eggs, looks like a duck, but has a tail similar to that of a beaver, and other peculiar features. Do you think its existence is a violation of the principle of non-contradiction? After all, it has features of a duck and features of a “non-duck”, for instance.
Click to expand...
Take the statement:
A platypus is a duck.
Is that statement true, false or both at the same time?
 
JuanFlorencio said:
It is false.
Click to expand...
That is why your analogy with photons fails. .In March 1905 , Einstein discovered the quantum theory of light, the idea that light exists as particles, which he called photons. So it is true that a photon is a particle. But because of double slit interference patterns, it is also true that it is not a particle.
 
Tomdstone said:
That is why your analogy with photons fails. .In March 1905 , Einstein discovered the quantum theory of light, the idea that light exists as particles, which he called photons. So it is true that a photon is a particle. But because of double slit interference patterns, it is also true that it is not a particle.
Click to expand...
Let’s suppose that someone defined what a wave is. Then, it is found through an experiment that light’s behavior matches the definition. So, though there are certain differences between them, it can be said, for example, that sound and light are waves.

Let’s suppose now that Einstein or someone else defined what a particle is. Then, Einstein determines that light’s behavior matches the definition. So, it makes sense to say that light is made up of particles.

Combining both findings it could be said that at least some things made up of particles behave like waves.

Then, later, electrons -which were originally conceived as particles- are found to behave under certain conditions as waves.

Then, the idea is extended and it is presumed that all corporeal things behave like waves. So, the original distinction between particles and waves is modified: it does not refer to different things, but to different aspects of things. If we preserve the notions and, therefore, the distinction between “particle” and “wave” we could say that one aspect is not the other, though both are aspects of the same thing. Actually, the means to make the different aspects of the thing apparent are different, as it should be. They are different interaction modes, and one interaction mode does not exclude the other. In the same manner, saying that a corporeal thing has both modes of interaction is not a contradiction. Therefore, saying that a photon is a wave (its behavior matches the definition of a wave) does not mean that it is not a particle (because its behavior also matches the definition of a particle).
 
Take what I am saying:—: I am lying.
If it is false, then what I am saying is true.
If it is true, then what I am saying is false.
 
Tomdstone said:
Take what I am saying:—: I am lying.
If it is false, then what I am saying is true.
If it is true, then what I am saying is false.
Click to expand...
Because you elect not to define “what” only you can judge which statement reflects reality. But still, only one or the other is true, not both. Reality is still singular.
 
Peter_J said:
Then it is not true, nor is it false.
Click to expand...
In binary logic, if it is not true, then it is false. If it is not false, then it is true. So if it is not true, nor is it false, then it is both true and false.
 
Tomdstone said:
Take what I am saying:—: I am lying.
If it is false, then what I am saying is true.
If it is true, then what I am saying is false.
Click to expand...
The statement is simply recursive. Since it renders itself false by being true, and true by being false, it has no meaning whatsoever and is neither true nor false.

If one were to rephrase it as “This statement is false”, it is easy to see that since the statement makes no claims outside of its own trueness or falseness, there is no useful information to be obtained and thus the sentence itself is useless.

If, on the other hand, one were to say: “I have two carrots in my hand and this statement is false”, one can conclude that the statement is, indeed, false, because it only requires ONE side of the AND statement to be false in order for the statement as a whole to be false.

Proof:

If the statement is true:
Then the person does have two carrots, and the statement “this statement is false” is true, which means that the statement cannot be true, resulting in a contradiction.
Therefore this statement as a whole cannot be true, because of the contradiction.

If the statement is false:
Then the person does not have two carrots, and the statement “this statement is false” is true, because the first half of the expression (“I have two carrots in my hand”) is false, resulting in no contradiction.
Therefore the statement as a whole is false.

So, you see, sense can be made of it once actual information enters the picture.
 
Tomdstone said:
In binary logic, if it is not true, then it is false. If it is not false, then it is true. So if it is not true, nor is it false, then it is both true and false.
Click to expand...
I disagree. Something that is neither true nor false is null/undefined/unknown, NOT true and false at the same time.

If it were true and false at the same time, that would contradict both previous statements that 1) it is not true and 2) it is not false.
 
Tomdstone said:
If you look up binary logic or boolean logic you will find that ~(~x) = x.
Click to expand...
~(~x) = x is the same as saying that “Not false = true” which is true, but has no bearing on the problem at hand. We’re dealing with the question of how to define something which is neither true nor false.

In any case, I don’t believe binary logic is the proper tool to use in this situation, especially since it results in a contradiction.

I mean, you could apply it, but it certainly doesn’t result in a satisfactory conclusion, and there are cleaner ways to skin the cat.

See this Wikipedia article: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liar_paradox
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top